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Dorms with no Hall Attendants and Coworking Areas in Every Building
The current convocation of the HSE Student Council is coming to an end. The most active Student Council representatives met with the Rector and other representatives of the university administration to discuss how student government and university leadership will cooperate and what changes are needed in HSE buildings, dormitories, and programme curricula. Below is a summary of the main issues that were discussed at the four-hour meeting.
Student Representation and Trust
Maxim Fetisov, Head of the HSE Student Council’s Committee for Educational Quality, proposed including faculty student council chairs in the faculty academic councils and giving them the right to vote in policy decisions. This will help ensure that student interests and needs are reflected in faculty policy.
Though local student councils already work with faculty deans, the proposed initiative may help formalize this cooperation. With regard to more sensitive issues (such as personnel and finance matters), it was proposed to have the student representatives sign non-disclosure agreements.
HSE Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov generally supported the idea, saying that student involvement could significantly improve the work of some faculty academic councils. In addition, next year the university will be undergoing substantial decentralization and transferring significant resources for research development to departments and schools.
Nonetheless, the Rector suggested thinking about more specific parameters for Student Council involvement in faculty management and policymaking, as well as including student representatives in the university-wide Academic Council.
Vice-Rector Sergey Roshchin was more skeptical. He expressed doubts about whether faculty members would feel comfortable working with faculty student council representatives, particularly in the event that a given representative is not a particularly strong student. He reminded council members that the Student Council works to serve as a check on university employees, and its agenda in this regard is not always viewed positively by all faculty members.
Dorms without Hired Attendants
The Student Council Student Life Committee cited several examples of incompetence of HSE dormitory employees. One example was that the hired 24/7 hall attendants refuse to let students into the dormitories at night even though there is no longer a university curfew.
Administration officials agreed that there was a need to improve communication pathways between campus staff and officials so that staff would be up to date on campus policy. Vice Rector Vladimir Samoylenko even said that he is willing to return to discussing the possibility of eliminating attendant services in the dormitories completely.
In fact, back in 2014, the university already reduced the number of dormitory attendants, whose duties included maintaining order in the dorms. However, if attendant services are eliminated completely, then the Student Council will have to devise a different kind of system for dormitory monitoring and maintenance. This is no easy task, given that it would involve students imposing sanctions on their own acquaintances and friends.
Coworking Areas and First-Aid Offices
This year, HSE has new buildings which are still in the process of becoming fully equipped for students and staff. The meeting agenda therefore included the issue of coworking areas and medical facilities. (Currently, only the campus buildings on Myasnitskaya and Pokrovka have first-aid offices.)
The student council shared alarming monthly statistics of ambulance calls to various buildings, which, according to students, indicates the need to increase the number of first-aid offices in campus buildings. Elena Kakabadze, Head of the Office of Staff and Student Benefits, confirmed that work is underway to create new medical facilities.
The discussion about coworking areas touched not only upon the need for specially equipped separate rooms, but also about the extent to which buildings are equipped in general. Students noted that in many buildings, transit spaces (corridors, recreation) could stand to be equipped or furnished in such a way so that students could collaborate or relax between classes.
The meeting was not limited to these issues alone. Other initiatives that were discussed included the university’s Code of Ethics, which has been a topic of community discussion for more than a year; the regulation of catering contractors for HSE cafeterias and the prices of meal specials; and penalties for academic dishonesty and forgery of medical certificates.
Separate, more specific issues were also considered, such as refusals to issue repeated individual curricula on the St. Petersburg campus or issues with appointing non-tenure-track faculty members as thesis advisors in certain programmes.
But, most importantly, the Student Council committees announced their agendas for the coming year, which means that, at the next convocation, they will have a lot of hard work ahead in their pursuit of student interests.