Best Teachers of the HSE: Voting Results

Between May 26 and June 7 of this year, students voted for the best HSE teachers of the year. This is the fourth time the elections have taken place, and this year the event saw the participation of students from not only Moscow, but from St. Petersburg as well.

The number of students who vote continues to grow from year to year. In 2011 we began with 31% of the overall student body, but this number grew to 45% in 2013, and this year, 49% of students came to vote, which is almost 8,000 students! While voting took place, students had the opportunity to receive prizes and souvenirs, as well as participate in a lottery and photo-contests. In other words, the event was a success.

The composition of this year’s leading faculties changed significantly. In 2013 the clear leaders in student voting activity were the Faculty of History  (86%), the School of Asian Studies  (85%), the Faculty of Law (76%), and the Graduate School of Urban Studies and Planning  (75%). All of these faculties decreased their activity in 2014, however, apparently becoming somewhat more lax. At the same time, many faculties that demonstrated more modest results last year became this year’s leaders – the School of Software Engineering advanced to 75% from 61%, the Faculty of Philosophy to 70% from 48%, the School of Applied Mathematics and Information Science to 67% from 20%, and the Faculty of Politics to 66% from 40%. The Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications of the Moscow State Institute of Electronics and Mathematics remained among the leaders with 73%. And finally, the most impressive jump was made by the joint bachelor’s programme with the New Economic School (NES), which had the worst voter turnout among students last year at 8%. This programme was able to increase this figure to 64% in the 2014 voting season. In all of these faculties, thanks to students’ voting activity, the number of best teachers selected grew.

Along with a slight decrease in leading positions, almost all faculties and departments of the bottom third of the list improved their performance. Because of this, the overall picture of the departments has generally smoothed, gaps have become smaller, and the distribution of faculties’ best teachers has therefore become more uniform.

This was St. Petersburg’s first time participating in voting for the best teachers. Voting took place at both campuses with the same procedures and terms. The level of activity of St. Petersburg students was, however, ahead of the Muscovites: some 66% of HSE’s students came to the polls in St. Petersburg (almost 1,000 people).

At HSE’s St. Petersburg campus, votes are still being counted, whereas Moscow has already received voting results for the best instructors. Like last year, the effect of size was taken into account, increasing the relative chances of teachers in major programs, where a large number of students must vote for victory to be declared. Depending on the number of students in a year, adjustment factors were implemented and calculations were done separately for master's programmes, with the exception of programmes with a small number of students.

As in previous years, the list of winners elected during the student voting process included the best teachers chosen by HSE graduates as well as the academic supervisors of students who received first, second and third place at a student research paper competition. They will all be named the Best Teachers of 2014 and their names will appear on HSE's website.

Here are some figures. Based on student voting, 378 individuals were selected as the best teachers, including 273 full-time instructors and 105 part-time and contracted teachers. Based on voting results, graduates selected 51 individuals, including 36 full-time and 15 part-time teachers. There were 72 instructors that were among the academic supervisors of students who won the student research paper competition, including 56 full-time and 16 part-time.

It is necessary to take note of the fact that these majorities overlap – a best teacher chosen by students could be the academic supervisor of a winner from the student research paper competition and could be selected as best teacher by graduates. Students of different faculties chose several instructors, which is why they can be found on several lists at the same time. Under the contest’s conditions, in spite of being on various lists, winners are given only one raise.

With consideration given to the overlap of all the lists, 325 of those named the best teachers were full-time instructors. Starting in September 2014, all winners will receive a raise of 30,000 rubles per month.

Part-time teachers elected as the best teachers are also able to receive raises. Part-time instructors are generally accepted for one academic year, and if they are accepted to teach at the HSE again in the 2014-2015 academic year, they will have a raise of 15,000 rubles per month until the end of the school year.

As in 2013, a group of nominees will be identified that had a slightly smaller, but still noteworthy, percentage of student votes. They will receive a raise of 15,000 rubles per month. The total number of teachers to receive the 15,000-ruble raise is close to 300.

We sincerely congratulate all winners and nominees!

Vadim Radaev, First Vice Rector of the HSE