The Challenge: Academic Freedom in the Former Soviet Union

How will the Russian intelligentsia survive during the transition to democracy? That rather casual question, put on the table during an intense period of introspection about the work of Carnegie Corporation of New York by its then new president Vartan Gregorian, has challenged the Corporation’s international peace and security division to create opportunities that will echo in the former Soviet Union for decades to come.

If revolutions are led by intellectuals, the work of building a country is not. The spotlight often moves from the university campus to the corridors of power; the work of history and philosophy, literature and political science can be left in the dust as enthusiasm focuses on creating bureaucracies and institutions. Gregorian, a scholar who had been leading institutions of higher learning for many years when he accepted the presidency of the Corporation in mid-1997, brought his personal perspective to the needs of the former Soviet Union. As Gregorian, along with his colleagues in the Corporation’s international peace and security and education divisions, considered the work the foundation should pursue in the new century, he knew there would be a role to play in Russia and the post-Soviet successor states. As a historian, Gregorian understood that in major political transformations intellectuals are often unprepared and unprotected. He wondered if Carnegie, with its long-standing tradition of working to improve U.S.-Soviet understanding and its reputation in Russia—and elsewhere—as an organization dedicated to the advancement of education, could bolster, invigorate and encourage the intelligentsia who were left from the changes without adequate resources for scholarship. He challenged the Corporation to play a leading role in Russian higher education since, for centuries, Russia’s scientists, academics, scholars and other leaders—collectively, the intelligentsia—have been a creative engine of the society.

CASEs: An Idea Takes Shape

That was the genesis of the idea of CASEs, Centers for Advanced Study and Education, which will be established in Russia and other former Soviet Union states over the next decade. Deana Arsenian, a Carnegie Corporation senior program officer and director of HEFSU (Higher Education in the former Soviet Union) who passed her early school years in Moscow, has spent the last two years shaping this program, which will create regional centers of excellence. She has engaged a team of senior management of the Corporation and a wide circle of outside advisers from within and outside of Russia. The program will develop a network of scholars beyond the main academic hubs of St. Petersburg and Moscow who will be able to continue to advance in their disciplines, conduct research and also teach a new generation of scholars. The centers will be more than lifelines for intellectuals caught without access to scholarly journals and to other scholars: They will be magnets for entire regions to build new learning centers that can invigorate professors, students and communities.

“If I ever had a doubt that our centers could contribute to scholarship in this vast land of the former Soviet Union, my travels to distant points and communities have erased those doubts,” says Arsenian. “After difficult years of neglect and change, Russian regional universities are starting to rebuild and are competing for students and resources. A certain resiliency and ingenuity are alive. When I meet with rectors in every corner of the country,” she continues, “I find them anxious and eager to compete for these centers, which will offer access to resources and connections for their professors. The universities want their scholars and students connected to the ideas, changes and discoveries of today. The CASEs will help do that.”

The Beginning

As a starting point, the Corporation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation commissioned a major study on higher education in the former Soviet Union by the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. The report, written by Blair Ruble and Nancy Popson of the Kennan Institute and Susan Bronson, an independent scholar on Russia, offered a baseline appraisal of the issues facing higher education. It was a springboard for Arsenian who engaged a team of educators and foundation officers through an analysis of opportunities. Andrei Kortunov, director of the Moscow Public Science Foundation, became the Russian partner in the program analysis that sketched out a thesis for the CASEs and then put that thesis to the test in meetings throughout the vast and varied regions of the former Soviet Union. Changes were made, strategies refined and a program launched in the spring of 2000 with a $2.4 million grant to the Woodrow Wilson International Center, which will administer the project with the Moscow Public Science Foundation.

One major decision by Arsenian and her team of advisors, arrived at after site visits to a number of Russian universities, was to make the CASEs selection process a competitive one. The strength of spirit and ingenuity, so apparent on the ground in many university communities, meant that choosing one institution over another was not a simple task. The Russian Ministry of Education, which was extensively consulted during the process of exploration, also believed that the competition would be a way for the individual communities to rally their resources and help prepare them for the regional leadership role they would inherit with the centers. The competition will begin during the summer of 2000 with three institutions expected to be chosen as the first CASEs sometime in the fall.

“For Carnegie Corporation, the CASEs are a long-term commitment underlining our belief that the intelligentsia have a unique and important role to play in this march toward a new society that is underway in the former Soviet Union,” says Gregorian. “For centuries, the tradition of learning and scholarship has been a mark of Russia’s greatness and that tradition must be nurtured as the society goes through the transition from a Soviet state. Scholarship knows no political boundaries; it must be free to question, explore, analyze and percolate. Historically, we at Carnegie Corporation have worked to deepen the understanding between Russia and the United States. We think now, more than ever, when knowledge is often the comparative advantage in many business and personal situations, that higher education deserves the commitment of the world.”

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