Since 1994 the GW Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning has hosted visiting professors from the former Soviet Union, Southeast Europe, and a few other countries. While here, the visiting professors improve their English, observe American teaching methods, become familiar with the American literature in their fields, and learn how American universities operate. For a list of scholars, their home countries, and the GW faculty members with whom they have worked, go to http://www.gwu.edu/~rpsol/visitsch.html.
After they return to their home countries, the scholars present papers at international conferences, publish papers in academic journals, and assume leading positions at their universities and in other organizations. Below are brief descriptions of what some of them have been doing.
2005-2006
Irida Vorpsi, Tirana, Albania. After Mrs. Vorpsi left GW she went to Austria to do research at the University of Vienna. In September 2006, she attended the ninth Summer School on Democracy in Belgrade organized by the Centre for the Study of Democracy of the University of Westminster, London, and the Anglo-Serbian Society, Belgrade. She has been very active writing articles for the media on the women’s situation in Albania and on human rights. In February 2007 she was appointed lecturer at Tirana University, and since March she has been studying for her PhD in the History Department, focused on the relationship between the Habsburg Empire and Albania from the Congress of Berlin until the end of the First World War. Since September 2007 she is pursuing a Master’s program in Global Studies with a focus on the European perspective at the University of Leipzig and the University of Vienna.
2004-2005
Khaydarali Yunusov, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Mr. Yunusov is working at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy (UWED) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has recently visited Tsukuba University in Japan where an inter-university training course was organized in the framework of the U.N. Development Program-UWED joint program. He has just published a textbook on European Union Law, the first such textbook in the Uzbek language for law students, sponsored by UNDP. Currently, he is looking for financial resources to publish his paper “U.S. Constitution in Uzbek with Interpretations and Notes” which he completed during an internship in Florida in cooperation with an American professor.
Igor Dubina, Barnaul (Altai, Siberia), Russia. Mr. Dubina’s research and teaching activity in 2005-2007 was based on materials, methods, and inspirations he got at GW and Buffalo State University during 2004-2005. Some of his latest work includes Mathematical Principles of Empirical Social and Economic Research, Altai University Press, 2006; Global Information Resources for Economists, Altai University Press, 2005. He also presented papers at several conferences. One of them was “A conception of optimally managing creativity,” at the 33rd International Conference on Information Technologies in Science, Education and Business in Gurzuf, Ukraine, in 2006.
Roman Cheskidov, Yekaterinburg, Russia. Mr. Cheskidov is working to design a sales presentation on Participatory Strategic Planning for Executive Mangers. He is also interested in the process of strategic scenarios development.
2003-2004
Yaroslav Prytula, Lviv, Ukraine. Mr. Prytula has used the Technology of Participation (ToP) at Lviv Ivan Franko National University twice as a project management tool. He has helped run a three year project designed to improve the teaching and research skills of young university teachers. Participants in the project help to design their course of study, choosing their own research topics and the follow-up to those topics. He used ToP for this project.
2002-2003
Olga Chistyakova, Volgograd, Russia. Mrs. Chistyakova is teaching Geopolitics and Comparative Analysis of Civilizations at the Volgograd Academy of Public Administration. She has been named Head of the Department of History and Theory of Politics. She also works with the Department of International Relations and in collaboration with the Information Centre for International Security of the Academy, which was established with support from NATO. She works through this organization to provide conferences, summer schools for students, and round tables in cooperation with NATO offices in Brussels and Moscow. In 2005, she published a book entitled, Byzantium-Russ-Russia: Philosophical-Anthropological Traditions.
Erzhen Khilkhanova, Ulan Ude, Russia. Mrs. Khilkhanova is teaching a course called “Cross-Cultural Communication.” She has also published a monograph entitled “Factors of Collective Language Choice and Ethnocultural Identity of Modern Buryats: A Discourse-Analytical Approach.” She has received a grant from Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD). In January of 2007, she was chosen chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and General Linguistics.
Vasyl Nepyivoda, Kolomyia, Ukraine. Mr. Nepyivoda completed his kandydat degree in environmental law. He has written a monograph on legal issues of sustainable forest management and several articles. One of them covered the effects of the Chornobyl nuclear accident on forests. Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy sent two delegations to Chornobyl to co-operate with local authorities to prevent forest fires, which would further spread radioactive materials from the accident. A source in the United States revealed that Mr. Nepyivoda’s article was the initial point of interest in the matter, and that the article was received with interest at Yale University, where the source was located at the time of the article’s publication. The article has also been included as recommended material in a university syllabus in Wisconsin. His biographical profile is included in the 2006-2007 edition of Marquis Who’s Who in Science and Engineering.
Kamen Lozev, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Kamen Lozev has published several books on the philosophy of Karl Popper.
2001-2002
Nadiya Angelska, Sofia, Bulgaria. Ms. Angelska is currently studying at the Riga Graduate School of Law in Riga, Latvia. She received a scholarship funded by the Open Society Institute. She enrolled in a LL.M. Program in International and European Law, in December 2006. She has chosen a specialization in International Public Law and Human Rights.
Rozmat Ashurbekov, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Since his time at GW, Mr. Ashurbekov has developed his knowledge, research and teaching skills in Uzbekistan and during visits to Australia, Indonesia, Germany, and Kazakhstan. With GW Professor Frank T. Anbari, he published papers entitled “The Current State, Problems and Perspectives of Development of Modern Project Management Education in Uzbekistan” in the proceedings of the world congress of the International Project Management Association, which was held in Shanghai, China, October 15-17, 2006, and “Project Management Research, Education, and Training in Transition Economies: The Case of Uzbekistan,” in the Journal of International Business and Economics, 2007.
Aram Karapetyan, Yerevan, Armenia. Mr. Karapetyan is teaching at Yerevan State University in the Management Information Systems (MIS) Graduate Degree Program, established in 2003 in cooperation with California State University at Fresno. He spent an academic semester at Arizona State University and completed a research project on the Tempe City Water Management System by using a geographic information system. In addition to university teaching he has also worked on water sector projects related to Armenian Water utilities (sponsored by the World Bank and the German development bank KfW) as an MIS consultant, financial specialist and auditor.
Konstantin Lioubimov, St. Petersburg, Russia. Mr. Lioubimov taught finance at St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance in 2002-2005. He is now working on a PhD at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.
Vladimir Motov, Tambov, Russia. Mr. Motov has written 19 articles for Russian journals on psychiatry and the criminal justice system in the United States. The full text for almost all of them is available at www.npar.ru. Two of his papers are mentioned by Wikipedia (in Russian). In 2006 The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (professional organization of American forensic psychiatrists) granted him international membership. He has just finished a monograph, The Fundamental Issues of American Forensic Psychiatry and Psychiatry and the Law.
Elena Spinova, Moscow, Russia. Mrs. Spinova, Russian Academy of Foreign Trade (VAVT), won a grant for a Central European University Summer Course on Mediation and Negotiation in 2005. At present she conducts a special course on Negotiation Theory and Practice in English for Master’s Degree students and graduates in VAVT and in Moscow State Linguistic University. She is also completing her dissertation, “English for International Trade Negotiations.” She has participated in a number of linguistic conferences and alumni meetings and has more than 15 publications. Check her website for more information: http://mkf.vavt.ru/www/prep.nsf/by_id/spinova.
2000-2001
Naira Matevosyan, Yerevan, Armenia. Mrs. Matevosyan did research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, during 2005-2006.
Nino Okribelashvili, Tblisi, Georgia. Mrs. Okribelashvili has participated in several educational fellowships since leaving GW, including the Alberto Vilar Medical Internship Program sponsored by Open Society Institute-American-Austrian Foundation at the University Hospital of Vienna, Austria, in 2001; the Workshop on Social Safety Net, run by USAID and World Learning in Likani, Georgia, in 2005; and the International Training Program for Pension Reform–Building Sustainable Solutions (I-II steps). She has also participated in a number of international conferences, the most recent include the 2006 International Conference on “Global Visions: From Trauma to Promise” in Charlotte, North Carolina, in March 2006, and the Global Government Health Partners Leadership Forum 2006, “The Breaking Point: Human Resources for Health” in Atlanta. Mrs. Okribelashvili is the Chairperson of the Supervising Council for the State United Social Insurance Fund of Georgia, a Board Member of the Georgian Society of Psychiatrists, a member of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, a member of the State Council for Accreditation in Higher Education, a member of the Council of Postgraduate Education, and an advisor to the Health Division of the Council of Europe.
Yuliya Melnyk, Kirovohrad, Ukraine. Mrs. Melnyk continued to teach the English language when she returned home using computer-assisted language learning. She created a website which her students use to learn about America, www.kirovohrad.iatp.org.ua/melnyk/. She attended a conference in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, where she reported on her experience of bringing the knowledge she gained while at GW and her experience with the American point of view to Ukrainian students in 2002. She has also started to teach community journalism. Yuliya spent the 2005-2006 academic year at the University of Missouri in Colombia, MO, as a Muskie Fellow studying for a M.A. degree in journalism. In 2006 she worked for the Library of Congress and in 2007 for the Voice of America.
1999-2000
Vladimir Prozorov, Petrozavodsk, Russia. In 2001 Mr. Prozorov published a book, Steps of Freedom: Essays on U.S. History and Culture 1950-2000. In 2003 he published another book, Romantics and Realists: Essays on English History and Literature of the 19th Century. He returned to GW as a Fulbright Scholar in 2002-2003. In 2006, he published another book, Don DeLillo: The Writer in Postmodern Space.
1998-1999
Larissa Zolotareva Olesova, Yakutsk, Russia. Mrs. Olesova is an Associate Professor of English as a Foreign Language at the Department of Foreign Languages in Natural and Technical Sciences of Yakutsk State University. She published an article “The US-SiberLink Internet Project,” in 2000 and the chapter “Designing and Implementing Collaborative Internet Projects in Siberia”in the book Teacher Education in CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning), Volume 14 in the Language Learning & Language Teaching Series by John Benjamins, 2006, with her JFDP mentor Dr. Christine Meloni (GWU). They also made joint presentations “The US-Siberian Electronic Express” at TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) in 2001 and “Communicating in Cyberspace: The US-Siber Dialogue” at NEALLT (North East Association of Language Learning and Technology), 2004. Mrs. Olesova returned to GW as a Fulbright Scholar in 2003-2004. She is now working on a PhD in Educational Technology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
1995-1996
Natalia Fedotova Guseva, Irkutsk, Russia. Ms. Guseva completed a PhD in management at a university in Paris, France. She is now head of the MBA program at Baikal State University of Economics and Law in Irkutsk, Russia.
1994-1995
Irina Alyoshina, Moscow, Russia. Ms. Alyoshina is now an associate Professor of Marketing at the State University of Management. She has written and published five books, since leaving GW: Public Relations for Managers and Marketers, Gnom-Press, 1997, 1998; Consumer Behavior, Fair-Press, 1999, 2000; Marketing for Managers, Fair-Press, 2003; Consumer Behavior, Economist, 2006; Public Relations for Managers, Akmos, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006. She recently participated in “Professionals for Cooperation,” an activity sponsored by the Russian-American Academic Exchanges Alumni Association. She also took part in the Global Business and Technology Association (GBATA) 8th conference in Moscow in 2006, and she has prepared a paper for the upcoming GBATA conference in Taipei, Taiwan entitled “Globalization as a Challenge for Business Education: Are We Ready for Reforms?” She participated at the conference on the 200th Anniversary of Russian-American Relations, in Moscow in 2007 with a report on lessons from the US for Russian business education. She taught seminars on consumer behavior for regional representatives of the leading Russian business newspaper Kommersant in 2001 and for one of the largest Russian auto retailers Alex-Polyus in 2003. She led a seminar on public relations for a group of human resources managers and social services managers of Russia’s oil and gas companies in 2007. Her latest papers are listed at her website, http://ialyoshina.narod.ru.
Natalya Vlasova, Ekaterinburg, Russia. Mrs. Vlasova has earned her doctoral degree and professor status and is now a professor in the Regional and Municipal Economics Department and head of the International Cooperation Department at Ural State University of Economics. She was a consultant to the Head of the Ekaterinburg City Duma (2003-2005) and a member of the Yekaterinburg strategic plan development group. She participated in publishing, with G. Ioffe, O. Medvedkov, Y. Medvedkov, and T. Nefedova, Fragmented Space in the Russian Federation, Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, D.C., and Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 2001.
Acknowledgement: Thanks to David Klein and Katrina Burkgren for their work on this alumni report.