Chronicle of Higher Education, March 30, 2007Vedomosti also has a recent story about this, which makes it sound like the students' lack of access to a subsidized cafeteria was the genesis of the problem:
Protest at a Russian University Attracts International Attention [$]
By BRYON MACWILLIAMS - Moscow
An unprecedented campaign by students at Moscow State University to influence the conditions and curricula in the sociology department has been marked by arrests and accusations that the student activists are "paid provocateurs" and "extremists."
Police have detained students twice since late February, when activists, calling themselves the OD Group, first demanded changes in the department, whose standards they say fall well short of the reputation of an institution regarded as the best all-around university in Russia. The department enrolls about 2,000 students in 13 divisions.
The demands of the students, whose campaign has gained support from scholars in Russia and Europe, range from an affordable cafe and more classroom space to an overhaul of curricula they say are outdated and too heavy on theory over practice.
The increasingly public protest, uncommon in its tenacity and audacity, is a rare form of expression in a university that is typically unreceptive to student input and criticism, outside observers say.
The university's rector, Viktor A. Sadovnichy, took the unusual step this month of creating a special commission to investigate the merits of the complaints. Yevgenia Zaitseva, the university's spokeswoman, would not say when the commission, which does not count sociologists among its members, is expected to render its findings.
Last week six students were temporarily detained by police while distributing fliers outside the university library. They and others said they feared reprisal from Vladimir I. Dobrenkov, who has been dean of the sociology department since its inception in 1989.
Mr. Dobrenkov refused to be interviewed by telephone. In public, however, he has called the student activists an "extremist group" that is financed by "the money of teachers who have been fired." He also says they are too few to represent such a large student body.
Oleg Zhuravlyov, who is in his third year at Moscow State, said that while some former teachers have voiced their support, they have no role in the OD Group, which he claims has several dozen members. He said they pooled their money to pay for a Web site and to print fliers.
"The thing that makes our blood boil is the irony that, in the country's best university, in the sociology department, there is no sociology," he said. "At one point it just became so unpleasant, so unbearable, and we understood that professors are afraid and that we were going to need to be the ones to do something about it."
Students began to organize last year after the dean's office refused to provide a cheaper alternative to a cafe that charged restaurant prices, including tea for $2.70 - seven times higher than the university's average price.
They also say that class schedules are inconvenient because much of its space is occupied by the military or private business; existing lecture halls are in disrepair and have poor ventilation; foreign professors are rarely invited to speak; professors rarely conduct research; too many freshman are admitted each year; and the department does not have a library.
Internet Petition
An Internet petition started by the group has won the support of scholars throughout Europe, but primarily that of Russian sociologists at state universities, scientific journals, professional organizations, and the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Vladimir Yadov, dean of the sociology department at the State University of Human Sciences, in Moscow, called upon Mr. Sadovnichy, the rector, to intervene. He said the administration of Mr. Dobrenkov was "an intolerable regime of a closed institution" that "disgraces not only the leadership of the department, but the reputation of Moscow State University - the pride of Russia."
Some academic observers say the situation at Moscow State demonstrates how a refusal to listen to students can backfire.
"When you have a structure that is run more or less in an authoritarian way, and the perception there is that democracy is not that important, that students really only care about getting their diplomas ... ," said Andrei Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation, in Moscow, who has long been involved in higher education, "then you run the risk of sudden unexpected explosions of student activism."
 Политэкономия: Студенческая весна На социологическом факультете МГУ работало дорогое, недоступное рядовым студентам кафе. Студенты выразили свой протест. Протестные настроения были пресечены силовым образом. Студенчество приступило к самоорганизации — была создана OD Group. Далее |
In this piece, Kolesnikov mentions the 1968 student unrest in Paris a couple of times (he notes that the riots back then are sometimes said to have started because someone wasn't allowed to enter a women's dorm), but I don't think we're headed there yet.
My translation of what I thought were the best parts of Kolesnikov's piece:
* To be honest, I was wondering how OD Group got that prime NY Times coverage. They must be in on the conspiracy.However, the conflict is obviously not being politicized by the students, who seem inclined to civil self-organization. At a recent faculty meeting, the department chair [dekan, in this case the head of the Sociology Dept.] stated that "political forces of a pro-Western orientation"* stand behind the student unrest, and that these forces are "fine-tuning color-revolution techniques for seizing power." He is seconded by the leaders of political Orthodoxy from the Union of Orthodox Citizens (SPG): "There can be no doubt that serious forces stand behind the actions of these radical youths, forces that are interested in an orange revolution in the main Russian university on the eve of the parliamentary and presidential elections."
It turns out that the students' actions are aimed at "forcing out Orthodox, nationally oriented ideology from MGU...[and] inculcating aggressively secular liberal ideas under the guise of scientific worldliness and objectivism."** The political Orthodox call on all good people to "speak out against the subversive activities" of the students, "which are a threat to the national interest."
Apparently, the young simpletons from the "Nashi" movement can walk around the capital on the government's tab, scaring the masses with tales of Western intervention, but the students of the Sociology Department are prevented from defending their social rights, in which there is no politics whatsoever. Clearly, the politicization of the conflict is a means of defense against the students.
But why conceal such managerial incompetence, manifested at the very least by the fact that an intradepartmental squabble has turned into national news and led to accusations of revolutionary and even "subversive" activity? And where is this special-services slang coming from in the rhetoric of a department chair and his defenders, the politicized Orthodox doing battle with "liberal thought"?
** Interesting how much this quote resembles what one might hear on a US college campus during a skirmish in the "culture wars."
Additional Russian-language links on this topic:
A blogger posts an article she wrote for something called "Levyi Avangard" "long, long ago" when the scandal was just getting started, and is now perhaps of "historical interest."
Blog of a professor (I think), Oleg Ivanov, who appears to be allied with the students, though not formally. He is posting lots of material, including university documents, about the developing situation. This post of his I liked enough to translate:
I've just heard about several situations where Sociology Department professors have been trying to convince their students to "show their position as citizens" and openly speak out on the internet against the OD Group. They are promising the administration's loyalty. No comment.
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