26 February 2008
To Whom It May Concern:
We, the undersigned, who represent the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and its affiliated institutions and organizations, write you to express our dismay and deep concern over the temporary closure of the European University at St. Petersburg, a unique graduate school whose first advocate was Anatoli Sobchak and which has been supported ever since by the St. Petersburg city government.
Many of us have firsthand knowledge of the university. We have taught there, given lectures there, engaged in joint research projects with its faculty or students, and served on its academic boards. We consider the European University at St. Petersburg an academic institution of the highest quality, one of the foremost graduate schools in the humanities and social sciences in Russia as well as in Europe and North America. Its level of teaching and scholarship is on a par with the best in the United States; it encourages open, lively, intellectual debate among faculty and students; it is expressly and completely non-political and, like the leading higher institutions of learning in the U.S., neither advances nor takes up political positions. It is also an important national institution in training future professionals in the spheres of education, science, culture, and state and municipal management. The research agenda of its faculty is driven by the sole aim of furthering knowledge that will benefit Russia and the world community. The research produced by EUSP faculty reliably provides the most sophisticated and accurate representation of Russian society to the world at large, an enormous benefit given the limitations of Western media reporting on Russia.
The European University has also been a flagship institution in its national and global reach. We have been impressed by the EUSP's success in attracting students from Russia's distant regions, and we are delighted that we can encourage our own students to pursue a graduate education at EUSP -- the International Master of Arts in Russian Studies (IMARS) -- that is second to none. We are proud to count faculty at the EUSP among our academic colleagues; and we and our students benefit from EUSP graduates who now teach at leading universities in Russia, Europe, and the United States. We are also impressed by the EUSP's administrative leadership. The EUSP's initiative in creating Russia's first university Endowment Fund, in accordance with new legislative provisions, makes it the first private university in Russia to receive a substantial endowment donation from one of Russia's leading banks and a model for other Russian universities seeking public support.
All of these achievements, which redound to the credit of Russian scholarly inquiry, professional development, and global influence, are now threatened by the suspension of EUSP's operation. We find it hard to believe that the teaching program of an academic institution must be suspended in mid-term, or indeed at any point in the year, due to the oddly sudden discovery of the institution's inability to bring its historic and city-owned building up to contemporary fire codes. Many, if not most, historic buildings in St. Petersburg are in a similar state and need inspection and proper maintenance, yet their operations are not suspended. We fully understand the city administration's concerns about fire safety. The answer to this problem, however, should not be to suspend the University's operation, but to find ways to ensure the physical safety of the University's faculty and students without disrupting their research and instruction.
We feel most strongly that, for the sake of Russian higher education as well as for the EUSP itself, these issues must be resolved without delay so that the normal life of the University can resume. The suspension is damaging not only to the students of EUSP, but also to the reputation of higher education in Russia. We urge you most strongly to restore the normal scholarly and teaching activities of the European University and to support its important national work.
Thank you for your attention and consideration.
Sincerely,
The AAASS Board of Directors:
Beth Holmgren, Duke University -- President
William Taubman, Amherst College -- Vice-President/President Elect
Mark Beissinger, Princeton University -- Immediate Past-President
Dmitry Gorenburg, Harvard University -- Executive Director
James R. Millar, George Washington University -- Treasurer
Mark Steinberg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -- Editor, Slavic Review
Ronelle Alexander, University of California, Berkeley
Anthony Anemone, The New School
Terry Clark, Creighton University
Peter Craumer, Florida International University
Anna Grzymala-Busse, University of Michigan
Stephen Hanson, University of Washington
Robert Hayden, University of Pittsburgh
Robert Huber, National Council for Eurasian and East European Research
Vida Johnson, Tufts University
Gail Kligman, University of California, Los Angeles
Diane Koenker, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Adele Lindenmeyr, Villanova University
Nancy Lubin, JNA Associates Inc.
Marilyn Rueschemeyer, Brown University/Rhode Island School of Design
Mary Theis, Kutztown University
