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Soros Professors Program
From: Valery <Valery>
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 00:00:01 -0800
Last week, in accordance with the decision of the last board meeting, I worked out the description of the Soros Professorship Program. I am sending to you this draft for your consideration and comments. I have also sent this draft to Harley Balzer, Gerson Sher, Yuri Gleba, and George Soros. Gleba is very supportive of this text, and George told me that he was glad to read it. I am still waiting for comments from Balzer and Sher. Let me explain to you some specific details of the proposal. 1. According to the latest Soviet statistics (Narodnoye Khozyaistvo SSSR in 1990 godu, Izd. Finansy i statistika, Moskva, str 219,), there are 911 educational institutes in the former Soviet Union, including 71 Universities, 198 Pedagogic Institutes, and the rest are technical Institutes. Yuri Gleba and I think that we can expect the number of several tens of thousands of professors and associated professors over the FSU who are teaching basic science (In every institute we predict there are about 10 schools - afrekmntnjd; in every school are about 10 departments; in every department there are in total 10 professors plus associated professors; therefore it means that approximately 100,000 Professors plus Associated Professors are in the FSU. But, we have to think that at least 80 percent of this number does not relate to basic science. This explains how I obtained this estimation: several tens of thousands). I think that, theoretically speaking, the substantial portion of them can appeal for nomination. We can predict to receive several thousands applications. 2. a. The process of the review of applications can be split into three categories: initial selection based on students' and teaching colleagues' evaluations, the second round based on the conclusions of the specially formed Committees in every Independent State, third round will be done by the Board of the ISF. Let me give you a brief explanation of this system. b. Teaching colleagues' and students' evaluations are not developed in Russia and other Independent States. I see that it is very important to help Russians and others develop this method of evaluation. We have to formulate something like 10 to 15 specific questions for the evaluation by colleagues to avoid the custom common in the FSU when, instead of consideration of important characteristics, the process relies on personal feelings and personal relations. After obtaining the list of specific questions, we can help to channel the activities of colleagues into the stream of real evaluation instead of personal accusation. For the student evaluations, I think that we can pick up 15 questions (and give 6 grades for every answer) from 299 questions which were included in the Purdue Catalog Items. I prepared a copy of this Catalog, and if any of you intend to help me pick out questions, I can send to you a copy of this Catalog for your convenience. c. Regarding the Committee of Specialists, I don't think that original Skulachev's idea that the Peer Review Committees should be involved in the process of selection of George Soros Professors is correct. My understanding is that the matter of selection of educators should rely on the opinion of educators more than the opinion of pure scientists. So, I think that we can gather together the best educators in every country and ask them to perform the second round of selection. d. A very important subject is how many candidates can be eliminated at every stage. I think that if we use six grade tests for student and colleague evaluations, and will leave in the list of candidates only those persons who have more than 5 positive grades, then we will eliminate more than 90 (or may be even 95) percent of the initial number of applicants. Therefore, from one to several thousand names will be chosen for the second round. Of course it will be important to prepare some formal criteria for the activity of the Committees to help them have the same requirements in different states. I think that it will be realistic to believe that more than 70 percent of the qualifying candidates will be eliminated at this stage. Then we obtain several hundreds of names for our final selection and approval. e. We discussed with Yuri Gleba such option that the overwhelming majority of names will come from the Russian Metropolitan Area, and we both agree that it will be very important to avoid the situation when all stipends will come predominantly to Moscow, St. Petersburg, or Kiev, and that it will be much more important to support the educators who are working in geographically distant places. My question, therefore, is whether you prefer to give quotas for former Republics or establish special coefficients for provincial Institutes, or to let the process develop without our intervention and look for the results? I personally am inclined to take the third scenario. I would appreciate very much any comments. 3. I heard from several Russian colleagues that many top scientists in Russia, especially those who belonged to the leaders of the Academies of Sciences or participated in different scientific councils in the Former Soviet Union, are waiting to obtain the George Soros Professor Positions to live without troubles for several years at least. It seems that it will be wise to establish the rules which will give some priority to people who were out of political activity earlier, and who spent all of their energy on educational duties. I remember from my years at Moscow State University and Timiryazev Academy in Moscow that the best educators were among smaller proportion of professors who were not members of the Communist Party. But simultaneously, I am understanding that the introduction of political accents in our program can create very severe problems in public opinion. Gerson today emphasized this matter and I accept his view without further questions. To avoid the potential problem, we can introduce another principle: to give the awards to educators who had no other source of income, such as additional salary for full membership in the USSR and Republican Academies of Sciences as well as USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, or Lenin's Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The members of Academies lived very profitably in the Soviet Union. Now their stipends look not very large because of inflation, but for years they used their privileges and highest influences, they were involved very deeply in political activity, they used their Institutes, Laboratories and Departments for improper personal advancement (remember that it was not infrequent that Directors of Labs and Institutes put their names in the list of authors of every article from their Institutes, that they only represented Soviet Science abroad, that they participated in enormous quantity of governmental and semi-governmental agencies, committees, and so on; it means that we cannot rely on the Citation Index) and those who were excellent teachers but did not belong to the Academies were and are the real treasury of the educational system. If we will support them predominantly, we will exclude the patronage of the representatives of the old system. 4. Time Frame. My idea is to start the program beginning in 1994. It means that we have a very short time to implement the whole program and to select the candidates. The success of the program will depend on our effectiveness. I personally am ready to spend substantial time in the summer and fall for this goal. I am planning to be in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kirgizia in the middle of July. I asked Harley, Gerson and Alex Goldfarb to supply me with a secretary to help me work productively and am waiting for help from Goldfarb's and Balzer and Sher's offices in this matter. 5. The last question appeared today when I heard from Gerson that he and Harley believe that the Board approved only 2.7 million dollars for this program. I think that there is some misunderstanding. In the beginning (January), we approved a budget in which 8 million dollars were devoted to the Soros Professorship. I don't know who and when decided to trim this sum a little bit, but during our last Board meeting, I found in the document presented by the Russian Advisory Committee 3.5 million dollars for stipends and 3 million for technical support of Soros Professors. George Soros suggested to combine together these figures and as I remember, none of the Board members opposed his suggestion. Nevertheless, I did not find this suggestion reflected in the minutes of the Board, and more than -- Harley and Gerson interpreted this decision as approval by the Board of the sum which is equal to 2.7 million dollars. It has to be clarified and resolved at the next meeting of the Board. Sincerely Valery N. Soyfer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Draft George Soros Professors Program In 1992 New York financier and philanthropist George Soros established a special program in the former Soviet Union to support excellence in undergraduate teaching in the natural sciences. The aim of the program is to support the best educators over the former Soviet Union and to provide technical support for these educators. The program is not intended for only universities, but for professors at any institutions in the field of the natural sciences. 1. Allocated funds 6.5 million dollars are devoted to this program for three years' activity. George Soros expressed his good will extending the program an additional two years based on the results of the first two years of this program. The International Science Foundation will try to raise additional funds for further extenuation. 2. The financial support of the Soros Professorships In total the stipend for George Soros Professors will consist of $20,000 a year, which will be given to the recipient of the stipend. This quantity is divided into two portions: personal salary of the recipient, which is equal to $6,000 a year, and discretionary fund of the George Soros Professor, which is equal to $14,000. The discretionary fund is subdivided into three basic categories: personal discretionary support, $2,000 a year, which can be spent by the George Soros Professor for his/her attending professional meetings or purchasing small personal business items such as a computer, software, clerical equipment; $1,200 a year for hiring a personal assistant; $10,800 will be allocated for technical support of his/her teaching. The award will be given in total to the recipient, and he/she will control the spending of all money based on his/her understanding of the teaching process. For example, he/she can decide to use $10,800 to buy equipment for his/her lectures (video and audio equipment, preparation of hand outs, purchase of special literature, and so on) or research equipment, technical support for the Department or the Institution where the recipient will be affiliated, or even presentation of small student stipends to his/her best pupils from families with minimal incomes (not more than $30 a month per student in addition to the regular student stipend; and not more than 10 students under the direction of each George Soros Professor). These students will be named George Soros Students. The financial service of the institution will be permitted to provide technical control of legal and financially correct spending of the discretionary fund. Any fee incurred for administrative services cannot exceed 1% of the discretionary portion of the stipend. The Institution (or Department) can use not more than 10% of the discretionary fund in the form of indirect costs. 3. The Application Any acting educator in the rank of Associate Professor (Dozent) of Professor as well as a researcher who has experience in teaching of the undergraduate courses andc ready to start his/her regular teaching at the educaztional Institution can apply for a George Soros Professorship. These positions will be offered predominantly for the people who are not active members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, former Republican Academies of Sciences, Russian Academy of Medical Sciencesor Lenin's Academy of Agricultural Sciences and who have no additional support equal to the support from the Academies. Application should include a resume of the applicant, including current position title, scientific degrees, scientific and teaching experience, list of supervised graduate and doctoral students, professional membership, awards (including current and pending grants from local, National, and International Programs, Societies, Funds, etc.), list of publications, phone, fax and E-mail address and must be signed by the applicant. The applicant should attach an explanation of the ideas regarding teaching and methods of improving the educational process (not exceeding two pages). The applicant should indicate the Institution in which he/she prefer to have outside evaluation of application in accordance with the rules for application review (see below Section 4, Stage /ii/). Applications can be prepared either in English or Russian. Applications should be mailed to any of the addresses listed in Appendix 1. A post card and a self-addressed, stamped envelope must be enclosed. The deadline for receiving applications is September 15, 1993. 4. The Review of Applications. The review process will be divided into three stages: /i/ evaluation by the applicant's Institution, /ii/ evaluation by Committee of specialists which will be formed by the ISF and /iii/ approval by the Board of the ISF. Stage /i/ Upon receiving the applications, the local International Science Foundation staff will send the requests to the Institutions where the applicants are affiliated, to perform the first stage of the evaluation. It will include two components: an evaluation by faculty at this Institution and evaluation by students taking classes with the applicant. The forms of the evaluation (Appendix 2) and the procedure will be attached. The goal of this stage is to evaluate the ability of the applicant to establish productive collaboration with his/her colleagues, to test his/her teaching ability and effectiveness, and to understand the merits of the applicant's motivation in obtaining the position of George Soros Professor. The applicants who will not be able to receive the score larger than 5.0 will be excluded from further competition. This stage must be completed by October 31, 1993. Stage /ii/ The second stage will be an independent professional evaluation which will be done by specialists in the applicant's scientific field. The National Advisory Boards of the ISF will establish committees of outstanding educators and scientists in the basic fields of the natural sciences, which will take the second round of the evaluation. The list of the members of the Committees in every Independent State will be published by October 15, 1993. Each Committee will consist of thirteen specialists, two-thirds of which must be actively teaching at the time. These committees will start their work after obtaining the reviews of the Institutions. The Committees will send out the applicants' documents to the independent Institutes which will be selected in accordance with the requests of applicants or according to the decision of the Committee if the applicant did not indicate his/her choice. Upon completion of this work and obtaining the evaluation results of the outside Institutions, the Committees will select the best candidates. Their decisions should be based on the following criteria: the formal score of the teachers and students, the formal score of the outside Institutions, general overview of written summaries of Institutional reviews, the formal characteristics such as: the Citation Index, outstanding publications, and innovative ideas of the applicants. This stage must be completed by November 15, 1993. Stage /iii/ The Board of the ISF will make the final decision on the nominations of the George Soros Professors by December 15, 1993. This decision will be made on the basis of the number of applications, the available funds, and comparative analysis of the applicants' data (teaching skill, publications, especially textbooks, references, scientific achievements, and the Citation Index) and their evaluations by students, colleagues, and the National Advisory Committees. Two preference will be made by the Board of the ISF: /i/ the preference will be given to applicants and Institutions from geographically distant places of the Former Soviet Union, and /ii/ to applicants from internationally recognized scientific and teaching schools, the retaining of which will be important for the progress of whole Humankind. Both preferences will be made with appreciztion of other above mentioned criteria for obtaining of the Gesorfe Sosros Professor position. The positions will be officially offered by George Soros by December 25, 1993, and funds for individual recipients will be transferred to the Institutions of the new Professors by January 1, 1994. GEORGE SOROS EMERITUS PROFESSORS Two hundred positions of George Soros Emeritus Professors will be offered to outstanding scientists and educators over the former Soviet Union to support this people financially and to appreciate their role in the development of science and the educational system of the FSU. These positions will be offered for the people in the rank of Full Professor who are not members of the Russian Academy of Sciences or former Republican Academies of Sciences and who have no additional support equal to the support from the Academies. Preference will be given to people who never were members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, but people who focused their activity in scientific and educational fields. Each stipend will consist of $1,500 a year. Applications Every person aged 55 and over for women and 60 and over for man can apply for nomination and should submit the following documents: a CV, including a list of publications with special attention to textbooks and teaching materials, a list of courses which he/she taught during his/her career as an educator, the list of Candidates of Sciences and Doctors of Sciences whom this person supervised, letters of reference from at least three Professors in his/her field, and any other materials which can confirm the outstanding role of the applicant in education. Application Evaluation The committees formed under the National Advisory Boards of the ISF will collect the applications and will choose candidates for the positions of George Soros Emeritus Professors. The decision about the nominations of the Emeritus Professors will be made by the Board of the ISF by January 1, 1994.
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