HSE University Life

From May 25th to June 6th HSE students will be voting for best teachers of the year. Both full-time and exchange students can take part in the elections. Voting for the best teachers, on the one hand, gives each student an opportunity to evaluate the quality of teaching at the university, and on the other hand, allows the university to identify and reward the most popular instructors.

From April 10-14, 2015, Manchester (UK) hosted the 49 th  annual IATEFL conference. About 3,000 delegates attended the conference, and over 400 presentations were given.  English-language coordinator at the HSE’s International College of Economics and Finance (ICEF) Elena Velikaya gave a talk entitled Teaching English at an Economic University: Looking for New Perspectives.

Julia Lajus, Associate Professor at the History Department and Senior Research Fellow, Center for Historical Research of the Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg, became a participant from Near Neighbour Countries in the project of the European network COST – Action IS1403 'Oceans Past Platform (OPP)'.

Tenured Professor Vladimir Kantor became one of the honored guests at the 41st international book fair (Feria Internacional del Libro de Buenos Aires).

Vitaly Kurennoy, Professor and Head of HSE’s School of Cultural Studies (Faculty of Humanities) gave a presentation entitled ‘Contemporary Cultural Policy in Russia’ on April 22 at Ruhr University Bochum during a joint colloquium of the Department of Eastern European History and a seminar at the Lotman Institute for Russian and Soviet Culture.

Vladimir Unkovski-Korica, Assistant Professor in History, is completing his monograph 'The Economic Struggle for Power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: From World War II to Non-Alignment'. It is in the process of being published by I.B. Tauris.  The HSE Look  talked to Unkovski-Korica about his topic and the highs and lows of the writing process.

The famous Dutch computer scientist Wil van der Aalst has been made HSE Honorary Professor for his enormous contribution to the development of research and teaching programmes at the university and for reinforcing HSE’s international reputation.

Karl Bruckmeier is an environmental sociologist and since 2011 he has been a professor at the Analysis of Social Institutions Department at the HSE Faculty of Social Sciences. He talked to the HSE English News Service about the challenges of being an interdisciplinary academic and about the pace of change in Russia in attitudes towards the environment. Anna Chernyakhovskaya began the interview by asking Professor Bruckmeier about his life at HSE.

HSE Family is a new social networking website in Russian and English for graduates, students and teachers on all HSE campuses.

‘My whole life has in some way been connected with Russia, and not only academically, but also though family. My wife is Russian and our three-year old daughter has dual citizenship. Secondly, I am someone who cannot sit in one place. After about five years I need something different. And the German Academic Exchange Service offers opportunities for teaching abroad, including in Russia,’ Department of History Associate Professor Wulff Dietmar notes about his academic work. Professor Dietmar also shared the secrets of teaching, as well as his impressions from the first weeks of working at the HSE St. Petersburg.

On September 26 twelve HSE faculty members were promoted to Tenured Professors.

HSE’s Nizhny Novgorod campus has a new professor. Invited Professor Rajarshi Mitra teaches advanced microeconomics to master’s and Ph.D. students, as well as time series analysis and the academic seminar ‘Econometric Analysis and Modeling in Economics and Finance.’ Professor Mitra comes to the HSE from India, though he has many years of experience working and teaching in the West.