Novosibirsk Office

Introduction
Teaching Development
Outreach Activities: National and Regional CEP Projects
CEP Fellows' Outreach Projects
Alumni Association
Universities Hosting CEP Fellows
Russia Links

Introduction

CEP Russia's accomplishments can be measured in many ways, but the most rewarding and fulfilling is the cycle of the CEP student who goes on to postgraduate studies at Central European University or a western university and returns to a Russian institution as a CEP Local Faculty Fellow. A large contingent of students has been prepared through interactive teaching methods, comparative theoretical approaches, the Socratic method in law, and participation in student conferences. In addition, equally large numbers of current CEP students now benefit from having as lecturers young professors who are former CEP students themselves. The preparation of these students is evidenced by strong attendance and active participation at international conferences, roundtable workshops and moot court competitions, and by the number of "Best Papers" at international student conferences.

After seven years of operation, CEP Russia spreads across eleven time zones, from St. Petersburg in the northwest to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in the Far East. The program now focuses on four geographical regions: (1) The Northwest, including Petrozavodsk and Arkhangelsk; (2) the Volga Region, Yoshkar-Ola, Yaroslavl, Tver, Samara, Saratov and Volgograd; (3) the Urals and Western Siberia; (4) Eastern Siberia and the Far East, including Ulan-Ude, Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Teams of Visiting and Local Fellows, working also with CEP Alumni, increase CEP's impact in the area by working collaboratively in outreach projects and other extra-curricular activities. By concentrating its human and material resources in this manner, in the 2000-2001 academic year, CEP was able to maximize its effectiveness across this huge county.

Teaching Development

Concentrating Fellows into teams enables the promotion of Teaching Development, by utilizing strategies such as teacher shadowing and team teaching, to further expand the country team and the impact of CEP's activities in Russia.

Teacher-Shadowing
This method pairs a CEP Fellow with a non-CEP local colleague, and is vital to the long-term effectiveness of the Programs by allowing non-CEP academics to experience the teaching styles and methods of their Western-trained colleagues.

Clustering and Team Teaching
Team teaching places Local and Visiting Fellows in clusters in the same institution. As teaching is bilingual, this method enables Visiting Fellows to reach wider audiences in provincial cities, where students might not be fluent in English.   Local Fellows have noted that the benefits of team-teaching include teamwork, the introduction of faculty development, the sharing of techniques, and greater ease in performing outreach activities. In some cases Local Fellows have replaced Visiting Fellows in host universities.

Guest Lecturing
Where it is not possible to cluster CEP Fellows at the same university, guest lecturing is an ideal way to break the isolation in "disconnected" positions.

"I would like to express my gratitude to the Civic Education Project and particularly to Dr. [Vivienne] Stewart for the remarkable opportunity for students and faculty of being introduced to this course (Western Legal Reasoning). According to the mutual opinion of lecturers and students, Professor Stewart's course was very useful, the teaching style was impressive."

Dean of the Law Department, Mari State University

Outreach Activities: National and Regional CEP projects

"CEP events are always a great opportunity for exchanging news, views, opinions, experience, and you come back full of fresh ideas. A university professor must have this sort of exposure to remain a professional. And CEP assistance with teaching materials, book donations, designing new syllabi, etc., is simply invaluable...Not to forget that our students benefit from this generous support, and that is the most important thing."

Sergei Dobrynin, Eastern Scholar Alumnus
Buryat State University

Outreach activities and regional and national events are highlights of every CEP program in the region, and CEP Russia Fellows are major innovators of dynamic outreach projects in the former soviet state. In addition to classroom duties, CEP Fellows and staff work closely with their Russian colleagues, helping to promote important scholarship and exchange opportunities, while encouraging the acceptance of democratic ideas. CEP Fellows in Russia are actively involved in joint activities with their counterparts in Belarus, and are instrumental in coordinating such annual events as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Regional Student Conference. Other projects coordinated and implemented by CEP Fellows include: East-East exchanges, Moot Court competitions, Career Forums, curriculum revision, library development projects, faculty seminars, workshops focusing on teaching methodologies used in western universities, and the establishment of a CEP web site at Yaroslavl State University.

The Environmental Policy Summer School (June 18-22, 2001) was organized by Polina Agakhaniants (LFF) and Olga Sergienko (LFF alumna) in St. Petersburg and co-sponsored by Dialogue-21, a St. Petersburg NGO. The project focused on environmental policy education development for both practitioners and higher education lecturers through an exchange between CEP Fellows, Russian higher education instructors and foreign experts. Discussions at the summer school panels centered on cooperation between universities and local communities, creation and implementation of an environmental agenda at local levels and development of a consistent environmental policy curriculum, as well as preparing instructors and professionals responsible for decision-making. In addition to the CEP participants, five American environmental experts participated in the summer school and conducted lecturers and seminars.

"Siberia - Far East: Regional Identity on the Turn of Millennium" (May 5-7, 2001, Sakhalin)
Regional student conference and master class was organized by Julia Ouliannikova, LFF in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, with LFFs Alla Kassinova and Nastia Tcheshkova, (Novosibirsk) and VFF Chris Goldsmith (Tyumen) in cooperation with the Sakhalin State University.

The goal of this conference was the creation of a network in Far East/Eastern Siberia to help break the isolation of teachers and students in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk University. This was achieved by helping them establish links with other universities and organizations in the region. To this end, a special session was included into the event's agenda, in which representatives of the local offices of OSI, IREX, Eurasia Foundation, Sakhalin Regional Administration Department of Education, Culture and Sport, and Russian-American Center for Business took part.

Sovetsky Sakhalin, the local newspaper

Edu-Action: Empowering Democracy with(in) University - Academia for Critical Thinking and Inclusion, a Sociology workshop and summer school in Saratov, was organized by LFF Elena Iarskaya-Smirnova and co-sponsored by Tempus/Tacis . The project focused on the role of universities in empowering democracy within and outside academia. Discussions covered inclusive policies of teaching and the role of critical social science in education, and possibilities for linking academia and local communities.  The agenda also included training sessions on research and teaching methods.

Legal Clinic in Novosibirsk
An on-going project in Academgorodok, the clinic was organized by LFF alumna Elena Limanov and established under the patronage of the university administration, provide legal services to the local community.  Advanced law students, under supervision, offer "first aid" legal advice via the Internet.

Security Studies Course Development and Conference, organized by Igor Kisselev (LFF alumnus at Yaroslavl State University) in cooperation with Stanford University and co-sponsored by NATO. The project introduced modern web-based technologies and methods of instruction into the curricula of regional universities.  It also established closer links between Western institutions of higher education and Russian universities, responded to the challenges of adapting Western teaching techniques to Russian academia, and contributed to expanding the research and study areas in provincial universities. The project included an interactive, web-based distance learning program that utilized a combination of video, narrative text, and chatroom formats. Lectures of Stanford University courses were made available to Yaroslavl students in video format (CD-ROM and video-tapes) and were viewed and discussed during class sessions in Yaroslavl State University under supervision of the local academic instructor.

Eastern Scholar Round Table in Law
"Legal Education in the Postcommunist World: Training Legal Minds in Transition Societies"
February 10-12, 2001
With the Law Department of Mari State University in Yoshkar-Ola, CEP Russia organized this event focused on (1) Setting up a system of quality assurance at the law school level; (2) Developing legal skills; and, (3) Introducing the Socratic and case-study methods of teaching law. Participants included CEP Fellows from the Russia, Belarus-Ukraine-Moldova, and Hungary Programs, as well as representatives of the Moscow Public Science Foundation, the Moscow International Law Institute of the Ministry of Justice, and a Delegation of the European Commission (Tacis Section).

7th Annual Student Conference
"Between the Global and the Local: Russia and the Newly Independent States in a Changing World"
March 24-26, 2001
CEP Russia, in cooperation with Nizhny Novgorod State University, organized this conference in which students from the Russia, Caucasus,  Belarus-Ukraine-Moldova, and Central Asia Programs participated. CEP Russia students also participated in conferences organized by CEP programs in Poland/Baltics, the Caucasus, Central Asia and B-U-M, as well as in the CEP International Student Conference in Budapest.

St. Petersburg Law Project:
During the 1999-00 academic year, the Law Faculty at St. Petersburg State University and CEP established a Western-style Masters Degree program in law (LL.M.). The two-year LL.M. program consists of two main components: an LL.M. in Public International Law and European Union Law taught bilingually in the Law Faculty and a Russian Magistratura Degree taught in Russian. Selection of students for the LL.M. was begun at the start of the second semester of the 2000-01 school year. The first group of LL.M. students is now in residence in St. Petersburg.  CEP's partner institution, the Law Faculty at St. Petersburg, a prestigious national law school, will attract candidates for the program from across the CIS who are interested in improving their qualifications in international law and the legal system of the European Union, and who wish to expand their skills in English for the practice of law. The curriculum prepares graduates to pursue careers in the CIS with an international and European Union dimension.

The collaborative work of CEP Russia and the Law Faculty in the preparation of the LL.M. program enables CEP to expand its law teaching activities to train talented young lawyers. CEP has furthered its goals by assisting in the preparation of practitioners with skills necessary to practice law in a globalized society while based in the CIS. Graduates of the program will be able to carry out professional work bilingually. Certificates will be awarded jointly by the Faculty of Law at St. Petersburg State University and CEP.

The Human Rights Educational Initiative (HREI) is another example of the impact that CEP Fellows have on universities and local communities. The program was initiated in May 1998 by Visiting Fellow Alumna Janet Helin (Tyumen State University) and supported by Fellows, Michael Deaver (Tyumen State University), John Ball (Urals State Law Academy), Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua (Tomsk State University), Jana Shvedova (Ural State University) and Alla Kassianova (Tomsk State University), along with Valery Mikhailenko (Advisory Board and Eastern Scholar Evaluation Committee member, Ural State University). The idea for HREI emerged in response to the challenge of launching human rights educational programs in Russian schools and universities in accordance with a Russian government mandate.  HREI relies on the valuable network developed by CEP Russia, and focuses on distance learning. CEP Russia continues to support HREI at Tomsk University.

CEP Fellows' Outreach Activities

Vivienne also taught an intensive two-week course, Introduction to Western Legal Reasoning and Terminology, in Nizhny Novgorod and Yoshkar-Ola. The course was for the new version of the COLPI/CEU program in which forty Russian law students participated in a month-long legal studies summer school at Central European University.

Marina Mogilner, LFF at the History Department in Kazan, is an editor of the history journal, Ab Imperio, whose editorial board includes such distinguished American professors as Richard Wortman and Yuri Sliozkine. CEP Russia supported two issues this past year and will support another four issues next academic year.

Vera Dubina and Mikhail Leonov (LFFs in Samara), in cooperation with Bosch Lecturer Ruth Buettner organized the history conference, "Political and Cultural Relations between Russia and the Baltic Region States."  Co-sponsored by the Robert Bosch Foundation, this conference was attended by participants from the Baltic countries, Germany and Russia, including LFFs, as well as local teachers. A collection of the conference papers is now in print.

Vera, Mikhail and Ruth also initiated and organized an inter-university conference "Political History of Russia: Problems of National Identity" for members of the "Students Scholar Societies." The conference caused interest in the local press and several articles were published.

LFFs Marina Mogilner (Kazan State) in cooperation with Vera Dubina (Samara) organized an International Seminar, "Empire and Nation in Russia and Soviet History: New Research Approaches and the Problems of Teaching Methodology."

VFF Chris Goldsmith (Tyumen State) with other CEP Fellows, Betsy Sweet (Omsk), John Garrett (Tomsk), Vasilis Vourkoutiotis (Yekaterinburg) prepared a textbook, Introduction to International Relations.

Alumni Association

One of the highlights of the country program this past year was the establishment of the Eastern Scholar Alumni Association in January 2001 with Irina Arkhangelskaya as coordinator.

Universities Hosting CEP Fellows

Currently, CEP sponsors Visiting and Local Fellows in universities throughout Russia, in a variety of disciplines, including Economics, Gender Studies, History, International Relations, Law, Political Science, and Sociology.

Buryat State University
European University of St. Petersburg
Mari State University
Nizhny Novgorod State University
Novosibirsk State University
Omsk State University
Samara State University
Saratov State Academy of Law
St. Petersburg State University
The Law Faculty at St. Petersburg State University
St. Petersburg Institute of Technology
Tomsk State University
Tver State
Tyumen State University
Ural State Academy of Law (Russian Only)
Urals State Polytechnical University
Ural State University
Volga Region Academy of Civil Services
Volgograd Politechnical Institute
Yaroslavl State University

Russia Links
Akademgorodok
CEP Russia Web site
Irtusk
Moscow
Nizhny Novgorod
Novosibirsk
Petrozavodsk
The Russian Embassy, Washington, D.C.
Russian Links Page
St. Petersburg
Tomsk
Tyumen
UK Travel Advice
US Consular Information Sheet
Yaroslavl
Yekaterinburg
Yoshkar-Ola