Sociology at MGU (fwd)

[Listserv Administrator]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 12:56:53 -0500
From: w martin <wm6 at UCHICAGO.EDU>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] Sociology at MGU

----
Dear SEELANGers,

I just received the following message via the Soyuz listserv
concerning conditions at the Sociology Dept at MGU. As it may
well be of interest and concern to you, I am passing it on.

Bill Martin

_________________________

PhD Candidate
Comparative Literature
University of Chicago
wm6 @  uchicago.edu


_________________________

Dear colleagues,

Please excuse the collective message: this is really
important. Sociology students at Moscow State University have
started a campaign against the unbearable conditions at their
department; without serious international support they all
face expulsion and possibly more serious consequences. I have
done a quick translation of their call for support and longer
description of the situation and would be grateful if you
could forward this to colleagues in sociology departments and
elsewhere. Dobrenkov, the dean of sociology, is a well-known
anti-Semite and believer in a global Zionist-Masonic
conspiracy; he has been campaigning for the death penalty and
telling students to given the motherland at least four
children each ...

Best wishes

Mischa



CALL FOR SUPPORT FROM SOCIOLOGY STUDENTS AT MOSCOW STATE
UNIVERSITY

We, a group of students of the Sociology Department at Moscow
State University, have asked the department's administration
to improve the quality of teaching, stop force-feeding us with
ultranationalist propaganda, and ensure acceptable conditions
of life and study. In response to our demands, the
administration has stepped up repressive measures: friends who
were distributing leaflets have been arrested by the police;
individual students have been threatened; and the dean's
office and a servile student's committee have written a letter
to the rector (president) of the university asking to clamp
down on any unapproved student protest actions, campaigns, or
meetings on campus. All this is part of an attempt to muzzle
us and create a wall of silence to conceal the dramatic state
of affairs at the department.

In recent years, lectures at the department have become ever
more formal and insipid. The administration has cut the number
of seminars and practical classes. We are allowed to take ever
fewer course units in neighboring disciplines. We are hardly
ever given the opportunity to attend talks by outside
lecturers. Exam questions are limited to the contents of a
textbook authored by the dean. The dean's office has
distributed a brochure to all students which approvingly
quotes the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” blames
Freemasons and Zionists for the world wars, and claims that
they control US and British policy and the global financial
system.

Studying conditions at the department are unbearable. There
are not enough lecture halls, and there is no ventilation. The
building is stuffed with video surveillance cameras which the
administration uses to track suspect students. Factory-style
turnstiles have been installed at the entrance, and the
security guards act rudely toward students. We have no library
of our own.

We demand that the curricula be changed, competent teachers be
invited, students be informed about foreign exchange programs,
the rude security guards be dismissed, the rigid gating system
be abolished, and a minimum of basic amenities be provided.

We are seeking a public meeting with the dean and rector. Our
main objective is to improve the level of teaching and obtain
acceptable working conditions for students, but also for the
department's faculty, some of whom have expressed their
support for us.

Details about the situation at the department and our demands,
as well as press reports and letters of support (mostly in
Russian), may be found at www.od-group.org.

How can you help?

If you support our demands, please send us an e-mail
(info at od-group.org) stating your name, institutional
affiliation and position, or leave your details at our web
site, www.od-group.org. Please write to the dean and the
rector to express your concern, in any language, with a copy
to our address. We also ask you to spread this letter widely
among your friends and colleagues and ask them to support us.
Any advice on how best to achieve our objectives would
also be greatly appreciated.

Moscow State University Press Secretary: phone
+7-495-939-36-67; fax:
+7-495-939-22-64;

e-Mail: press at rector.msu.ru;

Viktor Antonovich Sadovnichy, Rector of Moscow State
University: phone
+7-495-939-10-00; fax: +7-495-939-01-26;

e-Mail: info at rector.msu.ru;

Vladimir Ivanovich Dobrenkov, Dean of the Sociology Department:
phone/fax: +7-495-939-46-98;

E-Mail: vid at socio.msu.ru; или theory at socio.msu.ru;

Administration of the Sociology Department: e-mail:
soc at socio.msu.ru;

fax: +7-495-939-46-98.

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