Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Tuesday 2/4
The visiting contingent of EU expert professors arrive mid-morning. I notice that the small conference room in our office is well supplied with coffee, tea, and a variety of goodies and it appears that this is for our visiting professors. They arrive, are ushered into the conference room, and I am invited in as well. They are lead by a Professor Silvo Devetak, Law Faculty and Programme Head at the University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia. This project is a multi-institutional endeavor involving universities in Moldova, Ukraine, Russia(including this one), Germany, Italy, Romania, and Slovenia. These fellows are building a curriculum, library, faculties etc., for something called EUNEG----essentially a modern European Studies curriculum( BS, MA, PHD) with emphasis on the EU. From what I can tell, graduates will be highly qualified to work in upper level EU type diplomatic jobs---lots of law---environmental, immigration---cultural perspective, and of course the complicated nuances that result from the management of the European Union.
Anyway, we get to chat a bit in the small conference room---they all speak very good English. They are interested in the American. There is a very obvious Euro Zone slant to the discussion. I am becoming very adept at identifying some common academic viewpoints on America. They all seem to have a great sense of humor and we laugh quite a bit. Smart interesting fellows. After about 10 minutes, we are all ushered into a large, very smartly appropriated large conference room. Pictures to follow tonight, but basically students are seated around the perimeter of the room(many of these are these international students). I sit in this perimeter seating as well. I am very curious as to how the students perceive, focus, and react to what is coming. They seem engaged at first. There are several of my colleagues, professors at the Institute, seated at the main table with microphones. The Euro Professors all will make 45 minute presentations on various aspects of the European Union. Yup....that will be 4-5 hours of talking. I should say some things about my colleagues here at the Stolypin Volga Region Institute of Administration. They are a formidable bunch, many of them quite young. Very bright. This school is well appointed physically; clean, well lit, nice furniture, working microphones at each seat. A fellow I have become quite aware of here is Dr. Maxim M. Mokeev, Professor of Public Management. He sat next to me at the Conference on Local Government last week and while I didn't understand much, people sure did listen to him. Very bright guy, funny, young, but commands respect. Anyway, Maxim seems to have been somewhat involved in this EU project as well. He and a fellow Professor of Public Administration, Dr. Kamil Ramazonov( A Tatar) are the most engaged people in the room and ask the only questions---relevant, precise---after each speaker, for the whole presentation.
I go to lunch with these two fellows, Dr. Bobarykina(Natalia), and the six Euros to the Irish Pub, midway through the presentations. This is worth mentioning for several reasons---I don't go "out" to eat here much, so I pay some attention to the process. We are going to have what is called a "business lunch", a fairly common menu strategy here---fixed price, choice of certain menu items. A young woman comes to the table to begin the order process---and it is certainly a process. She is patient, speaks in Russian only, and has a uniform that is kind of like a Russian TGI Fridays issue. This business lunch involves choice of soup OR salad. Soup: Chicken(my choice), Fish(river), and veggie. Salads---not sure exactly of all the choices, but one is beef tongue salad. it is a bit of an ordeal explaining that you get soup OR salad and Professor Devetak orders both( and gets both). Getting through soup or salad takes 15 minutes. Natalia, Maxim, and Kamil patiently translate the choices. The main courses can be Chicken, Fish, Pork, or Spaghetti. I choose Pork--it comes with cheese melted on top and is quite good. There are potatoes with it. The visiting guys all have a beer. I feel like I am at work and do not order beer. My Russian friends do the same. Food takes a while to come, but we have a good time. I enjoy all of these people, the conversation is lively. We laugh a lot. at one point, we are discussing the micro-cultures/languages of the former Yugoslavia and surrounding areas. There is some discussion of fascist policies dring the 1930s-40s that sacrificed local language, architecture etc.....I think, humorously to bait our Italian friend----and one of the Slovenian guys said. pointing at him...."you!" you did it....you personally came here and did this......very funny, totally joking, completely sarcastic. We all laughed very hard. The atmosphere was very friendly. The italian did not seem to take any offense at all. I found this Italian Professor to be very interesting; his topic during the presentation was the most interesting----Immigration and migrant policies in the EU. He had a very empathetic and thoughtful speech. We seemd to agree at lunch regarding the movement of peoples. It is my personal opinion that those who argue for free trade NEVER acknowledge that REAL free trade must allow the free movement of labor---not just capital. Until this is a reality, free trade and globalization do not truly exist. For the world this expression applies only to capital---which is a farce. I get in trouble at hiome sometimes when confronted with so-called free market types who rail against "illegal immigration". I won't indict any political parties but I think you all know who I am calling hypocritical. Free trade means free movement of ALL transferrable factors of production. It doesn't exist otherwise. I will post a photo of this very nice fellow, Dr.Ezio Benedetti, University of Trieste when I have the opportunity to do so.
These guys all left this morning for Moscow where they will continue their tour in support of European Studies and EU education.
The visiting contingent of EU expert professors arrive mid-morning. I notice that the small conference room in our office is well supplied with coffee, tea, and a variety of goodies and it appears that this is for our visiting professors. They arrive, are ushered into the conference room, and I am invited in as well. They are lead by a Professor Silvo Devetak, Law Faculty and Programme Head at the University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia. This project is a multi-institutional endeavor involving universities in Moldova, Ukraine, Russia(including this one), Germany, Italy, Romania, and Slovenia. These fellows are building a curriculum, library, faculties etc., for something called EUNEG----essentially a modern European Studies curriculum( BS, MA, PHD) with emphasis on the EU. From what I can tell, graduates will be highly qualified to work in upper level EU type diplomatic jobs---lots of law---environmental, immigration---cultural perspective, and of course the complicated nuances that result from the management of the European Union.
Anyway, we get to chat a bit in the small conference room---they all speak very good English. They are interested in the American. There is a very obvious Euro Zone slant to the discussion. I am becoming very adept at identifying some common academic viewpoints on America. They all seem to have a great sense of humor and we laugh quite a bit. Smart interesting fellows. After about 10 minutes, we are all ushered into a large, very smartly appropriated large conference room. Pictures to follow tonight, but basically students are seated around the perimeter of the room(many of these are these international students). I sit in this perimeter seating as well. I am very curious as to how the students perceive, focus, and react to what is coming. They seem engaged at first. There are several of my colleagues, professors at the Institute, seated at the main table with microphones. The Euro Professors all will make 45 minute presentations on various aspects of the European Union. Yup....that will be 4-5 hours of talking. I should say some things about my colleagues here at the Stolypin Volga Region Institute of Administration. They are a formidable bunch, many of them quite young. Very bright. This school is well appointed physically; clean, well lit, nice furniture, working microphones at each seat. A fellow I have become quite aware of here is Dr. Maxim M. Mokeev, Professor of Public Management. He sat next to me at the Conference on Local Government last week and while I didn't understand much, people sure did listen to him. Very bright guy, funny, young, but commands respect. Anyway, Maxim seems to have been somewhat involved in this EU project as well. He and a fellow Professor of Public Administration, Dr. Kamil Ramazonov( A Tatar) are the most engaged people in the room and ask the only questions---relevant, precise---after each speaker, for the whole presentation.
I go to lunch with these two fellows, Dr. Bobarykina(Natalia), and the six Euros to the Irish Pub, midway through the presentations. This is worth mentioning for several reasons---I don't go "out" to eat here much, so I pay some attention to the process. We are going to have what is called a "business lunch", a fairly common menu strategy here---fixed price, choice of certain menu items. A young woman comes to the table to begin the order process---and it is certainly a process. She is patient, speaks in Russian only, and has a uniform that is kind of like a Russian TGI Fridays issue. This business lunch involves choice of soup OR salad. Soup: Chicken(my choice), Fish(river), and veggie. Salads---not sure exactly of all the choices, but one is beef tongue salad. it is a bit of an ordeal explaining that you get soup OR salad and Professor Devetak orders both( and gets both). Getting through soup or salad takes 15 minutes. Natalia, Maxim, and Kamil patiently translate the choices. The main courses can be Chicken, Fish, Pork, or Spaghetti. I choose Pork--it comes with cheese melted on top and is quite good. There are potatoes with it. The visiting guys all have a beer. I feel like I am at work and do not order beer. My Russian friends do the same. Food takes a while to come, but we have a good time. I enjoy all of these people, the conversation is lively. We laugh a lot. at one point, we are discussing the micro-cultures/languages of the former Yugoslavia and surrounding areas. There is some discussion of fascist policies dring the 1930s-40s that sacrificed local language, architecture etc.....I think, humorously to bait our Italian friend----and one of the Slovenian guys said. pointing at him...."you!" you did it....you personally came here and did this......very funny, totally joking, completely sarcastic. We all laughed very hard. The atmosphere was very friendly. The italian did not seem to take any offense at all. I found this Italian Professor to be very interesting; his topic during the presentation was the most interesting----Immigration and migrant policies in the EU. He had a very empathetic and thoughtful speech. We seemd to agree at lunch regarding the movement of peoples. It is my personal opinion that those who argue for free trade NEVER acknowledge that REAL free trade must allow the free movement of labor---not just capital. Until this is a reality, free trade and globalization do not truly exist. For the world this expression applies only to capital---which is a farce. I get in trouble at hiome sometimes when confronted with so-called free market types who rail against "illegal immigration". I won't indict any political parties but I think you all know who I am calling hypocritical. Free trade means free movement of ALL transferrable factors of production. It doesn't exist otherwise. I will post a photo of this very nice fellow, Dr.Ezio Benedetti, University of Trieste when I have the opportunity to do so.
These guys all left this morning for Moscow where they will continue their tour in support of European Studies and EU education.
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