CEU :: Central European University

As CEU alumni you can expect to receive Alumni News once per year. The magazine contains details of forthcoming events, news of regional alumni groups, profiles of individual alumni as well as feature articles. This is the Winter 2006 issue of our highly popular print magazine, Alumni News. In order to improve the publication even more, and better assist with outreach, the Alumni Affairs Office is putting additional focus on the magazine's content. Alumni News will now serve as a source of reflection on alumni careers and achievements —success stories as well as challenges, articles detailing experiences from which others can learn, interviews, and personal stories—all materials documenting the impact of CEU on your lives today. We call on CEU alumni and friends to submit texts and images that will help Alumni News realize this new emphasis. In addition, feel free to contact us with story ideas, suggestions on feature articles, and general wishes for the content of future issues. Send material, including articles and event announcements, to <alumni@ceu.hu>. Thank you for your active involvement with CEU alumni publications.
(To see last year's edition online please click here)

Dear CEU Alumni and Friends,

When CEU was founded it was part of the Open Society network and as its basis the mission of promoting open societies and democracy served as a firm foundation. Now, as the university has become a research-intensive graduate institution aspiring to the status of belonging to those among the best, this ideal continues to guide the work of CEU, but obviously there is a need to critically rethink whether open society has kept its original meaning, and what democracy actually means today. On the positive side: Globalization has become almost complete, on a gross average world-wide it has achieved some growth in the well-being of people, and again from the bird's eye-view, there is more democracy and fewer wars than in the times of the bi-polar world. Yet, those that are poor are poorer than ever before; social inequality is a glaring wound on the face of humanity; millions are dying due to HIV/AIDS, Multi-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis and Malaria. Our world may have become to some extent flat-to paraphrase the title of the recent Thomas Friedman book which has created much excitement-yet local phenomena, local cultures, local, mostly moderate, religions, are spreading, and we have lost our role models for democracy. While one should not forget that the US is still the greatest democracy in the world, it is far less perfect than we used to believe a few years ago. Indeed, there is almost no place on this "round" earth which can serve as a model for the ideal democracy.

Recently, in a lecture at the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, and in a subsequent long discussion at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, the brilliant political analyst, Perry Anderson, discussed the future of Europe. Reading the trends, and not taking into account any possible effective counter-trends by individuals, groups or even nations, he predicted that Europe will continue to grow, based on market-centered agreements, with less and less democracy, and actually less politics. I find his vision apocalyptic, and while not claiming to be able to read the trends differently, I certainly believe that all our intellectual energies have to be invested to withstand the trend. All this points to a very strong need to rethink our Enlightenment-rooted socio-political concepts in an in-depth, international intellectual research effort. Democracy and open society are among those inherited cherished concepts. Such a rethinking is a daunting task to be undertaken by many, and the very best from everywhere in a multi-polar world. CEU aims at taking up a modest role in this envisioned enterprise, and would like to see more of its alumni engaged in this rethinking process.

In June 2005, the meeting of the Board of Trustees became a turning point in the life and future of CEU. In a dramatic act of support and confidence in CEU, George Soros announced that he was doubling the endowment of the university to 400 million Euro. This new endowment arrangement has allowed a smooth and more secure running of the university, and permits the administration to concentrate on other means of enlarging the budget like "aggressive" recruitment, more fee-paying students, systematic attempts at fundraising for non-restricted funds, etc. It also allows the faculty, the departments, and the academic strategic planning to concentrate on further deepening the mission and the academic quality, and to introduce the desired changes in curricula, doctoral training, interdisciplinarity, mission-oriented research centers and international contacts.

Since receiving institutional accreditation in Hungary (in April 2005), CEU has been preparing to accommodate the Bologna-prescribed system. Having no undergraduate programs other than the BBA, we plan to introduce modular one-year and two-year Master's programs. In this way we can admit those with both a three-year and a four-year Bachelor's degree from any country. Moreover, this also enables us to tune ourselves to what the Hungarian law requires as "Master training." The departments of History and of Medieval Studies have prepared such a modular curriculum. This brings the two departments closer, involves some joint courses at the early stage of the MA studies, and at the same time leaves enough independence to both departments. We are now working with other departments to prepare such "shared" modular programs.

The most formidable academic task facing us is to work out curricula and programs such that these would make it worthwhile for a very good student who can be accepted to any leading Western university, to come to CEU instead and to possibly even pay fees. To achieve that we not only have to be at a very high level of academic achievement, but our programs must also offer enough unique features that are not being offered elsewhere. Naturally one of our greatest assets is our internationality: This year our students come from almost 70 countries. Secondly, our geographic position and "bridge" character also play a role, and have to be intelligently highlighted in our promotion materials. The administration, the departments, and the Senate's Curriculum Committee, chaired by Howard Robinson, will have to cooperate in that task.

You, as CEU alumni, can assist us in advancing our mission by becoming "ambassadors" for your alma mater in your own community. Whether you contribute to the CEU Alumni Scholarship Fund, help recent graduates to find good employment opportunities, or talk about your CEU experience to prospective students, you make a real difference! In fact, our alumni recruitment program has more graduates each year, who serve as recruitment volunteers and represent CEU at educational fairs, presentations, workshops, academic and professional events, as well as at pre-departure orientations. Residing in more than 80 countries, across all continents, CEU graduates are vital partners in helping fulfill the university's mission to be in the service of pressing and challenging social needs. I would like to encourage you to continue your support for CEU, and share a common interest in critical reflection and social engagement.

Bringing Global Approaches into Local Contexts:
Alumni Reflect on the Teaching of the Social Sciences and the Humanities
in Transition Societies

Since 1991, nearly 1000 CEU alumni have taught part- or full-time at universities and colleges all over the world, thus contributing to the devel-opment of new ways of thinking, learning and undertaking research. Some are enrolled in PhD programs where teaching is required for reasons of professional advancement. Others have taken up teaching positions at their home universities, often through Open Society Institute (OSI) sponsored programs that support talented scholars seeking an academic career in post-socialist countries.

In line with our new editorial policy, we encourage alumni to share their teaching experiences and to become part of a wide debate on the various ways in which higher education evolves, and more specifically, how the social sciences and the humanities are taught in countries that are undergoing political and economic transition. Starting this debate on the pages of Alumni News, the challenges and rewards of teaching are explored by CEU and the Civic Education Project* (CEP) alumni, who have the challenging experience of teaching the social sciences in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and China.

The "Use" of the Humanities in Central Asia or Student-centered
Learning for Better Education

Michael Hamon (CANADA, MEDS '03)

On the whole, my entire teaching experience was very fulfilling, and I had an opportunity to find a "use" for all those years of studying. In addi-tion, far more than simply inculcating the ideas of critical thinking, open society and democracy which my Western background and the insti-tution of CEU posit, I was able to develop an understanding of my students and share with them my own values and especially my love for learning. Below I have outlined some of the tactics I used to promote this passion and I have also tried to give a very short introduction to the challenges facing Western academics teaching in Central Asia. I argue that student-centered learning and the humanities curriculum demand active participation by the students, which in turn fosters an enthusiasm and motivation to learn.

Expectations
In general, humanities in English (HiE) classes have quite a high drop-out rate. It was not uncommon that only 30-40% of the students were still attending classes at mid-term. Interest in our courses was always high but the ability of students to attend the full semester was surpris-ingly low. Many other instructors, local and international, have remarked on the difficulty of motivating students in the post-Soviet region. Low motivation is grounded in endemic corruption, obstruction of students' creative and innovative thought, and the seeming purposelessness of a liberal arts education.

Being forewarned by my frustrated predecessor about the students' lack of motivation, I began classes with much lower expectations. The main problem instructors from the "West" seem to have is a miscommunication about our expectations. Often instructors experience "culture shock" at the completely different culture of learning, as do the students. Low motivation is grounded in a sense of helplessness on the part of the students who despair at the immense task ahead of them. To encourage motivation and independent thinking instructors and students need to understand each other's expectations.

One rule that I laid down at the very beginning was my zero tolerance for plagiarism. Plagiarism is the best known problem of education in Cen-tral Asia and I will not dwell on its implications or causes. In order to make this clear, my very first assignment was "a footnote." This may be a surprisingly small assignment, but it guaranteed that they had the ability to cite any text from the Internet or from a book and that they were aware of what plagiarism was. Some students had to do the first exercise three or four times, but only when they got it right were they allowed to engage in further writing assignments.

Because I started with lower expectations and gradually raised those expectations, this gave the students the time to adjust to the new style of learning and to see that it was possible to accomplish the tasks. The positive motivation allowed me to eventually bring the whole group up to a level where they became competent, critical and responsible, even as they learned to enjoy this new educational experience.

Activities
Student-centered learning requires high energy. I used the metaphor of the theatre in class by continuously using the tools of theatre: Spot-lights, applause and a range of actors. This motivated students, again because they were involved, thinking actively and creatively, and hav-ing fun. The front of the class was our stage, with frequent student presentations, demonstrations and speeches. Students played games, invented role-plays, presented their work and even taught the class.

Class discussions began on a basic level, with questions and answers according to the Socratic method. To dissuade students from accept-ing an answer too easily, I often played devil's advocate by adopting extreme positions, or pointing out their own contradictions. Neverthe-less, this dynamic is not true discussion; students should be asking their own questions and critiquing their peers. A more student-centered dynamic was encouraged by simply being silent after one student made an outrageous claim. The students themselves responded to the deafening silence and raised their own questions.

Initially, I found that only the most active students would take part in the discussions. For a good student-centered classroom everyone needed to participate. This was possible to achieve by drawing out the discussion, but play, in every sense of the term, was more construc-tive. One example that forced students to take an active role was a simple activity to "stand-where-you-stand." Different parts of the room were associated with a certain standpoint on different issues and students had to move back and forth as the issues or their standpoint changed.

Chaos! Had all this "play" created a monster? Did the students no longer value the knowledge and experience of the educator? No, the stu-dents were not allowed to forget the role of the educator. Private consultation over the results of every student's paper forced them to think about their own work and my comments on it. Giving them a model to follow and showing them concrete examples inspired and encouraged them to excel.

Curriculum
The humanities curriculum that the Aga Khan Humanities Project (AKHP) has developed furthered these same twin goals of responsibility and enjoyment. A liberal arts program requires that students should learn to think critically and creatively. They should be able to express their own opinions and to deal with different interpretations. Indeed, the first chapter asks the question: "What is interpretation?" Answers to this basic question were presented in a variety of case studies from different cultures, dealing with issues in interpretation in Islam, politics, Chris-tianity, and others. By addressing these issues through literature (poetry and prose), art, music, newspaper articles and even scholarly pieces, students were able to engage with the material on a variety of levels and make the topic relevant to their own daily life.

The study of the humanities has been sadly deficient in the post-Soviet region. It was seen as a field of little use, sometimes even a threat, to the ideology of politically-oriented academies; thus arts, literature, history and especially philosophy tended to be stifled. However, the study of the humanities encourages the kind of liberal thinking which open democratic societies require and is therefore terribly pertinent, if not es-sential, to building this kind of society.

The advantage of teaching such material is that students learn to deal with ambiguity and develop a tolerance for diversity of opinion, culture and ideologies. Presenting classical thinkers, who are often in disagreement, for students to question and read critically, authorizes them to develop their own understanding of what and why they are reading in the first place. It gives them the right, and the ability to "create" their own interpretations. Essentially it begins to break down the concept that ideas and great thinkers are not simply idealized by the all-knowing lecturer at the front of the class and memorized by the students, but are there to be used.

Results
What are the consequences of this change? This is what I hope has happened. Each student now feels a greater responsibility for his/her own thoughts and ideas. This responsibility is reflected in the decline in the number of plagiarized assignments, an increase in the number of completed assignments and a greater level of critical thinking. Quoting someone with a proper footnote in your paper is no longer a tiresome task but a point of pride. Ideas and knowledge were no longer accepted and memorized uncritically, but became something created and "owned" by an individual thinker. Intellectual property was not a weird concept from the West but empowerment and right of ownership for even the youngest in the remotest (by Western standards) part of the world.

Finally, I believe this student-centered education has achieved the ability to treat "serious academia" with light-hearted fun. Too often educa-tion is seen as something tedious but necessary for your future, which is a dull responsibility. This tends to destroy the eager quest for learn-ing something new. Education should be seductive if it is going to be a prolonged experience. Especially within the field of the humanities, education ought to be an interesting and entertaining experience. If all my other hopes are dashed, then at least I shall have left my students with the memory that learning is enjoyable and pleasant.

* From 1991-2004 the Civic Education Project (CEP) operated three different fellowship programs in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The Aca-demic Fellowship Program (AFP) builds on Higher Education Support Program's (HESP) experience as a core funder of the Civic Education Project while also adopting exciting new approaches for achieving lasting reform in higher education.

Journey to the East: Three Years of Learning and Teaching in China

Gabor Holch (HUNGARY, IRES '98)

When it comes to education, I have always found it difficult to draw "clear lines" for myself. For one thing, I completed two university majors and two one-year graduate programs between 1991 and 2000, interrupting my studies with periods of teaching, research and various profes-sional engagements more than once. Moreover, I have always had a certain uneasiness whenever I felt that the borders of a certain profes-sional field did not coincide with my concepts and ambitions; at CEU I discovered the value and beauty of interdisciplinarity. Finally, I have always felt that teaching and being taught are nothing but different attitudes to the same process in education and academia, and so they should be for professors and students alike. Consequently, I have considered every single one of my teaching assignments as an opportunity to learn, a scholarship granted in exchange for opening up to this fascinating interaction.

It was in this state of mind that I accepted a number of teaching assignments in the People's Republic of China. Since arriving here in August 2002, I have had the opportunity to be involved in coursework in various subjects ranging from business English and English academic writ-ing, to philosophy and international relations. Also, although they do not qualify as teaching as such, in the spirit of interdisciplinarity, I would like to include intercultural business communication seminars I facilitated for managers and public officials. These projects made the past few years a very intensive experience, and put me in touch with different audiences including undergraduate and graduate students, Chinese and foreign corporate managers, government-appointed business people and civil servants.

Having access to such a cross-section of professional society in China put me in a unique position as a foreigner, and had an immense influ-ence on my work on all levels. I often found myself dealing with a treasury of background information to support my courses, which gave me the double pleasure of doing research and preparing coursework. Many of my university courses involved discussions about government and the private sector in China, rolling out a plethora of first-hand experiences and personal opinions that placed my China-related research in a context of flesh-and-blood reality. Obviously, these same sessions helped me to understand my corporate and government participants as well. In turn, working with business people and public officials made me understand the future ambitions and prospects of my university stu-dents much better. I think this position prevented me from becoming too abstract and idealistic in either academic or corporate courses, something that I find one of the major weaknesses of many Western experts in China.

Since my last point may be a bit too general, let me cite a concrete example to illustrate it. In the spring of 2003, I delivered a series of lec-tures and seminars in ethics to students of a Salem International University management program in Shanghai. Ethics is a branch of specula-tive philosophical thought on one hand, while on the other it is an applied science with practical consequences for individuals, companies and other institutions. Since the majority of central ideas in modern applied ethics originate from the so-called Western intellectual and legal tradi-tion, Western lecturers will find it very easy to fall into the trap of approaching this subject in a simplistic and somewhat condescending way. The problem can be precipitated by the fact that quality-conscious academic management often pick well-written textbooks that otherwise lack relevance: Our university had chosen books obviously designed for American students with previous training in Western philosophy and direct exposure to information on issues such as sexual harassment litigation and gun ownership.

As a foreign lecturer, one way to approach this course would have been to elaborate on the case studies so that Chinese students could under-stand the context better. This, however, would have left me without the feeling that I am preparing them for their future jobs and for using their own analytical abilities. Another possibility could have been to simply replace the case studies with ones taken from Chinese practice, for in-stance, the sexual harassment part, which officially exists in Chinese legislation but which is hardly used, with other disciplinary issues. This would appear more appropriate as a tool for "localizing" the curriculum and making it more practical for the future. However, from my previous work with corporate and public-sector managers I knew that taking foreign ethics codes and applying them in a top-down manner in China, a country with long-standing cultural, political and legal traditions, happens to be one of the major sources of frustration and failure among foreign managers and Chinese regulators. In practical terms, as illustrated by several major problem areas such as intellectual property issues, fallings out between Chinese and foreign joint venture partners, corruption control, and others, this approach does not work.

In such cases, one viable attitude on a foreign lecturer's part seems to be to accept the problem as it is, unsolved. This will enable brain-storming sessions for possible solutions with course participants, be they undergraduate students or senior managers. The reason why this paradigm shift often does not occur may be that it certainly deprives the lecturers of their aura of teleological superiority, and makes them admit that in spite of their factual knowledge they may not be closer to solutions than others in the room.

Another reason may be that this attitude will invariably call for more preparation work in a less predictable course structure. However, I always considered it a privilege to participate in such efforts to come closer to genuine, sustainable long-term solutions.
Another privilege I had as a result of such assignments was to introduce Chinese students to the Western thought of millennia, including Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Stuart Mill and the analysis of current events on the world stage. Due to various factors, Chinese university stu-dents have intermittent and often biased ideas about world history and culture; this is caused partly by state propaganda, but also by the his-tory of East-West interchange and centuries of poorly-informed Chinese scholars publishing about the rest of the world. The clear slate of my student's knowledge was exactly what made ethics and other social science courses such a special experience for me. I think telling intelli-gent young people about Plato or Stuart Mill for the first time is every philosopher's dream; however, in reality it is a situation that I had to deal with in a careful manner.

The Asian educational tradition places great emphasis on memorizing, and therefore Chinese students are amazing at remembering data and opinions. However, once memorized, information sticks and makes independent analytical thinking relatively difficult. Foreign lecturers are often shocked to discover that their preparations for vivid discussions with challenge-thirsty youth get shipwrecked when Asian students sim-ply expect professors to tell them what to think. Telling them to think independently will not help, since the problem is not one of intellectual capacity, but that of communication: Chinese society expects you to keep your opinion to yourself when it directly conflicts with that of a sen-ior person-a professor being one example. The best solution I managed to come up with was to create a team atmosphere where students and lecturer work together to analyze, understand and suggest solutions. In such a context, I also found out that our philosophical texts in-stantly turned from texts to memorize, into effective tools for developing critical thinking.

However, no one can guide others through such paradigm shifts unless he or she has previously experienced these on one's own. In our own society, where we take our own peculiarities so much for granted that we do not even notice them, teaching or lecturing is much more of an intellectual experience than one experiences in an exotic cultural environment.

In my first months as a lecturer in China, one of the unexpected difficulties was that I was totally at a loss when trying to read participants' emotions and reactions. It took quite some time until I could tell, as we do so naturally back home, whether my Chinese students were bored or stimulated, approving or disapproving of the course, or to what extent they grasped the argumentation. It has taken a lot of learning to be able to teach here.

On the other hand, the stressful moments and sleepless nights of these years were easily outweighed by the euphoria of delivering intercultural communication training in Luo Yang, a city along the Silk Road that served as the main channel of East-West exchange for cen-turies, or watching and discussing "Bowling for Columbine" with Chinese students, as part of the credit entitled "Race, Class and Gender," and seeing it through their eyes. It is through these experiences that I am hoping to improve the skills I find to be the most important in educa-tion and training: To serve as a facilitator

Higher Social Science Education in the former USSR: a Survey of Challenges for Visiting Lecturers

Andreas Umland

This report combines previous findings, personal impressions, and a number of general observations on the teaching of the social sciences in post-communist universities. It does so by examining the particular problems that Western-educated lecturers with little experience of post-Soviet higher education may encounter when taking up appointments at post-Soviet universities. Most of the information was gathered during visiting lectureships at two Russian and three Ukrainian higher education institutions, from 1999 to the present. Unlike other analyses that deal with the generic problems of teaching social sciences in a language that is foreign to students, this report focuses on the specific issues associated with teaching in a former communist country that is undergoing a process of deep transformation. The following, often critical, remarks on the state of social science higher education in Russia and Ukraine are not expressions of Russo- or Ukrainophobia, (I am half Russian and have Ukrainian relatives), and do not necessarily reflect on my particular experiences at the universities at which I taught.

Compared to similar faculties elsewhere, contemporary social science departments in the post-communist, and especially post-Soviet world seem to exist in a context that is peculiar in at least three ways:

1. The Isolation Problem
Until the late 1980s, social science faculties in the former Soviet bloc and, especially the Soviet Union, were-to a greater degree than faculties of the natural and technical sciences-isolated from their international disciplinary communities. In some fields, isolation was fostered by rather different methodologies and, indeed, definitions of the disciplines in question. Whereas Soviet sociology or jurisprudence developed, from the 1960s at least, in some ways similar to their Western counterparts, economics and political science were, until the late 1980s, academic disciplines rather different from those to be found in the West. To be sure, a number of individual researchers, even in political science, did generate research-sometimes unpublished-that would be regarded as valuable in the West as well. Moreover, under the heading of "a critique of bourgeois approaches," some Soviet social scientists did engage in the systematic study of Western social sciences and history. Most of the literature published in these areas up until the late 1980s was, however, not very incisive and is now out-of-date. Thus, since the late 1980s, post-Soviet social sciences have been busy catching up with Western developments, and, in some sub-disciplines, engaged in building up entirely new research and teaching agendas from scratch.

2. The Indoctrination Problem
Social studies in the former Soviet bloc, as taught in both middle and high schools, were understood less as detached empirical sciences and more as constituent parts of a messianic, fundamentalist and apologetic ideology. Though from the 1960s the Soviet Union no longer constituted a fully developed totalitarian state, the burden of the past on higher education remains, especially in the social sciences, a heavy one.

Natural and technical sciences or mathematics in the Soviet Union were usually more or less isolated from their international communities too. In contrast to the social sciences, however, they developed, with varying success, their own national standards, schools, discourses and teaching styles. Moreover, they managed to establish Soviet Union- or bloc-wide communities with an identity and spirit that were often as advanced as, or sometimes superior to, their Western counterparts.

This was only partly the case for the Soviet scholarly communities (if one can call them that) in disciplines such as economics and political science. The latter discipline, for instance, was, with the exception of foreign area studies and international relations, probably rarely studied, conducted or taught with scholarly passion, curiosity and fascination by anyone in the former Soviet Union. The university departments that constituted the Soviet equivalents of Western political science departments were often simply called departments of "Marxism-Leninism." Social science departments in the Soviet higher education system did not fully constitute, and were not even intended to represent, centers of honest empirical research, open theoretical discourse, pluralistic methodological advancement, or scientific teaching. While some self-critical Western observers would, perhaps, argue that one can also speak of an "indoctrination problem" in Western political science departments, what was happening in the former Soviet Union constituted a phenomenon of an entirely different magnitude.

These Soviet departments were de facto branches of the Communist Party's ideological and propaganda apparatus, and there is, in many cases, still considerable institutional and personnel continuity between them and their re-named post-Soviet counterparts. Many of the former departments of Marxism-Leninism have, to be sure, been open to new ideas and cooperation with Western partners, and are actively introducing new textbooks and research programs. Still, the post-Soviet disciplines represented in these departments do not yet constitute integrated scholarly communities with an informed concern for the most valuable research, useful scholarly literature, and effective teaching techniques. In some post-Soviet Russian social science sub-fields, moreover, there is a new spirit of distinctiveness taking hold. This tendency has expressed itself in, for instance, the establishment of an aggressive "Eurasian" version of the geopolitical approach to international relations; the emergence of a new academic discipline called "culturology" that attempts to systematize national stereotypes in a pseudo-scholarly fashion and to promote the "Russian Idea" as a new meta-theory for Russia; and the uncritical acceptance by a surprisingly large number of Russian social scientists of the abstruse, neo-racist theory of ethnogenesis developed by the late Soviet ethnographer, Lev N. Gumilev.

In short, many of the older professors engaged in social science teaching and research in the former Soviet Union today seem, with some notable exceptions, to be too concerned with their own professional survival, status-preservation and re-definition-not to mention securing a decent livelihood for themselves and their families-to be able genuinely to work as social science teachers with an overriding interest in, and strong ability to, contribute to, the formation of a new generation of social scientists.

3. The Transition Problem
The most important factor affecting how the post-Soviet social sciences can reform or establish themselves is their location in societies currently undergoing processes of profound transformation. Though this state of constant reform, transformation or, indeed, revolution is not a disadvantageous context for social science teaching and research in every respect, the numerous resulting problems far outweigh the few gains. The extremely low salaries of university teachers and administrators, the laughable student stipends (mostly, moreover, merit and not need-based), and the pathetic budgets of university departments, academic libraries, and higher education administrative bodies constitute pressing challenges.

While the financial issue is certainly the most salient problem, it is not the only transition feature that negatively affects higher education in general, and teaching of the social sciences in particular. For instance, students enter college having emerged from an equally crisis-ridden high school system, and then leave university only to enter a tough, unstable labor market. The workplaces that do manage to provide a more or less adequate income by post-Soviet standards are for the most part those at foreign-mostly Western-commercial, governmental or non-governmental institutions. Thus, for many students in the former Soviet Union, the most realistic way to obtain the financial rewards and social status of their Western peers is to emigrate permanently to some Western country. Apart from this large-scale "brain-drain," there are further problematic circumstances, such as perceptions of moral decay, cultural alienation, ethnic tensions or fear of crime, that contribute to an overall climate of stress, pessimism, and insecurity. This has expressed itself in various ways in the everyday teaching process in post-Soviet higher education including-and, perhaps, especially-its social science departments.

Pathologies of Studying
The most unfortunate repercussions of the isolation, indoctrination, and transition problems of post-Soviet higher social science education are those felt by students-whether as objects, or actors within the teaching process. Students are affected by the consequences of the described problems as learners, researchers, university members, and young citizens. Just as overworked, under-paid and sometimes under-qualified university teachers may treat their obligations as a formality, their students may also behave accordingly. Just as some lecturers seem to fake teaching, their students likewise fake learning. Sarcastically, going through post-Soviet social science higher education might well be the best way to learn how to confront post-Soviet public administration: Do not take the many, rather formalistic prescriptions too seriously; instead, try to circumvent them with various forms of falsification, blat, bribes, or any other suitable means.

The somewhat bleak picture emerging should, however, not be seen as the whole story about social science education in the former Soviet bloc. For instance, a key, positive repercussion of the post-Soviet transformation for the social sciences has been the steep rise in the popularity of university courses in such fields as business, law and economics, as well as, to a lesser degree, in journalism, public administration, political science, and sociology.

At the time of the Soviet Union, a common starting point for a career in industry, administration and even the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) apparatus was a degree from one of the country's leading engineering schools, such as the specialized industry institutes in Moscow, or the large polytechnical institutes across the country. Today, in contrast, a higher degree in law, economics, or a similar field is seen by many young people in the former Soviet Union as the best investment for their professional future. I met a number of students who were studying or planning to study for an additional degree, sometimes in a second social science field, as they believed that this would further improve their prospects in the labor market. Many students are well aware that a Western under- or post-graduate social science degree instead of, or in addition to, a diploma from a post-Soviet university will increase their chances of getting an adequate job-whether in their home country or abroad. This is, at least in some respects, good news for social science college departments in general, and visiting lecturers from the West, in particular. Many of the brightest high-school graduates in the post-Soviet world enter higher courses in the social sciences, sometimes with the explicit intention of continuing their studies at a Western university. Incoming Western lecturers can thus usually count on finding a pool of highly motivated, diligent, and intelligent students in their host departments.

Some Addenda for Future Visiting Lecturers
The described list of grave problems in higher social science education in the former Soviet Union might well be sufficient to discourage Western instructors from taking up an appointment in a post-Soviet university. The problems listed also provide a rationale for such visiting lecturer programs as the Civic Education Project (now reconstituted as the Academic Fellowship Program) and constitute the particular challenges that a Western visiting lecturer faces during a stint in the former Soviet Union. After all, why should the West be sending lecturers on a large scale to, for instance, Russia, if these problems did not exist, or were not as grave? It should be noted, however, that in my experience these features are often more than compensated for by welcoming and friendly colleagues, helpful and understanding administrators, and interactions with many highly motivated and able students.

Future potential visiting lecturers from Western countries certainly need to be warned that, when joining a post-Soviet social science faculty at an ordinary state university, they may enter a social micro-system the workings of which are not only different from comparable Western institutions, but also fundamentally problematic if measured by Western standards. On the other hand, this is, of course, exactly the reason for their being there-to set an example of how to work differently, or, perhaps, even to try to change things for the better. In some sense, the situation sketched out herein is also what makes visiting lectureships in post-Soviet state universities such a unique experience. It is one of the few opportunities a Westerner has to become fully integrated into a post-Soviet public institution for a certain period of time. It is a-to some, perhaps, dubious-opportunity to get to know first-hand some pathologies in the thinking and behavior of public officials that are more or less representative of post-Soviet state apparatuses in general. For those who remain interested this can be a fascinating and challenging experience.

Bringing the CEU Learning Experience to University Teaching in
Former Socialist Countries

Matyas Szabo (HUNGARY, SOCI '94)

As director of CEU's Curriculum Resource Center (CRC) I regularly meet alumni of our university, who participate in various faculty programs that we organize for university teachers from Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Participants and grantees of CRC's programs and projects are not necessarily a representative sample of social science faculty in the region, as they all speak English, have been selected through a competitive process, are open to reforms and innovation in teaching, and applied to our programs with the aim of revising their existing courses or developing new areas in their teaching. Within this pool, CEU alumni form a constant and proportionally significant component. The stories and experiences of CEU graduates who returned to their home countries to teach the social sciences and the humanities provide precious information for us in our endeavor of building bridges between global approaches and local contexts, the state of the art in disciplines covered at CEU and students' learning experiences at universities in former socialist countries.

The framework within which these exchanges of experiences and discussions take place are sessions of interactive training workshops that our center organizes at CEU and in our target countries. In the course development, student assessment and faculty evaluation sessions that I conduct, CEU alumni comments contribute to reflections upon the possibilities and challenges that a Western European- or North American-educated young scholar meets when first designing and teaching courses at his or her home country university. The feedback we receive from CEU alumni is incorporated in the recently-launched training course we provide for interested CEU PhD students: We are able to build our workshops around issues in course design and teaching approaches that our graduates need to pay special attention to, if they decide to continue their careers as faculty in Central and Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union.

In the following paragraphs I will briefly outline some of the impediments of bringing the innovative elements of the CEU learning experience into teaching in the region, and a few personal accounts of our CEU graduates regarding individual (that is non-institutional) solutions for overcoming them. (Therefore, I will not talk about the problems of large classes, heavy teaching loads, or underpaid teaching staff as these issues cannot be solved by individual faculty.)

An overarching general negative feature that many CEU graduates regard as the main barrier to innovation in teaching is lack of student motivation. In a mass higher education system financed on the basis of the per student capita funding principle, the surface approach to learning adopted by most undergraduate students still allows them to graduate. Lack of deep interest in, and motivation for, what is being studied at universities is manifested in several aspects of students' attitude in: Participation in classroom discussions, reading the required materials, receiving innovation in content and mode of delivery, fulfilling the requirements and quality criteria of non-traditional assessment methods, etc. Making students actively participate in classroom discussions is often viewed as the ultimate goal of an undergraduate seminar, rather than as a means to achieve higher-level content objectives and outcomes. The development of transferable skills, such as structured argumentation, presentation skills, oral communication or the ability to work in teams thus become even more important than core academic knowledge and skills. CEU graduates wanting to make their students engage in conversation with each other and come prepared to the class having read the required readings, need to invent cunning strategies and provide unusual incentives. Provocative seminar topics and readings, student presentations on case-studies, role-playing, in-class student competitions, film screenings, field-trips, invited guest-speakers, and other similar ways to increase the appetite for learning need to be employed (or rather deployed) more frequently and in larger proportion than under "normal" conditions. As outlined in the comments of a CEU graduate, the image of the lecturer as an authoritative figure, with all the right answers in the subject, needs to be first deconstructed, otherwise students will see no point in classroom discussion: They will perceive it as a mere entertainment for the teacher, orchestrated in order to discover which student's opinion and argument is closest to the "right" answer.

In addition, in the achievement of some more ambitious learning outcomes, a heavy preparatory activity carried out in small steps is frequently required. Some CEU alumni said they needed to spend a large proportion of their lecture- and seminar-time on teaching students general academic writing, and even "critical reading"-all this in order to be able to introduce argumentative essays as a form of assessment. Differences between an argumentative essay and a descriptive "referat" needed to be explained, and examples of both offered. This was followed by mid-term examinations using essay-type questions, and discussions on the criteria for grading the answers. As for reading, in-class reading sessions have been followed by reading guides prepared to help students focus better on the main arguments formulated in an article or book chapter.

The notion of a course reader is still new at many universities in the region. Alumni who take the CEU experience to their home countries feel that sometimes they are alone in trying to put together a course reader. In an environment where the dominant view is that a well-established academic needs to have his or her own textbook for the courses he or she teaches, it is difficult to find support for compiling a reader. Cutting edge research articles are available only in English most of the time, and translation is time-consuming and costly. A practice that could be a possible compromise has been described by several CEU graduates: They ask more advanced, fourth or fifth year students who speak English or other foreign languages to write reading summaries of (or fully translate) journal articles, book chapters, and other primary resource materials as part of their assessment: These papers can then be used in courses offered for first or second year students.

But, convincing students and colleagues that continuous assessment of students' learning brings better results than final examinations, and provides more valuable feedback to both teachers and students on what has been achieved during the semester, is another difficult task. CEU alumni making this effort argue that an open discussion with students on the purpose of continuous assessment methods can prove very beneficial: One needs to point out the role of these methods in assessing not only the product of learning but its process as well, and the meaningful feedback they can provide before the final grade. Comparing individual students' work written at the beginning of the course with their work done at the middle, and then at the end of the course, convinces most students that continuous assessment results in steady development in their professional skills and knowledge.

A well written student-centered course syllabus showing that the teacher has thought over all aspects of course design, and taken into consideration current developments in his or her field, as well as paying attention to the needs of the students, can also contribute to increasing students' motivation. Since not many faculty members prepare and distribute truly student-centered syllabi to all their students, the novelty of such a "gesture" creates a more constructive and cooperative student-teacher relationship. CEU graduates are also aware that the "zero-week presentations" of their courses can be used not only to clarify the content, approach, methodology, requirements and learning outcomes of the course to be taught, but they can also be made into a forum to discuss the most effective ways to achieve joint objectives. Some of our alumni would have two or three lectures and seminars whose topics were agreed upon jointly with students. In this way, they argue, the audience (one might say the benefactors of the learning contract) can shape to a certain degree both the content and the methodology of the courses they are offered.

As always, the glass can be perceived as half empty or half full. In the optimistic view, CEU graduates successfully overcome local higher education challenges, while in the more pessimistic interpretation obstacles to innovation in course content and delivery abound. The conflict among various academic and non-academic, utilitarian and idealistic, long-term and short-term interests is an inherent characteristic of all education systems. One needs to acknowledge and be aware, however, that there are certain patterns in both the system of higher education and in the approach of students, their motivation and learning strategy that are specific to most, if not all, post-communist societies. As higher education reforms develop in the countries of the region, the gap between CEU's teaching practices and the local reality is gradually closing, making the re-integration of future CEU alumni into their home education system a smoother process.

The The Alumni Scholarship Campaign 2005 has been very successful. We reached our target mark of 15,000 USD within nine months of the campaign's outset, in February 2005. The average gift amount increased (from 47 to 66 USD) and the alumni anniversary classes of 1995 and 2000 were leading the campaign. This gives us hope that the classes of 1991, 1996 and 2001 will be motivated to support the good cause and celebrate their 15th, 10th and 5th anniversaries in a very special way. While many individual alumni choose to give substantial amounts, the plan for Alumni Scholarship Campaign 2006 is to increase the alumni partici-pation rate in general and two encourage a larger number of graduates to donate small sums.

As in the previous campaigns, the alumni scholarships awarded in 2006 will be top-up scholarships-raising the scholarship support by one level-for applicants who have been accepted by the university, who are in financial need and who have a record of volunteer or civic engagement.

Based on a decision by the CEU Alumni & Friends Association Alumni Council (AC), the Alumni Affairs & Services Office will prepare a short list for distribution to all AC members and registered alumni contact individuals. The AC members and contact persons are encouraged to consult with their respective alumni constitu-encies while ranking the scholarship candidates.

Staying involved helps all alumni donors. We hope that those of you who did not have a chance to participate in the previous alumni fundraising campaigns, will be motivated to take part in Alumni Scholarship Campaign 2006 (please, read your copy of the Campaign 2006 letter of appeal enclosed in this issue of Alumni News). In this regard, local alumni chapters and clubs can play a more prominent role in fundraising-both by encouraging alumni to get involved and by provid-ing assistance in collecting the money.

Alumni Scholarship Campaign 2005 in Numbers*
Biggest donation:	2644 USD
Smallest donation:	5 USD
Average gift:	66 USD
Number of contributions:	255
Alumni Participation Rate:	5 %
Total amount collected:	16,765 USD
Biggest contributors: Alumni residing in: Hungary, USA, Kazakhstan Classes: 1995, 2000, 1998
Most active chapters (highest percentage of chapter members participating in the campaign): Azerbaijan, Russia, Armenia
* Valid as of December 20, 2005.

Thanks to gifts from CEU alumni, four students have been awarded stipends to cover their costs of living in Budapest for the academic year 2005/2006. The Alumni Affairs and Services team and Yehuda Elkana, CEU President and Rector, met them in October for a lively discussion about their life before CEU and their future career and personal plans.
In the picture (from left to right): Emilia Korytkowska (Poland, GENS '06), Yehuda Elkana, CEU President and Rector, Konstantin Korobchenko (Russia, IRES '06), Alexandr Svetlicinii (Moldova, LEGS '06) and Nicolas Kosmatopoulos (Greece, SOCL PhD).

Konstantin Korobchenko (Russia, IRES '06)

Konstantin graduated with honors from the Department of Law of Voronezh State University (Russia) in 2004. During his time at the university he received numerous academic awards and was actively involved in the student government. In addition, Konstantin served on the Commission for Scholarships and both headed and participated in the work of numerous scientific clubs. He also volunteered for the Voronezh Regional Educational Advising Center and was one of the most active promoters of the Scientific Society of the Department of Law.

Extracurricular Activities:
"I have always felt that a person receiving knowledge should be sharing it with society. Accordingly, I was trying to use my legal background, and did not hesitate to help people who needed legal consultation or assistance. Last, but not least, I was actively involved in different types of sports. Since my childhood I have been playing tennis. I also try to be active in ice hockey, basketball, soccer, volleyball, badminton, table-tennis, swimming, skating and other kinds of sport and to share this pro-sport attitude with my fellows."

First Reaction to the News about Receiving the Alumni Scholarship:
"While I was among those students who got a place at the CEU Dormitory, I was not sure how I would manage to cover my costs in Budapest. You can imagine how pleased I was, when packing my travel bags, I heard that I was awarded the CEU Alumni Scholarship. For me, the Scholarship is both an honor and much needed financial support."

Plans for this Academic Year:
"Apart from studying and academic activities, I am planning to participate in the life of the student community. I hope that my six-year volunteer engagement back in Russia helped me to gain valuable experience which can be used here at CEU. I have recently been elected as IRES representative to the Student Council. This formal involvement in student government will help me to promote the interests of the students, to organize sport events, and coordinate programs that we have already discussed with the Alumni Affairs and Services Office. Besides this, I am interested in volunteering for the Human Rights Students Initiative (HRSI). I hope all my aspirations will come true."

While enrolled in a graduate program in Sociology at the University of Warsaw, Emilia took a variety of courses on history of political ideas, social policy issues, and the functioning of non-governmental organizations. From 2003, she has been actively involved in research on the participation of women in political life in Poland. She did extensive media analysis for numerous research projects, including the "Civil Society Index."

Extracurricular Activities:
"For two years I was a volunteer for the Foundation for Social Communication. It was an opportunity to meet experts on social communication and volunteer leaders from many sectors of Polish society. As a member of the editorial team I participated in public and social events, interviewed people from different walks of life, and was involved in a number of NGOs located in Warsaw."

First Reaction to the News about Receiving the Alumni Scholarship:
"As someone who did not get a scholarship from CEU, I would have had to cover all my living expenses on my own. I was relieved when I got the news about getting the CEU Alumni Scholarship. I also felt that my background was appreciated."

Plans for this Academic Year:
"I believe that both my CEU studies and social engagement as a volunteer will help me to participate efficiently in the further development of civil society. While at CEU, I would like to get involved in the student newspaper. I have already scheduled an editorial meeting with a few other fellow students who are interested in contributing to the publication."

Nicolas got his first degree from the University of Piraeus in Greece, where he was an elected member of the Student Board. While obtaining his second degree in Social Anthropology at the Free University of Berlin, his interest lay primarily in attempting to connect coherently academic tradition and knowledge with political and social issues.
Extracurricular Activities:
"My engagement in extracurricular activities goes back to my school years. Elected president of the School Board at both secondary and high school, I was the initiator of many projects aiming to enhance the political, social and cultural environment of my fellow pupils. While serving on the Student Board at the University of Piraeus, my political interest and social effort were mainly invested in projects related to the recent immigrants into Greek society. The "Anti-chauvinistic Initiative of Piraeus University" was the institutional outcome of all these endeavors. Later, I moved to Berlin and joined "Polyphonic Anthropology," an international, anthropological young scholars' forum. Within the framework of the fifth meeting of the forum, I co-organized a conference and a social research action "Symbols and Rituals of Statehood and Resistance."

First Reaction to the News about Receiving the Alumni Scholarship:
"As I was traveling immediately before coming to CEU, I was not aware that I was receiving the scholarship until the moment I arrived in Budapest. Only at CEU did I realize that I had an account with my first Alumni Scholarship installment in it. It was a good welcome for someone who has to fully cover his stay in Budapest. I was quite surprised to get the award, as I was very open and sincere about my ideological views when applying for the scholarship."

Plans for this Academic Year:
"After having highlighted the most important of my civic engagement activities, I would like to state that these constitute an integral part of my personality for me and therefore I find it difficult to imagine myself without practicing my social and ideological commitment to society. As far as my first year with CEU is concerned, I am planning to actively participate in the student newspaper, as well as to volunteer for the Visual Anthropology Club."

Alexandr Svetlicinii (Moldova, LEGS '06)

Alexandr received an LLB degree in International Law from Free International University of Moldova. While being an international exchange student at California State University Bakersfield (2002/2003), Alexandr served as vice president of the International Students' Club. During the same year, he was involved with the Global Affairs Club, dealing mainly with international projects and participation in academic conferences on international relations and political science.

Extracurricular Activities:
"Throughout my relatively short academic history, I have proved my loyalty and commitment to the institutions and communities I have been affiliated with. Were it a Student Debate Club in Moldova, or local community service projects in California, I was happy to volunteer and provide various services to my fellow students. In 2003/2004, I was a member of a student group supported by the American Council, Moldova. Our group designed and conducted an awareness campaign among prospective high school graduates about the opportunities for higher education in Moldova and abroad. We visited many villages and towns with presentations and workshops. There was no greater satisfaction for me than to see some of those who participated in our activities later become student leaders in their schools and universities."

First Reaction to the News on Receiving the Alumni Scholarship:
"One of the crucial factors that determined my ability to study at CEU was financial assistance. Unfortunately, my personal savings and my family's income are not sufficient to cover living expenses in Budapest, so the Alumni Scholarship is of great assistance to me. I am thankful to the CEU alumni community for this decision."

Plans for this Academic Year:
"I am ready to offer my time and service to promote student participation and extracurricular activities, that is why I joined the student government at CEU. It is a great honor and responsibility to serve on the Student Council of the university. I also hope to be able to continue my involvement when I return home and join the CEU Alumni Chapter in Moldova."

Antoaneta Jotova (Bulgaria, ENVS '91) is a research associate for the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology of the Bulgarian Acad-emy of Sciences.

Vladimir Kostylev (Canada, ENVS '91) is a research scientist at the Department of Natural Resources Canada, studying relationship between distribution of benthic communities and physical properties of seabed habitats. He has developed unique habitat management template, which integrates the most important physical and biological variables into a decision support tool aimed at aiding managers in seabed use conflict resolution, fishery planning and enforcement of Canada's Oceans Act.

Mihaly Posfai (Hungary, ENVS '91) is an associate professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Veszprem. Mihaly is responsible for the environmental sciences curriculum at the university.

Dariusz Kobus (Poland, ENVS '91) continues to work as a senior environmental consultant for the Environmental Capacity Building Program of the Polish Ministry of Science and Environment.

Rasvan-Teodor Negoita (Romania, ENVS '91) works for DBC SMART Software Inc. in Ontario, Canada. He is a development manager in the client/server development depart-ment.

Alexander Pavlovski (Russia, ENVS '91) moved to Halifax in 2002, where he started his own company. Alexander is president and chief executive officer of Green Power Labs Inc. in Canada. The company provides renewable energy resource assessment services and promotes the deploy-ment of solar technologies. Alexander, together with his CEU classmate and business partner, Vladimir Kostylev (Canada, ENVS '91), started a small Atlantic Canada CEU Alumni Club.

Anastasia Svirejeva-Hopkins (Russia, ENVS '91) is working in the area of climate change and policy, as well as global carbon cycle modeling. Anastasia completed her doctoral degree in 2004 while working at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Germany). Currently, she has become involved in research on the new concept of "dangerous climate change" and its role within the Kyoto protocol as well as the EU pol-icy framework.

Monica Lotreanu (Romania, ARTH '92) was appointed director of the Inforom Cultural Foundation in Romania.

Kazmer Kovacs (Romania, ARTH '92) is an associate professor in the History and Theory of Architecture Department of the "Ion Mincu" School of Architecture in Romania. He is also currently involved in a research project at Collegium Budapest. While in Budapest, Kazmer frequently visits the Alumni Affairs Office, and is serving as a class reunion agent for Reunion 2006 activities.

Istvan Mate-Toth (Hungary, ECON '92) serves as a chief financial analyst in the London office of Credit Suisse First Boston.

Mariana Kotzeva (Bulgaria, ECON '93) works in the Department of Statistics and Econometrics at the Bulgarian University of National and World Economy, as an associate professor. Mariana has been actively involved in the CEU Alumni and Friends Association.

Jaroslav Burger (Czech Republic, ENVS '93) works as a project manager in the Safety Resources Department of DuPont CZ.

Ruxandra Popovici (Romania, ENVS '93) is a project manager at the British Council Romania, in Bucharest.

Igor Shoifot (Russia, HIST '93) is president of Epsylon Technologies and Sundera Inc. in Russia, and is also a lecturer at the Manhattan In-stitute of Management of New York University, US.

Joanne Wijaszka (Poland, IRES '93) is first secretary in the European Union Department of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Jan Zdzenicki (Poland, LEGS '93) is currently living in Warsaw and works for the Clifford Chance law firm as a senior business analyst.

Ekaterina Mazmishivili (Georgia, ARTH '94) is executive director of the Basement Theatre in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Ella Pintchoukova (Russia, ARTH '94) is a senior business analyst at Rogers Communications in Toronto, Canada.

Irina Paert (Korovushkina) (Russia, HIST '94) is a lecturer in modern European history at the History Department of the University of Wales, Bangor, UK till December 2005. She is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Tallinn, Estonia.

Maja Petruschevska Zafirovska (Macedonia, IRES '94) is a journalist and producer for the Macedonian Section of BBC World Service, in London, UK.

Ewa Chrzanowska (Poland, IRES '94) works as sales manager at Procter and Gamble Operations, Polska SA, in Lodz, Poland.

Sorin Popovici (Romania, IRES '94) is a project leader at CFG Commodity Trading House, Toronto, which is one of the largest commodity trading houses in North America.

Kurt Bassuener (US, IRES '94) has recently been appointed strategic analyst for the Political Department of the Office of the High Represen-tative in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Before taking this position, Kurt served as political and campaign analyst for the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and the Human Rights' Election Observation Mission in Ukraine.

Damir Karbic (Croatia, MEDS '94) is a research fellow at the Institute of Historical Sciences of the Croatian Academy of Sciences.

Castilia Manea-Grgin (Romania, MEDS '94) works as a senior assistant researcher for the "Croats in Neighboring Countries" Program at the "Ivo Pilar" Institute for Social Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia.

Biljana Bakic (Serbia and Montenegro, LEGS '94) is vice president for special projects at SONY BMG Entertainment in Washington DC, US.

Konstantin Kurganov (Ukraine, LEGS '94) is director of Peters and Burg Ltd. in Budapest, Hungary. He has been a loyal supporter of many alumni initiatives, including the Alumni Scholarship Fund and sport competitions between students and alumni. Konstantin is an honorary member of the CEU Alumni and Friends Association.

Darius Zeruolis (Lithuania, POLS '94) is deputy chancellor of the Lithuanian government with responsibility for European Affairs. He was co-editor of a recently published volume entitled Lithuania's Road to the European Union: Unification of Europe and Lithuania's EU Accession Negotiation.

1995

David Grigorian (Armenia, ECON '95) is an economist at the International Monetary Fund. Despite his very demanding work schedule, he also runs a world-wide network of economists and public policy professionals in Armenia.

Nadir Burnashev (Kazakhstan, ECON '95) left Kazkommerts Securities in June 2005, to become general director of Meridian Securities, the third largest company in Kazakhstan. Nadir is an honorary member of the CEU Alumni and Friends Association and is serving his first term on the Association's Executive Board.

Andrii M. Droniuk (Ukraine, ECON '95) is general director of Golden Telecom, one of the leaders of the telecommunications market in Ukraine.

Karina Rafikova (Russia, HIST '95) works as a manager for Digicolor Srl in Milan, Italy. Karina visited Budapest to join her classmates and celebrate her anniversary reunion in June 2005.

Kristina Plavsak Krajnc (Slovenia, IRES '95) was appointed director of Media Forum, Ljubljana in January 2005.

Helene Lloyd (UK, IRES '95) is director general of Tourism, Marketing and Intelligence Ltd. (TMI) in Moscow, Russia.

Zsuzsa Lehocki (Hungary, POLS '95) is working as a foreign editor for news programs at Duna Televison Company, Budapest.

Svetlana Kulikova (Kyrgyzstan, POLS '95) is currently in her second year of doctoral studies in mass communication and public affairs at Louisi-ana State University, US. "In addition to three main responsibilities-work, study and child-raising-I am helping the on-line newspaper Gazeta.kg with their fundraising efforts and editorial policy," she told us. "Keeping in touch with alumni is becoming increasingly difficult, as we are all over the world and have very different careers and busy lives. Still, we do check in with each other from time to time. Here I am, 10 years after CEU, working on a degree that uniquely combines mass communication and political science, and doing most of my research on the Internet and politi-cal processes, including voting behavior. My favorite CEU professor was Stefano Guzzini who offered brilliant courses in International Relations and brought to us as visiting lecturers internationally-recognized thinkers such as CERI's Pierre Hassner and Jacques Rupnik."

Scott Keller (US, POLS '95) is executive director at the Key Account Management of UBS Global Asset Management in Zurich, Switzerland.

Eric Schmelling (US, POLS '95) is director of planned and major gifts at the Rotary Foundation in Evanston, Illinois, US.

Gordana Uzelac (Croatia, SOCI '95) works in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at London Metropolitan University, as a senior lecturer.

Craig Zelizer (US, SOCI '95) is a senior partner at Alliance for Conflict Transformation in Fairfax, US.

David Morgan (US, HIST '96) has had his book Narracje Konflikt Pamidci. Narracje Radomskiego Czerwca 1976 published in Poland. David is currently a lecturer at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.

Emil Bakeev (Kyrgyzstan, ENVS '96) works as a civil engineer in the UK. "While I mainly work on UK projects, I also participated in projects for Eastern Europe and the Middle East. CEU helped me to continue my education (for a PhD) in the UK and thus, really changed my life," he shared with us.

Helena Zhidkova (Russia, HIST '96) is a research fellow and lecturer at the Center for Gender Studies of Samara State University, in Russia. Helena was the lucky winner of the Reunion 2005 Lottery Prize. Together with her husband she had a complimentary stay at the CEU Residence and Conference Center for a weekend in October 2005.

Alina Yuhymets (Ukraine, IRES '96) is manager of graduate programs at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of British Co-lumbia, in Canada.

Ketevan Gagnidze (Georgia, LEGS, '96) is a human rights officer at the Monrovian Human Rights and Protection Section of the United Na-tions Mission in Liberia.

Jonas Vilimas (Lithuania, MEDS '96) is head of the Musical Programming Department of Lithuania State Television, in Vilnius.

Sergei Safonov (Russia, POLS '96) works as a senior consultant for Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, in Moscow.

Alexei Sitnikov (Russia, POLS '96) is a senior research associate at the Institute for Open Economy in Moscow.

Tatjana Konotop (Estonia, ECON '97) has been promoted to senior-in-charge at the Audit Commercial Clients Department of KPMG, Germany.

Narine Karamyan (Armenia, ENVS '97) is head of the administrative department of the United States Department of Agriculture Marketing Assistance Project, in Yerevan, Armenia.

Vasyl Nepivoda (Ukraine, ENVS '97) had his book entitled The Legal Framework for Regulating Forests: An Era Establishing Sustainable Devel-opment published in December 2004. The monograph analyzes the legal aspects of strengthening sustainable forest management. Focus is primarily placed on the experiences of Western European and North American countries, as well as those of countries in transition.
Isabelle Misic (Serbia and Montenegro, LEGS '97) works as protection officer and head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refu-gees field office in Kahemba, Congo.

Catalin Cosovanu (Romania, IRES '97) is an attorney at Weil, Gotshal and Manges LLP in New York, US. Catalin co-taught a pro bono course to CEU LLM students in intellectual property law, in spring 2005.

Emilia Jamroziak (Poland, MEDS '97) is a lecturer at the School of History of the University of Leeds, UK.

Elena Baraban (Ukraine, MEDS '97) was appointed assistant professor in the Germanic and Russian Studies Department, at the University of Manitoba, Canada, in August 2005.

Tigran Melkonian (Armenia, POLS '97) is a manager at the Armenian Missionary Association of America, in Paramus, New Jersey, US.

Alexei Ionascu (Moldova, POLS '97) works as an operations analyst for the World Bank Office, in Moldova.

Piotr Kazimierkiewicz (Poland, POLS '97) is an expert with the Migration and Eastern Policy Program of the Institute of Public Affairs, Warsaw. His book entitled Schengen Integration as a Challenge to Polish Visa Policy towards Eastern Neighbors was published by the Institute of Public Affairs (ISP, Poland).

Mihaly Szilagyi-Gal (Romania, POLS '97) is a consultant in the Hungarian Ministry of Culture, and advisor to Minister Andras Bozoki.

Zorana Gajic (Serbia and Montenegro, POLS '97) returned to Belgrade from Budapest in March 2005. After working at OSI Budapest for many years, she was named a manager at Philanthropy, a public interest organization in Belgrade.

Sergey Khrychikov (Ukraine, SOCI '97) is an administrative officer in the Division of Migration at the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg, France.

Izabela Karpowicz (Croatia, ECON '98) is an economist at the International Monetary Fund, in Washington DC, US.

Nerijus Dagilis (Lithuania, ECON '98) is chairman of the board of HERMIS Capital in Vilnius. Nerijus has been a loyal supporter of the Alumni Scholarship Fund and is an honorary member of the CEU Alumni and Friends Association.

Marta Sobanska (Poland, ENVS '98) is a research fellow at the European Commission Joint Research Center in Italy.

Tatiana Borisova (Russia, ENVS '98) is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Division of Resource Management of West Virginia University, in Morgantown, US.

Dmitry Musolin (Russia, ENVS '98) has been a research fellow in the Department of Agro-Environmental Sciences, Entomology Laboratory, Kyoto University, in Japan, since April 2005.

Kevin Steeves (Canada, IRES '98) works as a policy officer at the Police Division of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Opera-tions in New York, US.

Sarah Nedolast (US, IRES '98) is a consultant for the World Bank, in Washington DC. Sarah has been a devoted volunteer and leader of the Washington DC Alumni Chapter for many years.

Algirdas Petkevicius (Lithuania, LEGS '98) works as a program officer in the Municipal Governance Support Department of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo.

Matjaz Malgaj (Slovenia, LEGS '98) is a member of the cabinet of Commissioner Potocnik, in the European Commission, in Brussels.

Dangis Verseckas (Lithuania, MEDS '98) is head of the Unit for Inter-Institutional Coordination, for the Department of EU Policy Analysis and Coordination, of the Chancellery of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania.

Aneta Mihaylova (Bulgaria, SEES '98) is doing her PhD at the History Department of Sofia University. She also works as a research associate at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Marta Lejkowski (Canada/Poland, ENVS '99) is a senior major donor fundraiser at Shelter, a London-based NGO. Together with her husband, Paul Benjamin (UK, IRES '97), she visited the Alumni Affairs Office in September 2005 to catch up on developments with the Alumni Associa-tion and UK alumni. While Paul is busy with his work at the law firm of Baker and McKenzie, Marta is considering getting involved in the UK chapter as a volunteer.

Pauline Hallam (UK, GENS '99) is an assistant professor at the Women's Studies Program, University of Maine, Machias, US. Pauline is teaching an Introduction to Women's Studies and Feminist Theory online for the University of Maine. "There seems to be little information about teaching the humanities online and I wish to use my experience with these courses to write about the techniques and strategies that work well in this medium," she wrote to us.

Eva Lengyel (Hungary, HIST '99) is a department manager at the OS Commercial Department of IBM Hungary, in Budapest.

Elena Zhukova (Russia, HIST '99) is a team leader at GE European Operations Services, in Budapest, Hungary.

Pavel Borkovec (Czech Republic, IRES '99) works as an analyst for the Eurostat Renewables Trading Team of the European Commission in Prague.

Bermet Tursunkulova (Kyrgyzstan, IRES '99) has recently left the Academic Fellowship Program/HESP/OSI where she worked as a regional manager for Central Asia and Mongolia. Bermet is currently finishing her PhD dissertation, and teaches two courses at the International and Comparative Politics Department of the American University, Central Asia. She is raising her four-year-old son and is expecting another baby very soon. Bermet has been very active with Kyrgyz Alumni Chapter. "Since my graduation from CEU, I have been either teaching what I myself learned at the university, or helping to promote higher education reform in Central Asia. My two favorite courses at CEU were International Politi-cal Economy and the Politics of Transition in Post-communist Countries, taught by John Phillips," she wrote to us.

Lisa Danish (US, IRES '99) has become a staff counselor for the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, VA.

Minna Nikolova-Kress (Bulgaria, SEES '99) is an official at the International Cooperation Department of the European Patent Office, in Munich, Germany. She shares with us that her work is challenging, enjoyable and that she learns a lot: "I travel extensively and work with colleagues from the 11 member states of the organization, as well as with other institutions. The issues I am dealing with are innovation, economic growth and de-velopment for Europe, as well as intellectual property rights."

Anna Gwiazda (Poland, POLS '99) received her PhD from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland in May 2005. Currently she is working as a research fellow at the Dublin European Institute, University College Dublin.
Istvan Lipniczki (Hungary, LEGS '99) is a human rights officer at the UN Mission to Liberia.

Anis Bajrektarevic (Bosnia and Herzegovina, SEES '99) is a professor and chairperson at the International Law/Global Political Studies De-partment of the University of Applied Sciences, in Krems, Austria.

Krisztina Molnar (Hungary, ECON '00) is continuing her PhD studies at the Department of Economics and Business, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain.

Biljana Stepanuleska (Macedonia, ECON '00) is head of the Project Finance Department at Tutunska Banka AD Skopje, Macedonia.

Ekaterina Stepanova (Russia, ECON, '00) is a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Washington, US. Ekaterina at-tended the conference co-organized by the World Bank and CEU entitled "Scaling Up the Success of Capacity Building in Economic Educa-tion and Research: Lessons Learned and Future Directions," held in Budapest on 14-15 June 2005.

Georgi Terziyski (Bulgaria, ENVS, '00) returned to Bulgaria after receiving his PhD in Environmental Biology from the University of Manchester (in 2003). Georgi was named to the position of landscape planning specialist with UNDP Rhodope Project, in Sofia.

Vladlena Gertseva (Russia, ENVS, '00) has been a professor at Oregon State University in the US since January 2005. Vladlena teaches at the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and conducts research on fish population dynamics in the northeast Pacific Ocean.

Anna Hayrapetyan (Armenia, LEGS '00) works as a legal adviser in the Contract Service of the Legal Department of Armenian Telephone Company JV CJSC, a leading telecommunications provider in Armenia.

Radostina Bojourin (Bulgaria, LEGS '00) is an expert working for the International Relations and European Integration Department of the Bulgarian National Bank.

Aida Ghazaryan (Armenia, LEGS' 00) is working as a project associate at the UNDP Anti-trafficking Project. She is also a 2004 International Policy Fellow at OSI and currently leads the CEU Armenian Alumni Chapter.

Natasa Bandulieva (Macedonia, ENVS '00) is a recruitment and HR development manager at Tutunski Kombinat a.d. Skopje (ITG Group, UK). Natasa visited Budapest in June 2005 to participate in the Alumni Leadership Forum and Reunion Weekend.

Igor Prochazka (Croatia, SEES '00) works as a desk officer at the Southeastern and Eastern Europe Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.

Olga Sinitsyna (Russia, SOCI '00) is a program associate for communication with the Policy and Leadership Program of Transatlantic Part-ners Against AIDS (TPAA) in Moscow, Russia.

Stanislav Bozhkov (Bulgaria, ECON '01) started his career at the Bulgarian Central Bank. Two years later he moved to First Investment Bank's Methodology Division, where he works as Deputy Director. "The work at a well-established innovative bank, in a dynamic and com-petitive environment requires the flexibility and stamina necessary to carry through the division's tasks. The outstanding economic back-ground, strong quantitative and analytical skills that CEU taught me proved to be of utmost importance," he wrote us.

Wioletta Szymanska (Poland, ENVS '01) is project manager at the Regional Environmental Center (REC) for CEE in Szentendre, Hungary.

Jakub Szanto (Czech Republic, HIST '01) continues to work as a foreign news reporter at a commercial channel in the Czech Republic. He has covered events such as the massive kidnapping crisis in Moscow in 2002, the presidential elections in the US and Ukraine in 2004 and, recently, the Israeli pullout from Gaza.

Mircea Cojocaru (Moldova, ENVS '01) is head of the Environmental Unit of the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank, located in Thessaloniki, Greece. This is an international financial institution, which supports development and economic cooperation by providing project and trade finance to the private sector in the Black Sea area's countries.

Marijus Kersys (Lithuania, ECON '01) works as regional representative for the Lithuanian Innovation Center (LIC). The LIC is a public busi-ness support organization and Marijus consults with companies at their request on issues related to innovative project management. Marijus is also an associate at the Lithuanian Economic Education Development Center, where he develops economics teaching materials and con-ducts workshops on teaching economics for secondary school teachers.

Daribal Amarjargal (Mongolia, ENVS '01) has been working as a project associate for Riverbasin Management Model Project for the Conser-vation of Wetland Ecosystem and its Sustainable Use, since April 2005. The project is jointly implemented by the Ministry of Nature and Envi-ronment of Mongolia and Japan International Cooperation Agency, at Ogii Lake. Daribal also serves as a member of the Mongolian CITES (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) Management Authority.

Raili Nugin (Estonia, HIST '01) is a researcher at the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Tallinn University. She is also a doctoral student in sociology at the same university.

Elina Manjieva (Kyrgyzstan, GENS '01) works at the World Bank Country Office in Kyrgyzstan where she is responsible for daily supervision of projects in health, education and social protection. Elina writes: "Before joining the World Bank and immediately after graduating from CEU, I continued my studies at the Fletcher School in Boston, Massachusetts. The two years I spent at Fletcher were extremely challenging but exciting. However, without CEU I do not think I would have been able to take on those challenges. CEU with its diverse student body, some of the most devoted professors, and rich curriculum helped me grow and equipped me for further studies and work."

Galina Miazhevich (Belarus, GENS '01) returned to her home country, Belarus, where she taught at the Belarussian State University for two years. In 2003, she received an award within the "Excellence in Teaching and Outreach" scheme. Currently, she is in her third year of PhD studies at the Institute of Developmental Policy and Management at the University of Manchester, UK.

Akvile Motiejunaite (Lithuania, GENS '01) is a PhD student in Sweden. She studies Sociology at Södertörns University College (South Stockholm University), continuing her research on women situation in the labour market in the Baltic States.

Olga Borymchuk (Russia, HIST '01) is doing her PhD in History at the University of Oxford. The topic of her research is the House of Lords during the post-war period. Olga founded and edited the Journal of the Oxford University History Society, served as a graduate representative on the Bodleian Library and University Libraries' committees, and gave tutorials on the social history of Britain in the twentieth century. Cur-rently she is a research assistant at the Prosopography Center, Modern History Research Unit, University of Oxford, UK.

Igor Ustyuzhyn (Ukraine, HIST '01) has been teaching full time at Kharkov National University (Ukraine) and was recently promoted to the position of senior lecturer in the English Department.

Andrei Muchnik (Russia, IRES '01) began a new job in the Moscow Office of the World Health Organization, in September 2005. He is com-munications officer for the EU co-funded project HIV/AIDS Prevention and Combating, Phase II.

Emilia Mohan (Romania, IRES '01) has worked as program manager at the Manfred Worner Euro-Atlantic Association and then, as program manager for the Romanian Center for Global Studies. Currently she is working as an EU expert at the Directorate of Negotiations on Internal Market in the Ministry of European Integration, in Romania. Her main responsibilities include providing guidance and advice on issues related to Justice and Home Affairs.

Alfiya Musina (Uzbekistan, IRES '01) continued work in the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "The knowledge I grasped at CEU" - Alfyia writes - "helped me a lot to understand theoretic intricacies of international relations. CEU academic atmosphere encouraged me to continue with research and I received a scholarship to the University of Oxford where I was part of a unique team of scholars and students. Currently I am Deputy Country Manager for European Union's Border Management and Drug Action Programs for Central Asia implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)."

David Dolidze (Georgia, LEGS '01) is law, policy, and planning officer in the Private Law Department of the Council of Europe. His responsibilities include bilateral and regional cooperation activities for the development of free legal aid systems, and, improving the exercise of the profession of lawyers through the strengthening of bar associations in the Council of Europe member states. David is also secretary to the Multilateral Com-mittee on the European Agreement on the Transmission of Applications for Legal Aid.

Ignas Jonynas (Lithuania, LEGS '01) works as a legal officer at the OSCE Mission in Croatia.

Natalia Shkryada (Ukraine, LEGS '01) began work with the Prosecution Support Section in the Special Chamber on War Crimes of the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The court deals with the investigation and trial of the cases transferred from the International Criminal Tri-bunal on former Yugoslavia.

Konstantin Bykovski (Russia, LEGS '01) works in the Netherlands as an associate for the legal advising and consultancy company Light-house Attorneys-at-Law, and for its structured finance branch Lighthouse Structured Finance. The main focus of both companies is on the territories of the former Soviet Union (fSU) and core activities include legal advice, mediation and agency services with regard to conducting business in Russia and fSU countries.

Julia Szelivanov (Hungary, LEGS '01) has been working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary since 2002. She is attache and desk officer for Serbia and Montenegro, including Kosovo. Her job includes managing all aspects of bilateral relations with Serbia and Montenegro, preparing political analyses and drafting the Hungarian position towards the Balkans. Julia finds her position challenging and diverse, involv-ing frequent travel-especially to the region-where she undertook several election observation and supervision missions.

Ekaterina Pantcheva (Bulgaria, MEDS '01) was a guest scholar at the University of Vienna, until April 2005. She is currently finalizing her PhD dissertation on the works of St. Euthymius of Tarnovo.

Azhar Bergeneva (Kazakhstan, POLS '01) is deputy director of the Bang College of Business Career Services Center at JSC "Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research." In 2005 she was elected chair of the Working Committee for the Fifth Annual International KIMEP Research Conference "Changing So-ciety Through Research and Practice," held in October 2005 in Almaty, Ka-zakhstan.

Dmitry Khodyakov (Russia, SOCI '01) continues his academic career at Rutgers University, US. Dmitry is completing a PhD dissertation fo-cusing on the roles of organizational trust and control in large conductorless orchestras. He is also working on a project that analyzes the end-of-life health care decisions for older adults, as well as teaching statistics, contemporary so-ciological theory, and sociology of trust.

Dragos Petre (Romania, ECON '02) left Procter and Gamble Marketing Romania, after three years of dedicated work, to join TNT headquar-ters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Since September 2005, Dragos has worked there as a management accountant.

Nadezhda Radulova (Bulgaria, GENS '02) is a PhD candidate in literary theory at the Faculty of Slavonic Studies of St. Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, in Bulgaria.

Aleksandra Majstorac Kobiljski (Serbia and Montenegro, GENS '02) worked for two years on her pre-dissertation research at the American University of Beirut, at the Center for Arab and Middle East Studies. Now, she is a second year PhD student at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, working on a comparative thesis in intellectual history and history of education. Her article "Women Students at the American University of Beirut 1920s-1940s" was published in a collection of articles entitled "Gender, Religion and Change in the Middle East: Two Hundred Years of History," in March 2005.

Mark Laszlo-Herbert (Romania, HIST '02) is a PhD candidate in the Department of History of the University of Toronto, Canada. He is also an assistant program manager at the European Studies Programs at the Munk Center for International Studies.

Mykolas Cerniauskas (Lithuania, LEGS '02) and Liina Ilomets (Estonia, LEGS '02) are lawyers/linguists for the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Natela Farsiyants (Uzbekistan, LEGS '02) works as a human rights officer for Freedom House, Uzbekistan Human Rights Training and Sup-port Program.

2003

A.Yussupov (Kazakhstan, ECON '03) is a second-year MBA student at Goizueta
Business School at Emory University in Atlanta, USA.

Azin Fazeli (Iran, ENVS '03) works for the UNEP/GEF Siberian Crane Wetlands Project as a national technical officer. Azin has been involved in the alumni network since her graduation from CEU. She is a national contact person of the CEU Alumni and Friends Association.

Zarina Azizova (Tajikistan, ENVS '03) joined the World Bank Carbon Finance Business as a manager, in November 2004, and currently works in Washington DC, US.

Klaudia Gonzalez-Martinez (Mexico, IRES '03) is head of the International Relations School of the Popular University of the Puebla State, Mexico.

Constantine Starygin (Ukraine, LEGS '03), is co-author of the article "Cambodia and the Right to be Present: Trials in Absentia in the Draft Criminal Procedure Code," which was published by the National University of Singapore (NUS) Law Review Journal, in July 2005.

Kinga Szuly (Hungary, POLS '03) is a political reporter for the European Commission Representation in Hungary.

Milena Novakova (Bulgaria, ENVS '04) became a senior lawyer/expert, working for the Environment and Water Committee, National Assem-bly of the Republic of Bulgaria.

Svetoslav Apostolov (Bulgaria, ENVS '04) works as wetlands restoration specialist for the National Nature Protection Service Department of the Ministry of Environment and Water in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Ivana Strilkova (Czech Republic, GENS '04) is a project coordinator at the "Breaking the Waves" Project of Open Society Fund in Prague.

Aida Lipa (Bosnia and Herzegovina, HIST '04) has been involved in democracy and civil society building activities as a program manager in the Democratization Department of the OSCE Office in Sarajevo.

Matej Novak (Czech Republic, HIST '04) is coordinator at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Mission for Chechnya, Russia.

Martin Seda (Czech Republic, LEGS '04) works as a law, policy, and planning officer for Lovells Law Firm in Prague.

Levan Nanobashvili (Georgia, LEGS '04) is a lawyer for the media company Teleimedi Ltd., Tbilisi, Georgia.

Eszter Polgari (Hungary, LEGS '04) is a legal officer at the Human Rights Information and Documentation Center, in Budapest.

Sinan Gokcen (Turkey, LEGS '04) has worked as a project coordinator for the Helsinki Citizens Assembly in Istanbul, since September 2004.

Zsuzsanna Papp (Hungary, MEDS '04) works for Sygma Advertisement and PR as a key account manager, in Budapest.

Farid Guliyev (Azerbaijan, POLS '04) has been working as program coordinator of the Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program, International Research and Exchanges Board, Baku, Azerbaijan. He has had an article "Post-Soviet Azerbaijan: Transition to Sultanistic Semiauthoritarianism? An Attempt at Conceptualization" published in Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. He also is enrolled in a PhD program in political science and international relations at Khazar University, Baku, and teaches political science at Qafqaz University in Baku.

Alina Dobreva (Bulgaria, POLS '04) is doing her PhD at the Institute of Communication Studies of Leeds University, UK. Alina visited CEU in early September 2005 to participate in a PhD defense and to meet with her thesis supervisor, Zsolt Enyedi (Department of Political Science).

Bekzod Diyarov (Uzbekistan, ECON '05) has started a professional qualification course for the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA) at Leicester Business Academy, in the UK.

Maria Cvitkovic (US, HIST '05) is currently working at George Washington University in Washington DC as an executive assistant for the doctoral program of Higher Education Administration, in Ashburn, US.

Maha Eskandar (Iraq, MPP '05) is a senior researcher at the Regional Planning Directorate of the Ministry of Planning of Iraq. While in Buda-pest, Maha completed an internship at the Central European Land Knowledge Center (CELKC). Maha has volunteered to serve as the CEU alumni national contact person in Iraq.

Dylan Gray (Canada, HIST 94) and Rumana Hamied were married in Bombay, India, on January 7, 2005.

Kristina Plavsak Krajnc (Slovenia, IRES '95) married Borut Krajnc, a photojournalist, on February 29, 2004. They welcomed the birth of their son, Martin, on December 6, 2004.

Vugar Seidov (Azerbaijan, IRES '96) had a second daughter-Narmin-on September 9 at the Columbia University Medical Center, Roosevelt Hospital, New York.

Izabela Karpowicz (Croatia, ECON '98) Michelle, the first daughter of Izabela Karpowicz and Luca Bandiera, was one year old on September 22, 2005. The family has lived (and worked) in Washington DC since 1999. Izabela is an economist at the IMF African Department and Luca works as an economist with the World Bank.

Arthur Plesak (Ukraine, IRES '97) has a daughter born on March 26, 2005.

Kristin Faurest (US, HIST 97) gave birth to her son, Lance Spencer, on October 17, 2004.

Jonka Ceka (Albania, ENVS '98) married Arian Veizaj in Tirana, Albania on April 25, 2004.

Patrik Zoltvany (Slovakia, IRES '98) has a daughter, Sarah, born March 9, 2005.

Samantha Chaitkin (USA, NATI '98) and her husband Lino Molteni (Italy, POLS '99) are proud parents of Marianna, born on June 9th 2005.

Sara Svensson (Sweden, POLS '98) gave birth to a son, David Szinai, on September 29, 2005. Her daughter, Hanna-Helena, is three years old.

Nikolay Cholakov (Bulgaria, ECON '99) has a son, Tristan Nicholas Cholakov, born on May 5, 2005 in Kingston-upon-Thames. From September 1, 2005 Nikolay has been an associate in the Corporate Finance Division of ING Bank United Kingdom Mergers and Acquisitions.

Renata Firek-Bodolai (Poland, IRES '99) happily celebrated the first birthday of her son Adam on June 10, 2004.

Todd Anderson (US, POLS '99) and his wife Lucia are the happy parents of twins. Alex and Claire Anderson were born on May 18, 2005 in Washington, DC. Todd joined the US State Department Foreign Service and was posted to Kiev, Ukraine as of January 2006.

Elitsa T. Andreeva (née Minovska) (Bulgaria, SEES '99) got married on July 23, 2005 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The young couple's best man was the famous Bulgarian Veselin Topalov who became the new World Chess Champion in San Luis, Argentina on October 15, 2005. On this same date Eli and Svet had their church ceremony in the Bulgarian church in Budapest. The celebration ended with a boat trip on Danube. Among attendees were CEU alumni and friends from Bulgaria, Italy, Hungary, the UK, Portugal and Spain.

Maia An (Uzbekistan, ENVS '00) were married on August 27, 2005 in Bishkek with more than 120 guests invited including several CEU alumni. After the wedding Joseph and Maia left for the US. On the picture (left to right): Asel Doranova (Kyrgyzstan, ENVS '00), Joseph and Maia, Viktoria Mironova (Kyrgyzstan, ENVS '01) and Nurlan Djenchuraev (Kyrgyzstan, ENVS 1999).

Tsvetelina Filipova (Bulgaria, ENVS '01) is happy to announce the birth of her first child, Lia Julian, born in Budapest on January 14, 2005.

Olga Borymchuk (Ukraine, HIST '01) was married to Christian Pfrang in Oxford, UK on May 15, 2004. The couple are completing their PhDs at the University of Oxford.

Edith Petrosyan (Armenia, LEGS '01) is happy to announce the birth of her first child, Daniel Shamtsyan, born in Rochester, NY, on July 17, 2005.

Nora Burger (Hungary, HIST '01) and Laszlo Mathe-Shires (Hungary, HIST '99) are both working at the Embassy of the Republic of Hungary in Vilnius, Lithuania. Nora is an administrator, and Laszlo is deputy head of mission. In the picture we can see Vince, son of Nora and Laszlo, a would be CEU student!

Natela Jordan (née Farsiyants) (Uzbekistan, LEGS '02) was married on July 4, 2005, and is living with her husband in the United States.

Annamaria Kiss (Hungary, NATI '02) and Michael Hamon (Canada, MEDS '03) were married on Prince Edward Island in Canada on 12th August 2005. Many good friends and CEU alumni came to the wedding from all over the world.

Diana Ghazaryan (Armenia, BUSI, '04) and Armen Ayunts were married on April 17, '04 in Yerevan, Armenia. Irina Harutyunyan (Armenia, BUSI, '03), Astghik Manukyan (Armenia, BUSI, '04), Aida Ghazaryan (Armenia, LEGS, '00) and Arevik Manukyan (Armenia, SOCI, expected '06) and other CEU Alumni (not in the picture) attended the ceremony at the "Gayane" Church as well as the wedding reception afterward.

Aitalina Azarova (Russia, POLS '99) and John Harbord (CEU Center for Academic Writing) were married on July 8, 2005 in Budapest. They are proud to announce the birth of their son, Nicholas Aysen, born on October 27, in Budapest.