As part of its continuing effort to take advantage of the Internet as a tool for scholarly linkages between East and West (see related article on page 4), CEP recently began a pilot program designed to match faculty and students from Central and Eastern Europe and the NIS with American and West European faculty and graduate students with similar scholarly interests for research mentoring and collaboration. The impetus for the program came from comments by CEP's growing network of North American and West European scholars interested in CEP. Many of them were eager to participate in CEP's mission, even if their professional or other obligations prevented them from spending a full year in the region as a CEP lecturer.

The key to the program is CEP's extensive network of visiting faculty at universities throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the NIS. CEP lecturers, all of whom spend at least a year in the region, are in a unique position to identify the needs and interests of their local colleagues, and match those needs and interests with the specializations of interested Western scholars. Once matched, these scholars will be able to communicate cheaply and easily via email. Although email access in the region varies widely, early results appear positive and an expansion of the program is planned.

Western scholars interested in participating in the online mentor program should contact cep@minerva.cis.yale.edu. Automated information can also be obtained by sending an email message to the address info@cep.polisci.yale.edu. The message should have the words 'online mentoring' as the subject of the message.