If you want to sign this letter, please contact Anika Walke, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California - Santa Cruz by email: awalke@ucsc.edu. Thank you.

 

 

 

OPEN LETTER TO SUPPORT FACULTY AND STUDENTS

OF

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

 

 

We, the undersigned, from different countries across Europe and North America, are dismayed and deeply concerned by the suspension of the teaching process at 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.

 

The European University is an academic institution of the highest quality, one of the foremost graduate schools in the humanities and social sciences in Russia as well as Europe. Its level of teaching and scholarship is on a par with the best in our countries; it encourages open, lively, intellectual debate among faculty and students; it is expressly and completely non-political, proscribed as are the leading higher institutions of learning in our countries from advancing or taking up political positions. The research agenda of its faculty is driven by the sole aim of furthering knowledge, knowledge that will benefit Russia and the world community.

 

EUSP has an impressive record of reaching out to able students from Russia's distant regions. Many students from outside of Russia attend programs at the University. Graduates and Faculty of EUSP are teaching in and collaborating with scholars all over the world. Our understanding of Russia would be far poorer without them.

 

All of this is now threatened.

 

We find it hard to believe that the teaching program of an academic institution would be suspended, in mid-term, or indeed at any point in the year, for its inability to bring its historic and city-owned building up to contemporary fire codes. Many of us teach in historic buildings. We share the real concerns of the EUSP and city administration as regards safety.

Indeed, many if not most of the historic buildings in St. Petersburg present similar concerns. The answer to these problems everywhere, however, must be to find mutually acceptable solutions that assure appropriate levels of safety while maintaining the ability of the EUSP and those occupying similar historic structures to continue their activities. It is surprising that the building is now suddenly judged to be intrinsically inappropriate for teaching purposes. This suggests (quite wrongly) that the city's Property Department demonstrated a lack of professionalism leasing the building to the EUSP for a second ten-year term.

 

We support rectorate, faculty and students of the European University St. Petersburg in their appeal to respective authorities to repeal the suspension of the university’s activities.

We feel most strongly that for the sake of Russian higher education as well as for the EUSP itself, the issues involved in the closure can and must be resolved without delay so that the normal life of the University can resume. The suspension is damaging not only to the students, but also to the reputation of higher education in Russia.

 

 

 

Canada

 

Gail Fondahl, PhD, Chair, Geography Program, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George

 

Alexis Shotwell, Assistant Professor, Laurentian University

 

 

Finland

 

Dr Anna-Maria Salmi, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki

 

 

Germany

 

Cordula Behrens, Oldenburg

 

Christiane Hutson, Dipl. Sozialwiss., University of Oldenburg

 

Uwe Kaminsky, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum

 

Dr. Julia Schulze Wessel, Dept. of Political Science, TU Dresden

 

Dr. Klaus Thoerner, Oldenburg, Germany

 

Christian Ziegler, University of Oldenburg, Germany

 

 

Israel

 

Julia Lerner, PhD, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Ben Gurion University

 

 

Slovenia

 

Irena Gantar Godina, Assistant professor, Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

 

UK

 

Dr. Adi Kuntsman, Lecturer in Internet and Communication Studies, School of Media, Critical and Creative Arts, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool

 

 

USA

 

Bettina Aptheker, Professor, Feminist Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Nicole Archer, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Christopher Barkan, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Joshua Brahinsky, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Chris Dixon, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Barbara Epstein, Professor, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

 

Ronald D. Glass, Associate Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Donna Haraway, Professor and Chair, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Julie Jedlicka, Environmental Studies Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Sergei Kan, Professor of Anthropology & Native American Studies, Dartmouth College

 

S. Eben Kirksey, PhD, Division of Social Sciences, New College of Florida

 

Alexandra Koelle, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Jeff Lee, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Florencia Marchetti, Assistant Field Study Coordinator, Lecturer, Community Studies Department, UC Santa Cruz

 

Mariana Markova, PhD Student in Socio-cultural anthropology, University of Washington

 

Nick Mitchell, History of Consciousness Department, UC Santa Cruz

 

Michael M. Moeller, History of Consciousness, University of California Santa Cruz

 

Matthew Moore, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Tristra Newyear, Indiana University

 

Sheila Peuse, UC Santa Cruz

 

Johanna Rothe, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Trevor Joy Sangrey, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Anne Tuttle, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Michael Urban, Professor, Politics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Kristina Valendinova, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Anika Walke, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

 

Matthew Wolf-Meyer, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Wayne State University

 

Jin You, Dept. of Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz

 

 

 

* * *

March 10, 2008