Lou O'Neill

Lou O'Neill attended Stanford University at an extremely exciting time in East-West relations. Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms of glasnost' and perestroika were bringing the Cold War to an end, and Eastern Europe was deliriously throwing off the Soviet yoke. Enormous historical changes were afoot and Gorbachev even visited Stanford twice when Lou ONeill was there. This and other events in a changing world drove Lou O'Neill to concentrate on the study of Russian at Stanford and he ended up majoring in Slavic Languages and Literatures, earning a Bachelor of Arts Degree, with Distinction, in 1990.

From September 1990 until July 1991, Lou O'Neill studied at Moscow State University as a Fulbright Presidential Scholar. He was in the last group of scholars to receive this honor, as this program - which President Reagan and Soviet Premier Gorbachev had founded in Rekjavik in 1985 - was subsequently made part of the broader Fulbright array. It was a difficult year, during which three of the eight scholars in his group left early due to the hardships in the Soviet Union at that time. Lou O'Neill completed the scholarship in May and even stayed on until mid-July, leaving only a month before the failed coup attempt in Moscow of August 19-21, 1991.

Upon returning to the United States, Lou O'Neill continued his education at Stanford University, studying at the Center for Russian and East European Studies (CREES) in the 1991-1992 academic year on a Foreign Language Studies (FLAS) grant. Lou O'Neill graduated with a Master's Degree in June 1992.