Central Asia Country Director, Civic Education Project
Regional Director of Eurasian Programs
May 8, 2001
We are writing this letter to inform you of some of our concerns regarding this year's selection procedure for the Budapest conference. The following are our concerns, followed by our suggestions of how to improve the process.
1) We believe that the selection procedure of having two people selecting the first round of proposals is not a big enough group to be fully objective. The reasons that were given for this are first, only two people volunteered; second, it is too expensive to have people from outside of AUK judging the papers.
����������� First we would like to suggest that CEP establish a minimum number of judgment of all proposals, and that they publish that number somewhere where all students can see it. Perhaps this number could vary, based on the number of proposals to be judged (For example for 10 proposals the number could be two judges, for 50 it could be four judges). We also suggest that if in the first call only two lecturers volunteer, the manager or director of the program should make a second call to get more volunteers. However, we believe that if a quota was set for CEP volunteers for judging conference proposals, CEP fellows would make sure to fill the required minimum on their own.
2) We believe that the process for this year's Budapest conference should have had a more numerically oriented process of elimination. By selecting so few proposals in the first round, we believe that the competition was slanted in subsequent rounds. We believe that the first round should eliminate less students, thus the ratio of selected proposals in the first round to the total number of proposals should be bigger (this year the ratio was 0.12, which is the result of 6/50, and we suggest the ratio should be about 0.3, which is 15/50). Therefore we suggest that in the second round 15 proposals could be eliminated down to 10, and then in the third round down to 6 (what happened this year was that the first round chose 6 proposals out of 50). The method we suggest would not only make things easier for judges (by not having to eliminate so many on their own) but would also benefit students who would know that several different judges had read their work before the "best" were selected.
3) We believe that the selection procedure for this year was not made clear enough for the students. Some students thought that a Budapest jury in the second round would select final proposals. In addition, we feel some professors were given contradictory information about the procedure. Our suggestion is to announce to all students at the very beginning how the procedure will go. This announcement could be posted somewhere where all students could see it, so that before, during, or after the procedure, it could be referred to.
4) We think that there should be a restriction on the number of times one student can participate in the Budapest conference. We believe that one student should not go more than once. The reasons for this are 1) A person who has already participated in the Budapest conference is more experienced in writing proposals and this experience gives her/him an advantage over other students, 2) Other students should be given a chance to participate in the conference and CEP should safe guard itself from sending the same students every year.
5) We are very concerned that many students have remained silent on this issue because they fear reprisal from their CEP lecturers in the form of bad grades, or lessened attention, etc. The attitude is more prevalent outside CEP department where students are less familiar with CEP lectures that more familiar with professors who use these tactics. We would like to see students communicating more freely with CEP staff and lectures about their concerns. In order to increase this communication perhaps CEP could publish something (perhaps in the school newspaper) indicating that they appreciate constructive criticism, and are willing to talk to students about their concerns. We think that the article published by Norma Jo baker was helpful in this regard, but additional reassurances could still help.
We hope that this letter will be taken into consideration for improving the selection procedure next year. Thank you for your time.
�
Sincerely,
Students of the International and Comparative Politics Department:
Ahoura Afshar, 3rd year, [email protected]
Anisa Afshar, 4th year, [email protected]
Botagoz Kassymbekova, [email protected]
Nasiba Khudaibergenova, 2nd year,
Veta Shapkina, 2nd year, [email protected]
22.May.2001
Ahora Afshar
Anisa Afshar
Boragoz Kassymbekova
Nasiba Khudaibergenova
Veta Shapkina
International and Comparative Politics Department
American University in Kyrgyzstan
�
Dear Ahora, Anisa, Bota, Nasiba, and Veta,
Thank you for your letter of 8 May 2001, in which you discuss your concerns and suggestions regarding the CEP selection procedure for the Budapest conference. Please allow me to comment on your letter in the order of the issues raised:
1)����� CEP committees must always bear in mind that the necessity of equity, and the different number of fellow located in the countries where we work. For example, the selection committee numbers were ultimately agreed upon for this year's Budapest selection process (2 fellows per country in first round, one fellow per country plus the Country Director for the second round) were chosen in recognition of the fact that we had only three fellows in Mongolia at that time;
2)����� Thank you for tour suggestions regarding a ratio for proposal elimination. The CEP selection committee that will be struck for next year's evaluations will consider theses and other suggestion when the selection procedures are established for nest year;
3)����� CEP policy decisions � are, of� course, an internal policy matter, although any of approximately 2,00 students who are involved in and eligible for CEP Central Asian activities are always welcome to discuss their concerned and opinions with CEP.� Of those students, please recognize that prior to your having sent this memo, only two students in total from AUK (and none form the eight other Central Asian universities) have raised any concerns regarding the process with CEP staff, which suggests that there is not a great deal of concern with the procedure.
����������� Regarding the question of some professors having been given contradictory information, all CEP Central Asian fellows were sent the same information on the process, and sent the same e-mail message requesting their input. No CEP fellows have raised this issue with me, so without further details, I am unclear why you might have drawn this conclusion;
4)����� Thank you for our suggestion regarding the number of times students should participate in the Budapest conference. The CEP Central Asian team will consider this suggestion when the selection procedures are established for next year;
5)����� As noted in point number 3 above, only two students have raised nay concerns regarding this process prior to this memo, and those two have also signed this memo. This brings in total five students from one CEP university who have raised this issue. While I appreciate very much the fact that you have raised the issue, again, I can only encourage those students who have any concerns or comments upon CEP activities contact me or, as I have suggested to two of you, Jeffrey Meyers, the CEP regional Director of Eurasian Programs.
If any student has any evidence of a CEP fellow or CEP administrator having abused their position and authority, I would urge that student to contact CEP to discuss that situation. However, as has been pointed out to me by several signators of this letter, there has not been any indication or evidence of that happening. In light of this, I can only confirm that if students will take the responsibility for raising their concerns with me or Mr. Meyers, we will take the responsibility to ensure that there are no negative repercussions to that student.
I trust this will address your concerns, and appreciate you having the time to put theses concerns in the form of a memo. As always, you know where to find me, and please don't hesitate to do so if I can help you in these or nay other CEP-related matters.
Sincerely,
Norma Jo Baker
Central Asia Country Director
Civic Education Project
�
CC: ��� �Jeffrey Meyers
����������� Regional Director of Eurasian Programs
����������� Civic Education Project
����������� Nador u. 9
����������� 1051 Budapest, Hungary
����������� E-mail: [email protected]
����������� Tel: �(36.1) 327.32.19
����������� Fax: (36.1) 327.32.21
�
CC: ���� Deborah Eisenberg
����������� Coordinator of Student Affairs
����������� American University in Kyrgyzstan
����������� Room 105
����������� Bishkek 720040, Kyrgyzstan
May 24, 2001
By writing this letter we would like to make a call to AUK students to notice the environment that has surrounded them. This issue, which started with a critique of the CEP Budapest conference selection procedure, has become a community issue of AUK environment. An environment, where students do not believe in their ability and necessity t undertake any action in order to express their thoughts and to change something they believe is wrong. We believe that the only way to make a difference in such an atmosphere of passivity is to act.
In spite of all the accusation and attempts that have been made to label our public concern a private matter, it is not a private issue that touches only us. We think that the fact that only five students undertook an action by writing a letter to CEP does not necessarily mean that the rest of students were indifferent to the whole issue. However, concern should be followed by action.
One of the reasons we raise this issue one more time, is to make a precedent that students care about what is going on their community and they express their opinion without fear of being treated unfairly.
We hope that someday more students will take action and break the wall of indifference and "received opinions". Such an atmosphere that surrounds our community now is a "dangerous" one. If today each of us will not cat to change this atmosphere of passivity and ignorance tomorrow it might be too late.
Anisa Afshar
Bota Kassymbekova
Veta Shapkina