Who signs a spravka?

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Dear colleagues,

I'm translating a spravka given to a university student in Russia
confirming that she is in fact enrolled in the institution, has reached
the fourth year of her study, and is due to graduate in 2003.

There are two signature lines, one for the Dean of her school (фак.
герм-ром. фил.), and the
other for an "Educational Methodologist" (Методист), which I sorta
understand -- the word means a "специалист по методологии преподавания
какого-то предмета (a specialist in the methods of teaching a particular
subject area)" -- and sorta don't. In pragmatic terms, why should this
person be signing such a statement? (In fact, he's the only one who
did.) I might expect an academic advisor, or someone from the admissions
office, or any of half-a-dozen others to sign it, but why the
educational methodologist?? She's not studying pedagogy...

A colleague on another list has responded to my query by saying, in
part:

"... in our university here, a methodologist is the one in each
department who is directly in contact with students and takes care of
the registration of things. They have now understood that
'methodologist' is not an appropriate word and changed it into something
which should be translated as 'specialist for the organization of
studies.' "

Which brings me back to the expectation that this would be the student's
academic advisor.

So I have two questions now:
1. What do the Russians call an "academic advisor"?
2. Is this what they mean by "методист" here?

TIA

--
War is hell. Bush wants to go to war. Fine. Let him go to hell.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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