Education as a project

ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНАЯ ПРОГРАММА 2012/13

STRELKA

EDUCATION PROGRAMME 2012/13

RESEARCH REPORT EDUCATION AS A PROJECT. PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF LEARNING

ДИРЕКТОРА Юрий Григорян, Брендан Макгетрик ПРЕПОДАВАТЕЛЬ Питер Сигрист СТУДЕНТЫ Виктор Каровский, архитектор, Ярославль; Инесса Ковалева, архитектор, Краматорск, Украина; Анастасия Напалкова, журналист, Славянск-на-Кубани; Наталия Орехова, архитектор, Москва; Анна Позняк, журналист и социолог, Минск, Беларусь; Лия Сафина, архитектор, Минск, Беларусь; Маша Славнова, дизайнер, Владимир/ США; Ричард Троваттен, специалист по digital-стратегии, Эсбьерг, Дания; Елена Ярманова, специалист по международным отношениям, Санкт-Петербург ЭКСПЕРТЫ-КОНСУЛЬТАНТЫ Лада Адамик, Центр изучения комплесных систем; Филип Г. Альтбах, Центр международного высшего образования; Александр Аузан, МГУ; Мария Байбакова, Baibakov Art Projects; Елена Баженова, МАрхИ; Алексей Бавыкин, Союз архитекторов России; Фил Бати, Система рейтингов университетов THE; Этан Бондар, Skillshare; Александр Бродский, МАРШ; Анна Броновицкая, «Проект Россия»; Кит Девлейн, Stanford H-STAR; Наталья Душкина, МАрхИ; Андрей Зорин, Оксфордский университет; Наталья Зубарвич, НИСП; Дэвид Гринштейн, Купер-Юнион; Дмитрий Гришаков, Эксперт РА; Майкл Карнджанапракорн, Skillshare; Стефани Кенен, Гарвардский университет; Дафне Келлер, Coursera; Оскар Мамлеев, МАрхИ; Луис Менанд, Гарвардский университет; Николай Метленков, УМО Архитектуры; Бен Нельсон, Minerva; Олег Паченков, ЕУСПб; Елена Петухова, Союз московских архитекторов; Ольга Поддубная, Salto Youth; Аскар Рамазанов, «Теории и практики»; Джир Рейли, Hyper Island; Генри Риггс,

Стэнфордский университет; Патрисия Руиш, Высшая школа искусств, г. Амстердам; Андреа Рутледж, Национальный совет по аккредитации в сфере архитектуры; Ян Садлак, Форум по методологии рейтингов IREG; Джордж Сименс, Университет Атабаски; Сергей Ситар, МАРШ; Логан Смолли, TED-Ed; Бэн Соутер, рейтинг QS; Марк Тэйлор, Колумбийский университет; Никита Токарев, МАРШ; Анатолий Торкунов, МГИМО; Наринэ Тютчева, МАрхИ; Никола Твилли, Studio-X; Марк Уигли, Колумбийский университет; Бен Уилдавски, Фонд Кауффмана; Сьюзан Уоффорд, НьюЙоркский университет; Исаак Фрумин, ВШЭ; Ноам Хомский, Массачусетский технологический институт; Хэрриэт Цукерман, Колумбийский университет; Екатерина Чайкина, GameChangers; Юнг Ченг, Академический рейтинг университетов мира; Елена Чернышкова, Odgers Berndtson; Филипп Шмидт, Массачусетский технологический университет; Михаил Эскидаров, Финансовый университет РФ; Скотт Яcчик, insidehighered.com

DIRECTORS Yury Grigoryan, Brendan McGetrick TUTOR Peter Sigrist STUDENTS Victor Karovskiy, architect, Yaroslavl; Inessa Kovalova, architect, Kramatorsk, Ukraine; Anastasia Napalkova, journalist, Slavyanskon-Kuban; Nataliya Orekhova, architect, Moscow; Anna Pozniak, journalist, Minsk, Belarus; Liya Safina, architect, Minsk, Belarus; Masha Slavnova, architect, Vladimir/ USA; Richard Trovatten, digital strategist, Esbjerg, Denmark; Elena Yarmanova, international relations specialist, Saint Petersburg EXTERNAL EXPERTS Lada Adamic, CSCS; Philip Altbach, CIHE; Alexander Auzan, MSU; Maria Baibakova, Baibakov Art Projects; Elena Bajenova, CACB; Aleksey Bavykin, UIA; Phil Baty, THE; Ethan Bodnar, Skillshare; Alexander Brodsky, MARCH; Anna Bronovitskaya, Project Russia; Ekaterina Chaykina, GameChangers; Ying Cheng, ARWU; Elena Chernyshkova, Odgers Berndtson; Noam Chomsky, MIT; Keith Devlin, Stanford H-STAR; Natalya Dushkina, MArchI; Mikhail Eskindarov, Financial University RF; Isak Froumin, HSE; David Greenstein, Cooper Union; Dmitry Grishankov, Expert RA; Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed; Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Skillshare; Stephanie Kenen, Harvard College; Daphne Koller, Coursera; Oscar Mamleyev, MArchI; Louis Menand, Harvard University; Nickolay Metlenkov, EMU; Ben Nelson,

Minerva; Oleg Pachenkov, EUSP; Elena Petukhova, UIA; Olga Poddubnaya, Salto Youth; Askar Ramazanov, Theory & Practice; Jim Ralley, Hyper Island; Henry Riggs, Stanford University; Patricia Ruisch, AHK; Andrea Rutledge, NAAB; Jan Sadlack, IREG; Philipp Schmidt, MIT Media Lab, P2PU; George Siemens, Athabasca University; Sergey Sitar, MARCH; Logan Smalley, TED-Ed; Ben Sowter, QS; Mark Taylor, Columbia University; Nikita Tokarev, MARCH; Anatoly Torkunov, MGIMO; Narine Tutcheva, MArchI; Nicola Twilley, Studio-X; Alina Vasilenko, MIDIPI; Mark Wigley, Columbia GSAPP; Ben Wildavsky, Kauffman Foundation; Susanne Wofford, NYU Gallatin; Andrei Zorin, University of Oxford; Natalya Zubarevich, IISP; Harriet Zuckermann, Columbia University

ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ КАК ПРОЕКТ: КТО, КАК И ЧЕМУ БУДЕТ УЧИТЬСЯ В БУДУЩЕМ? В декабре 2012 года мы взялись исследовать образование. Во многом это было путешествие в неизведанное, и тема казалась необъятной. Стремление учить и учиться старше человеческой истории, старше самого человечества. Образование объединяет и разделяет наш мир; это мерило времени. Каждый знает об образовании хоть что-то, но зачастую это знание выражается как «житейская мудрость», лишь отчасти подкрепленная наукой и потому вызывающая ожесточенные споры. Не уверенные, с чего начать наше исследование, мы решили сформулировать несколько основных вопросов: Как наполнить жизнью «мертвые школы», не разрушая их традиции? Что означает «быть образованным» среди постоянно обновляющейся информации, ценность которой далеко не очевидна? Какова ценность экспертного мнения в эпоху, превозносящую мультидисциплинарность и любительство? Как создать структуру, допускающую индивидуальный подход в рамках общей системы образования? Мы понимали, что в этой студии мы не готовы стать преподавателями, поэтому построили работу «горизонтально» – студия стала одновременно исследованием и экспериментом в области образования. Студенты побывали в разных ролях: иногда были учениками, иногда преподавателями, часто – партнерами по проектам, которым приходится работать вместе, делиться информацией, высказывать критику или совет, спорить с преподавателями и поддерживать динамику студии. Мы начали с личных образовательных траекторий и постепенно, с помощью интервью, списков рекомендованной литературы, полевых и онлайн-исследований, расширили охват до мировых практик. Студия определила десять тем, которые казались наиболее существенными для понимания настоящего и будущего образования. Каждый из студентов выбрал одну из тем для исследовательского проекта. Работа студии сгруппировалась вокруг трех категорий. Первая часть исследования сосредоточена на глобальных вопросах: место цифровых технологий в процессе обучения; возрастающая мобильность студентов и ее проявление в периферийных

EDUCATION AS A PROJECT: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF LEARNING In December 2012, we initiated an exploration into education. It was, in many ways, a journey into the unknown, and the scope of the subject felt immense. The drive to teach and to learn predates human history; it predates humanity itself. Education unites and divides our world; it marks time and spans it. Almost everyone knows something about education, but the knowledge is usually locked up in autobiographical anecdotes, occasionally backed up by social science and expressed in overheated conversation. Recognizing this in ourselves and uncertain of how best to begin, we decided to state our intentions in the form of questions. Our studio description began: How to reanimate dead schools without destroying tradition?

What does it mean to be informed in an environment of constantly updating information with uncertain value? What is the value of expertise in an age that fetishizes multidisciplinarity and amateurism? How can we develop a structure that allows for personalized trajectories within a common educational system?

Recognizing that Strelka is a school but feeling inadequately prepared to teach education, we designed our studio to be both an exploration of and experiment in its primary subject. Ours was a "flat" studio, in which the students played multiple roles – sometimes as learners, sometimes teachers, often as partners, sharing information and advice, offering critical pressure and personal affection, challenging the directors and strengthening the studio as a unit.

Starting from our individual experiences, the survey eventually spanned outward to take in educational efforts around the world, via interviews, recommended readings, and investigations online and in the field. Each researcher chose his or her own subject, based on personal interest and selected from a set of ten topics that the group identified as the most important to understanding the present and anticipating the future of education.

Our efforts arranged into three categories of increasing specificity: the survey starts with global issues, including disruptive digital technology, increasing student mobility and its effects on less magnetic locations, and the influence of educational rankings

регионах; влияние рейтингов на выбор абитуриентов и формирование государственной политики в сфере образования. Во второй части фокус исследования сужается до архитектурного образования в России. Анализ стандартов обучения архитектуре выявил несовершенную, но неожиданно гибкую систему, оставляющую свободу для экспериментов. Мы изучили Московский архитектурный институт, первую и самую престижную архитектурную школу в России, и обозначили традиции, которые одновременно определяют и ограничивают ее. Противопоставление устаревших методик обучения и возрастающих требований к профессии легло в основу проекта лабораторий продолженного обучения. Такие лаборатории рассчитаны на все возраста и прикреплены к университетам, остро нуждающимся в «свежей крови». Наконец, объектом исследования стал сам институт «Стрелка» — площадка нашей работы и один из самых амбициозных образовательных экспериментов в России. Мы очертили личные и институциональные связи «Стрелки» в мельчайших подробностях и пришли к выводу, что институт со своим упором на междисциплинарность и неформальное руководство больше похож на средневековую гильдию, чем на типичный современный университет. Мы стремились критически переосмыслить образовательную программу института через опросы и беседы с выпускниками, студентами, преподавателями и сотрудниками и сформулировали ряд дополнений, которые привнесут в программу новый контекст и компетенции, необходимые для продолжения эксперимента. В совокупности эти проекты затрагивают лишь несколько конкретно обозначенных явлений в изменчивом поле образования. Каждый из них неожиданным образом дает ответ на вопросы, с которых начиналась работа студии. В целом, эта публикация представляется нам не сборником отдельных исследований, а коллективным высказыванием, провозглашающим образование, открытое к переменам и не теряющее актуальности.

— Юрий Григорян, Брендан Макгетрик, Питер Сигрист

on student choice and government policy. From there the focus narrows to architectural education in Russia specifically. An exploration of educational standards revealed an imperfect but unexpectedly flexible system, fit for experimentation.

We investigated Moscow Architectural Institute, Russia's first and most influential architecture school, and found the presence of traditions that simultaneously define and confine it. The collision of outdated training and ever-evolving professional demands produced a proposal for laboratories of lifelong learning, inclusive of all ages and attached to host universities in need of new blood.

Finally, the scope contracts to cover the Strelka Institute itself, the platform for our research and the host of one of Russia's most ambitious educational experiments. We delineated Stelka's personal and institutional networks in minute, almost obsessive detail, ultimately revealing that, in its emphasis on interdisciplinary collegiality and informal instruction, the institute more closely resembles a medieval guild than a modern university. Aware of these interdisciplinary impulses, we sought to apply critical attention to Strelka's educational programs – via interviews and surveys with past and present students, tutors, and administrators.

The investigation revealed shared ambitions pursued through unlike means, with little agreement on the degree of structure best suited for Strelka's "orchestral" work. In response, we propose a number of additions to the program, each intended to provide new competencies and a new context, through which Strelka's researchers can pursue the Institute's natural inclination toward the unconventional.

Taken together, these projects cover a couple of pixels in the everchanging, somehow timeless landscape of education. In unexpected and unintended ways, they respond to the questions with which the effort began. In the end, this report seems to us less a collection of studies than a kind of collective statement, delivered in a variety of voices, advocating change, encouraging endurance, and increasing understanding.

— Yury Grigoryan, Brendan McGetrick, Peter Sigrist

This book is designed for personal, non-commercial use. You must not use it in any other way, and, except as permitted under applicable law, you must not copy, translate, publish, licence or sell the book without our consent.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS #global

#architecture

#strelka

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Richard Trovatten: Higher Education in the Age of Information

18

Anastasia Napalkova: University Rankings. Measuring the Immeasurable

26

Maria Slavnova: Brain Remain. Mobility in the Global Economy

38

Inesa Kovalova: Standard #270100. Borders of Freedom

46

Anna Pozniak: Conservation, New Construction or Remodeling?

The Future of Tradition at MArchI

56

Nataliya Orekhova: Lifelong Architectural Laboratory

66

Victor Karovsky: Network of Guilds

76 86

Lena Yarmanova: S.P.A.C.E. Reader

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HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION

by Richard Trovatten

HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION

A NEW SET OF CONDITIONS Digital technology is changing the way we learn, connect, communicate ideas, share resources and organize shared efforts. In many ways, it appears to be making us less dependent on centralized institutions. If this is the case, what are the implications for higher education?

There has been a fundamental shift away from the conditions that were present when our current systems of education were designed. It presents a remarkable opportunity to rethink the way we go about cultivating our younger and, increasibly interesting initiatives are popping up on a daily basis. a substantial gap between the potential that is being mapped at the periphery by radical new players and what we’re able to bring to the mainstream. It’s a

BEYOND FUNCTIONAL FIXEDNESS When it comes to re-imagining systems that have been around for generations, we have heavy cognitive limitations. As soon as we think of the word education, quite detailed images form in our minds. We see schools, universities, faculties, classrooms, teachers, lectures, dissertations, grades and diplomas. We have very particular understandings of how all of these things work and how they should work together. What’s important to remember, though, is that these ideas are not purposes in a larger system. To some extent, they are prototypes with very long histories of optimization.

In cognitive psychology, there is a term for the limitations we have when looking our ability to process and grasp the full potential of an object once we are familAn example is the candle problem; this is an experiment that involves a candle, a box of thumbtacks and a book of matches. With these materials at hand you ask someone to attach the candle to the wall so that it doesn’t drip onto the instructions, is that they use the thumbtacks to attach the candle directly to the wall, which doesn’t work. Others try to melt the bottom or the side of the candle to make it somehow stick by itself. This doesn’t work either. The trick in this case is to tack the candle to the box, and then the box to the wall, thereby using the inside of the box as a candle-holder.

What keeps people from spotting this solution right away is that they can’t being a container for thumbtacks. They don’t realize the full potential and they don’t succeed in solving the task because a creative limitation blocks their imagination and understanding. discuss the transformative potential of digital technologies. We try to utilize the Internet to improve the established curriculum-focused content distribution model of higher education. We ask ourselves questions within this narrow and left unemployed? Will online learning support students’ creativity? Will the online environments lead to isolation?

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Experts and futurists are more than willing to chime in and forecast the outcomes of this infant transformation. Take this extract from a popular piece that

everyone; the residential college campus will become largely obsolete; tens of thousands of professors will lose their jobs; the bachelor’s degree will become increasingly irrelevant; and ten years from now Harvard will enrol ten million students." complex for this sort of prognosticating. And, more importantly, as pointed out 25 years ago by Seymour Papert, the question we ask at this point should not education using digital technology?”

We should be taking a step back and opening our scope to what could be. We this occasion to readdress the fundamental questions of education. One of the most central being “What type of citizens do we want?” Do we want people who or people who are happy being shown a path and following instructions? And means of people determine their quality of education and through this, their ability to realize personal capacity?

Fixating on the technology will not address these deeper lying issues, and however we might want the output, a lack of addressing will prevent us from using I propose that we escape the candle problem of higher education by looking beyond the current institutional model. By looking beyond the determined purposfor re-structuring and re-purposing.

ORIGINS OF THE CURRENT MODEL vance the sciences. In the 18th century, the German government saw universities as an opportunity to give cultural coherence to an emerging nation state. Starting with Humboldt University, Emanuel Kant assisted in transforming academic

remains to this day.

Kant's model was adopted worldwide, including in the United States, where the second great transformation in higher education occurred with the introduction of the G.I. Bill in 1944. The bill provided free higher education for soldiers returning from World War II, introducing a trend toward mass enrolment.

Today, public debate centers around the university’s ability to give students the education needed to thrive in today's society. But the universities, as well as the ranking systems and funding structures that surround them, still prioritize and form decisions on the basis of their Kantian legacy.

HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION

A

“The revolution won’t arrive until we dare to loosen our grip on some of the social conventions attached to education, until we dare to play with the ideas of learners and teachers, the concept of accreditation, the strictness of curriculum and other cultural inventions that we’ve put in place and still rely on.”

B

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EMERGING DEMANDS AND THE SYSTEM WE HAVE In determining what form of education model we need, macro trends provide some insight. According to McKinsey & Company, most economic sectors in the United States have experienced a net decrease in job-availability at the physiat the advanced degree level. Jobs are slowly disappearing at production levels employers are using diplomas as a distinguishing mechanism. Regardless of the you have middle-class dreams, then getting a university degree is essential.

But looking at the way the current system operates; it appears increasingly difwith government de-funding of the sector are pushing college debt to supersede

parents’ degrees, and with far inferior job security.

Globally, the number of enrolled students is estimated at 150 million, a 53% increase since 2000. And the demography is changing with these numbers. The classical 18-22 year-old full-time students are now the minority, as more people return to supplement their education after starting their career. So we are mov1. Countries and employers have a growing demand for skilled labor capable of working with knowledge on a deeper and more creative level. cation in a market where formal recognition is becoming a condition for getting a foot in the door.

Take a look at our current system and you will see that it fails to meet those aims.

Going to a university is expensive and demands full-time commitment which see purpose and internalize the material. It is lecture-driven with a large emphasis on transmission of the disciplines, which doesn’t nurture the learners ability they might operate in. And in many ways it resembles a cheap version of the blueprint Kant drew up back in the late 18th century. We’ve applied an idea that was designed for a selective elite who sought insight in particular sciences and scaled it to the masses across sectors, levels and professions. And we have done the knowledge-transmission model of education, scaling the number of students through the use of bigger classrooms and by relying more on the passive lecture format rather than the costly knowledge-interaction model by matching the number of teachers and hours of interpersonal consultations and guidance.

If we plan to meet the above-mentioned criteria of educating more people betof education with emphasis on both costs and quality. We might very well need to accept and encourage diversity in how education is delivered and accredited, and a good approach would be to fuel the educational experience with the individual learner’s interests and life-situation, making it less of a synthetic system, utilizing the existing infrastructures from people’s lives next to education.

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HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION Figure 1. Employment changes 2007-2009 On-the-job training

Industry

Work experience

Vocational award

Associate degree

Bachelor’s plus work experience

Bachelor’s degree

Graduate degree

Manufacturing Administrative and support services Retail Construction

Finance and insurance Transportation and warehousing Business services Wholesale

Job decrease Neutral Job increase

Real estate Accommodation and food services Educational services

Government

US Market. Source: The Conference Board, McKinsey & Company.

Healthcare

United States

41

Germany

44

37

32

25

Brazil

26

32

41

India

26

32

41

China

31

25

Creative jobs Service jobs Production jobs

15

% of workforce

Source: McKinsey Quarterly, 2012. *Interaction and transaction relabelled creative and service.

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Figure 3. College Tuition & Fees

Figure 4. Student Loans

%

1120

1100

1 trillion USD

1010

1000 0.8 900 800 0.6

700 600 500

0.4

390

400

330

300

College Prices — Bureau of Labor.

Median House Prices — www.census.gov Consumer Price Index www.big.gov & Higher Ed Info, NCES, Wall Street Journal.

0.2

200

1980

1982

1984 1986

1988

1990

Student Loans Credit Card Loads

1992

1994

1996 1998

2000

2002 2004

2006

2008

20

1978

09

100 2012

0 2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

College Tuition & Fees Median House Prices

2010

2011

2012

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NEW OPPORTUNITIES The most promising opportunity that the Internet brings to education is the ability for everyone with a online access to collaborate and self-organize with like-minded people, wherever they may be. This opens up completely new ways of organizing educational efforts and puts tremendous pressure on existing institutions that were built in response to different conditions.

It enables us to start thinking about much more decentralized systems, and makes it possible for us to start thinking about how we create experiences in which people’s shared interests are the central organizing factor instead of things like geographic proximity, age and discipline.

Among the existing digital formats, the most successful are MOOCs, or massive open online courses, which take the course experience and make it available online for free. In the fall of 2011, Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun from Stanford University managed to attract 160,000 people to their course Introduction to Arhas managed to build a user base of 3.2 million people in less than a year, which is faster growth than both Facebook and Twitter in their early days.

This shows the urgent need for alternatives to the university experience. The popularity is tremendous, but MOOCs are still mimicking the idea of the lecture, and though the scale is impressive, I think there is little in this format that is surpassing the concept of knowledge transmission. Students are still passively following instructions and teachers are still positioned as the main nodes of the network, who as the largest repositories of knowledge are put in charge of structuring all the key-factors of the experience. MOOCs represent important possibilities for the future of education, but they aren’t a revolution in themselves.

Carlota Perez is a thinker on technology and it’s socio-economic effects. She has pointed out that technological revolutions have installation and deployment phases, and that it takes time to develop the infrastructure needed for wideit to record plays. Later, cinemas were built, people started to play around with editing, and eventually a completely new industry emerged. things we did in the past, and slowly we’re beginning to play around with new formats. But the revolution won’t arrive until we dare to loosen our grip on some of the social conventions attached to education, until we dare to play with the ideas of learners and teachers, the concept of accreditation, the strictness of curriculum and other cultural inventions we’ve put in place and still rely on.

HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION

DIALOGUE ON EDUCATION TODAY It became clear early on that the pressure points are emerging most visibly in the United States, where the current model is starting to crack as new initiahigher education in different ways. All have made substantial contributions to either the university as we know it or to new initiatives that question this model.

They range from Daphne Koller, founder of Coursera, a fast-growing platform for free online courses, to Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at MIT and prominent commentator on the state of higher education in today’s society.

Noam Chomsky

George Siemens

MIT

Michael Karnjanaprakorn

Mark C Taylor

Henry Riggs

Philipp Schmidt

Retired VP of Stanford

MIT Medialab + P2PU

Daphnee Koller

Keith Devlin Stanford

Anna Kamenetz

Terry Anderson

Author of DIY U

Ben Nelsson Founder of Minerva

I am now analysing and synthesizing the interviews. In the coming months, they will be published on Theory & Practice, a Moscow-based online "edutainment" site. I also plan to bring them into conversation with each other in a documentary on the current state of higher education.

REFERENCES 1. The American Interest, Febrary 2013. in "MIT Media Lab Epistemology and Learning Memo No. 2," 1990.

4. McKinsey Quarterly, 2012 Interaction and Transaction relabeled creativity and service.

5. McKinsey & Company, The Conference Board.

6. Harvard Graduate School of Education. "Project on Student Debt," Pathways to Prosperity Conference, 2011.

7. CollegeBoard Advocacy and Policy Center. "The College Completion Agenda 2010 Progress Report," 2010.

8. "Education At A Glance" OECD, 2011. Accessed April 2012. www.oecd.org 9. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Median House Prices, College Prices, 2010.

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UNIVERSITY RANKINGS. MEASURING THE IMMEASURABLE

by Anastasia Napalkova

“How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible?

Through lists, through catalogues, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries.

There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: it was 2,063, at least according to Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists — the shopping list, the will, the menu — that are also cultural achievements in their own right.”

Umberto Eco, from Spiegel interview “We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die.”

UNIVERSITY RANKINGS. MEASURING THE IMMEASURABLE

19

The Russian government is investing nine billion rou100 in global rankings. But what is measured by rankings and why would we trust them?

Russian universities are not competing at the top of international rankings. Of the three major academic ranking systems — the Academic Ranking of World -

in the 16-18 with the best chances of placement. If they make the list, they will actual quality of education.

NAVIGATOR FOR NEWCOMERS Figure 1. Position of Moscow State University (MSU) in the ARWU global ranking.

Global university rankings have existed for only 10 years, yet they are highly exist now appeared 30 years ago. More than 60% of the world’s students take rankings into account when choosing an HEI. Initiatives to place universities in global rankings also exist in Kazakhstan, France, Malaysia, China and Finland; India and Holland distribute scholarships for international education based on the placement of their universities in global rankings. 1 According to Ying Cheng, co-founder of the Shanghai ranking, “It’s hard for me to say how popular our ranking is. I will just say that, since we issued the ranking, representatives of 200 unius in person.” Phil Baty, an editor of the THE global ranking, was chosen the most

1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81

even though Baty is British. meeting a need for selection criteria on the part of students and professors.

“Many new people came to the education market and didn’t know what was going on there,” says Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher sue higher education. The magazine US News & World Report started issuing its economy, the focus on rankings spread worldwide.

In the mid-1990s, the Chinese government began an initiative to transform their education system for competition at the international level. However, it was difJiao Tong University decided to develop a ranking system in 2003 to measure their position in the global arena; this became the Shanghai ranking. Shortly another system in cooperation with the Times Higher Education magazine. They split into separate systems in 2009, joining the Shanghai ranking as the top three global rankings for higher education.

Russia is now joining the race to the top of the academic rankings, but it's not promising to be an easy one. After years of efforts, China still doesn’t have a -

91 2004

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UK Germany

Figure 2. The United States and United Kingdom lead in global rankings.

USA UK Germany

Country distribution in ARWU top 100.

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Netherlands

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in the rankings?

RESEARCH FIRST Rankings measure certain types of universities, which not only teach students An overall score of all three global rankings is dependent on the research quality of the university - both the number of people producing research and their output - papers produced. An overall score in the Shanghai ranking is 90% depend-

on publications written in English. This is logical, given their global scope. “We the boundaries of collective global knowledge, then it shouldn’t have a high impact rating,” explains Phil Baty, rankings editor for THE. But also focus on research is a challenge based on the Russian higher education system, which is different from the one they use in the USA and the UK. “Rankings favour the Anglo-Saxon model common among universities in the UK and US, which allows more time for research than the teaching-based continental model found in Russia,” says Anatoly Torkunov, rector of Moscow State University Mikhail Eskindarov, rector of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, “In universities based on the Anglo-Saxon model, a professor’s teaching responsibility is 100-120 hours per year, and they’re expected teaching responsibility of a Russian professor is 400-450 hours per year.”

Although Russian universities are making an effort to allow professors time to publish, many have found that students are not accustomed to working independently. “If we tell students that a particular amount of time is devoted to individual work, they will just do nothing,” Eskindarov assures us. Alexandr Auzan, delivering knowledge through conversation is an important part of the continen-

UNIVERSITY RANKINGS. MEASURING THE IMMEASURABLE

“Why would I need a professor? Just give me what they’ve written. Maybe I will ask them a few questions later by e-mail." In the continental system it’s different. Complex subjects are discussed, more often than read. This approach extends to assessment as well. Instead of a test, submitting information, a strict grading system, there are oral seminars, colloquia.”

That’s why US universities occupy almost a third of ranked universities and half with them in rankings because of the lack of budget. Harvard’s endowment is almost two times larger than Russia’s entire budget for education - $32 billion versus $18 billion. But if you set other priorities leaders will be different. “If you were to increase the proportion of teaching in the overall ranking score, Oxford

INSIDE THE BLACK BOX “measuring teaching is the holy grail of rankings at any level. People add new criteria, claiming that they measure something new, but nobody answers big questions.” In other words, rankings show little about teaching quality. The Shanghai ranking considers the tunities for students to learn from them. They also factor in the results of an em-

the rationale that having more postgraduate students creates a more intellectual atmosphere.

It’s possible to criticize each of these criteria. For example, if there are a lot of teachers in the school it doesn’t mean that they give good lessons. But the main thing is that the majority focus on assessing the quality of the environment for students, but are silent about the results of spending time in such an envithe university. We don’t know what is happening inside. It’s a black box,” says Jan Sadlack, president of the Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence.

Ranking ancestors in the beginning and middle of the previous century took a out which universities they graduated from. A similar ranking is produced today

by Forbes magazine, for example, which counts millionaire graduates. “This reverse engineering doesn’t say much. How do you know whether an outstanding person is typical for this institution? They could be an exception,” explains Ben Wildavsky, senior scholar in Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation, who doesn’t trust this method. He says that you can get an idea closer to reality if you take average alumni salary, but you should keep in mind that if a person studies literature he will probably earn less than lawyer. Does this say anything about the quality of education?

There was a recent attempt to measure the results of teaching by the Assessment -

well as skills in economics and engineering.6 The project started 5 years ago, and has collected a large amount of useful information, but has produced no usable benchmarks.

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Figure 3. People, publications, opinions 100

Proportion of subjective and objective criteria in rankings.

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Objective indicators include number of people producing them.

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objective (such as number of publications, citations etc.) subjective (surveys)

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Local rankings have better access to information and thus have more sophisticated data. The Expert ranking in Russia offers more extensive employer and student surveys, but local rankings are almost as limited as their global counterparts in measuring educational outcomes, since both are focused instead on environment. The Expert ranking factors in the presence of scholars from the Academy of Sciences employed at a university, the average age of teachers and the number of collaborative programs with international universities. US News & World Report measures selectivity and student test scores. So it’s clear that rankings are imperfect, but do they help universities improve?

SELECTIVE PICTURE Global rankings favour certain types of universities whilst obscuring others. And methodology have been the physical, life and medical sciences. … other important sources or publication formats, such as books and conference proceedings, impact on technical standards or policy reports, electronic formats or open source likely to be published in high-impact journals” 1. Rankings prefer big institutions to smaller ones. “Rankings force small schools who are good at something to do things which are not their core competition. They kill excellence,” professor Altbach says. Rankings underestimate institutions that are not producing research but produce important professionals for the country’s economy. “We teach people who will work in the mining industry,” a representative of the St. Petersburg Mining Institute explains. “It’s hard work, you have to work underground. It’s not prestigious and we struggle to attract students. But this industry is important for the Russian economy.” Such institutions often attract students from low-income ing a great job increasing social mobility, but this is not what we are measuring.”

Although experts don’t know exactly how many universities in the world can potentially be included in rankings, they say it’s several thousands. Others remain relatively unknown. For some it’s just not possible to place in the current rankings criteria, but this doesn’t mean they’re not achieving their goals or maintaining high standards. Some call rankings misleading attempts to compare “apples with oranges.”2

UNIVERSITY RANKINGS. MEASURING THE IMMEASURABLE

The selective picture offered by global rankings works for a country like Hong of them are in the rankings. In Russia there are 3,500. It’s not clear whether it’s necessary to prioritize several schools for government support. In the United States, where there are more than four thousand HEIs, the question of selectivity is also on a table. Although the US government doesn’t use rankings in education rankings you will not get Chinese students,” Dmitry Grishankov, CEO of Expert rating agency says. That’s important for US universities, because they make up over 30%3 of the world education market, and it’s predicted that number of world international students will double by 2025.4 Although we want to say that in Russia we don’t need highly ranked universities.

“There should be several world-class universities in Russia, not many. But not because of the rankings but because of the country’s needs,” professor Altbach says. From this perspective, the problem is that by prioritizing ranking results a university always has to invest in improving particular indicators, and those indicators are not necessarily related to teaching. In this sense, universities in a ranking race have similarities with publicly listed companies, that on a stock market have to show good quarterly results and this short term focus can prevent them from investing in longterm development out of concern for either temporary loss That’s why there are universities in Europe and the United States who refuse to be ranked. One of those is Reed college, Portland. They refused to provide data to US News & World Report though being in the top100. They made a statement on pressures to abandon its core principles and its clear focus on academics. Studies continue to show Reed graduates earning doctorates or winning postgraduate rates higher than all but a handful of other colleges. Says President Diver, “Reed is a paradigmatic example of a college committed — and committed solely — to the cultivation of a thirst for knowledge. Reed illustrates a relatively small, but robust, segment of higher education whose virtues may not always be celebrated by the popular press, but can still be found by those who truly seek them.”

All those critiques do not necessarily disprove the value of rankings; it is more that we are just too demanding to them. “I spent my whole life trying to understand which university is better and I don’t know!” professor Altbach exclaims.

Rankings are making a titanic attempt to measure the unmeasurable. There is rule according to which you should prioritize research against teaching. There is no rules on which criteria you should use. “We’ve done a lot of work consulting with experts. And we’ve made a decision — this is what we think is a right formulation,” says Phil Baty of THE. Giving the appearance of being all-knowing, rankings play an interesting game the expected ones, otherwise the ranking will not be trusted. Ben Wildavsky gives an example from mid '90's when US News & World Report unexpectedly placed student-to-teacher ratio is small. But Caltech is not an environment most of the students would like because of its very strong emphasis on science. US News & World Report sold fewer copies as a result. In the next year they changed meth“Rankings have never been social science; interesting article? What information is available on universities?” Ben Wildavsky explains. And why not? “I’m for the free speech,” several of my interlocutors said in defense of rankings.

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USER’S FAULT the States," Ben Wildavsky says. "The idea is that people have a right to know about their cost. Rankings emerged in response to people who needed more information in choosing a school.” In some ways, they have adjusted to meet users’ varying needs. Beside a composite score you can look at different criteria separately. “Graduation rate — as a parent I want to know if it is 50 or 90%.

I’m interested in how big classes are or how much money you are spending on research. They are reasonable as one component,” he says. Haley, a student in and World Report ranking. Now she is transferring to another university, which is higher in the rankings. “I looked at classrooms size. I don’t have an idea how you can get knowledge in a room with 200 kids besides you. I was also choosing a more selective school. Here the selectivity rate is almost 80% - basically, everybody can enter. The school I’m transferring to has a selectivity rate of 40%.

I’m sure that a competitive atmosphere forces you to improve,” she said. A math student from Harvard who I spoke with said that among those universities he entered he had chosen the one with the best program in math, not looking at the overall score of the institution.

Its transparency and statistics-based nature are keys to rankings’ success. In the different methods. The only criteria they used was academic surveys, which were a collection of subjective opinions. This approach inspired negative responses from academics. As a consequence, the magazine had to add other criteria, eventually relying on surveys for just 25% of the assessment, with the rest coming from hard data. Another example of this transparency is the Gourman Report, a ranking of undergraduate, professional, and graduate programs in American and international universities. It was issued for almost 30 years by professor Jack an international ranking where MSU was ranked 2nd - after the Sorbonne and before Oxford. Leningrad State University was ranked 4th. However, that ranking isn’t trusted now because Gourman didn’t disclose his methodology.

But it seems that transparency only gives rankings an image of being a clear based on. For many users it is only important to know the composite score of the university, not what is behind it. “We work to help people working in universities to make informed decisions. We have 30 million unique users each year but there are only hundreds of thousands of academics in the world. That means that minutes to make sure that their university performs well,” Phil Baty says. He notes that while some people are very cynical about rankings and look at different criteria, there are those primarily in Asia who are sensitive to composite score as it’s a reputation question. They can see it from website statistics. Shanghai ranking faces a similar situation. “Students don’t care what indicators are used in rankings,” Ying Cheng regrets. One of the reasons for this is that international students spend their money in other country’s universities and they want to be sure that their institution is famous and has good reputation and brand. That’s “High ranking is only for your ego,” a Harvard student winces. “If you learn, you will get a good education at any school,” a student of Pace University agrees. school, I was forced to go to one of the best, everybody was saying it’s important.

But now my brother is graduating from school and I see that it’s changing. It’s important to choose not just the best school but the one which best suits you," an MIT student says.

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UNIVERSITY RANKINGS. MEASURING THE IMMEASURABLE

The Russian government uses rankings the same way as those students who don’t care what rankings are made from. “The idea about rankings emerged as a political statement connected with national ambitions,” Alexandr Auzan thinks.

It’s a shame then that the probability of getting 5 institutions into top 100 before 2020 is so low. “Seven years is not enough for this,” Juliya Zaiceva, representauniversities should place. Now there is a competition on developing Russia’s own national and international ranking of universities. It’s supposed to set its own priorities instead of using “Anglo-Saxon ranking.” “There should be way to measure teaching quality, the opinion of employers,” Anatoly Torkunov says. For now it’s unclear how to do it on international level. Another risk for this kind of ranking is trust. As was mentioned above, it’s important who is on top of the ranking. There were mocking headlines announcing, “The French are doing well in French world ranking” when France came up with such an idea.

TO HIDE THE BEST As a reaction to strong governmental attention to diversifying global rankings can be found in the European experience. The largest initiative-response to governmental attention to rankings is U-Multirank. Its goal is to provide the user to decide by oneself what ones priorities are. Even global rankings are listening to market demand and recognizing this need by adjusting their methods for is making a ranking for Latin America that is published predominantly in Latin American magazines. THE is making a ranking for Asia and top 50 universities under 50 years old. They are also working on a way to give the user an opportunity to change indicator weight according to a user’s priorities. However, the most extreme efforts at diversifying ranking criteria have received criticism and even scorn. Critics point out that most of the rankings’ users are not professionals and by adding more criteria with less hierarchy, its possible that they will make ill-informed decisions. In addition, everybody is best equals nobody is best.

“Everybody gets a prize,” Ben Wildavsky of Kauffman Foundation said . “We have to accept that ranking should have a certain level of brutality,” Jan Sadlack of initiated in the United States, but as satire. The goal was to show the absurdity of rankings’ attempts to measure the unmeasurable. “Jeffrey Stake, a professor at the Indiana University law school, has created a website called the Ranking Game. It contains a spreadsheet loaded with statistics on every law school in the country, and allows users to pick their own criteria, assign their own weights and construct any ranking system they want.”4 motion tool. “We are best in staff-to-student ratio” and “we are 126th in a number exact reason, however, it is unlikely that the Russian government will rely on them. Their concern is at least partly based on promotion and in that they are not so unlike the mass of students who use rankings to make short-cut decisions.

Our only hope may be that, having apparently accepted this consumer-oriented understanding of education, our policy makers will at least choose to be well informed, critical consumers.

REFERENCES 1. Hazelkorn, Ellen. Rankings and the Reshaping of Higher Education: The Battle for World-Class Excellence. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

2. Saltelli, Andrea. “Looking at Apples and Oranges: Learning from University Rankings and Other Composite Indicators,” European Commission, 2013.

3. Galushkina, Marina. "Massive, Flexible and International," Expert Magazine, 2005.

4. "Worldwide Student Numbers Forecast to Double by 2025," University World News. February 19, 2012. Accessed June 2013. www. universityworldnews.com 5. Gladwell, Malcom. “The Order of Things: What College Rankings Really Tell Us,” The New Yorker.

February 2011, accessed May 2013. www.newyorker.com 6. AHELO: Telling you what you need to know about higher education outcomes. Accessed May 2013. www.oecdinsights.org

May 2013. www.poisknews.ru

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BRAIN REMAIN. MOBILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

by Maria Slavnova

By 2020 the projected number of mobile students will reach 5,8 million and 8 million by 2025.1 To help visualize 8 million mobile students and researchers, York City today. Who will occupy this "Mobile City"?

Based on the recent surveys, Pricewaterhouse Coopers released a study called spectives of recent graduates. The term used to described them is "GENERATION Y" — agile consumers and producers of knowledge, ranking learning and devel2

They are also the ones shaping the market of higher education with their demands, with focus on cross-border higher education, which implies international content in the curricula, movement of students, scholars, programs and institutions across borders.3

BRAIN REMAIN. MOBILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

The global market for mobile students is shifting and acquiring new players, policies, marketing strategies and university structures. From the perspective of students; the "borderless world" seems attractive. From the perspective of counon the global scale is also lucrative. Education as a tool of "soft power," of building strategic economic alliances, of answering to the demands of the global market, has recently been in the spotlight. phenomena coined as the "brain drain." As countries initiate change in policies to compete in the world’s higher education race, it is important to remember the duality that comes from freedom to choose.

While Russia looks into the future and considers its role in the race for the global minds, it is crucial to consider both scales and both directions in this process.

Understanding local forces at play in the regional context can serve as a tool in understanding the future of higher education in Russia. Highlighting the Brain Remain, or the regional potential can serve as the counterpoint to the academic reforms, which will continue to polarize resources and concentrate knowledge capital in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large cities. To face the present moas a background for social, political and economical processes at play.

WANDERING INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARS AND HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS When a student makes a choice to go to a different institution outside of his “visited Miletus, where he received advice from Thales and attended lectures

by Anaximander." Similarly, academic mobility has been around since 445 BC, when the Sophists appeared, “itinerant, professional teachers who travelled in the Greek-speaking world, teaching the children of the wealthy, for which they were paid.”3 The world of Islam introduces concepts such as “itinerant polymaths” — “scholars, and students united by a common language and with the means to travel, the existence of informal structures for learning, and scholarly work such as museums, libraries, observatories, and learning centers in urban settings” and further separation between institution for “higher learning," such as madrasa, "which was essentially a school of law"4 and informal institutions, which provided the opportunities for other learners. when intercontinental sea voyages began, were a huge driver of mobility — this sity outside of Europe, Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic with others following.”

Religion gets introduced very early on as an important factor. When works of scholars in translations become available and university takes root, a model of medieval university appears on the shoulders of Christian philosophy. The two oldest universities in Bologna and Paris show high level of international mobility, provided with the grants and assistance of churches.3 -

28

knowledge, rather than to learn how to practice a profession.” His model introduces “unity of teaching and research” centered on the faculty of philosophy, which had an effect in the United States and Japan.

What started as “the original colonial model, imported from England, combined with the German research university idea of the 19th century, and the notion of service to society” produced the modern US university, where the idea of the unity of teaching and research became central.6 This model still produces a competas rankings and networks, attracting high numbers of mobile students.

Other models, such as the Bologna Declaration of 1999, the Institute of International Education, European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of Unieffects on the international mobility.

As the word "mobile" itself might suggest, the history of the formation of universities and distribution of wandering scholars has been at the crossroads of mobility and immobility. Closely linked to the formation of cities, in the words of Urry and Sheller, they “are mobile and places of mobility.” To apply it to the university, it is important to understand the forces at play, the right level and

THE GLOBAL QUESTION McNeill and McNeill explain that “civilizations engulfed originally independent human communities, creating new, more powerful bodies — politic, economic and cultural; and being more powerful, they persistently spread to geographically favourable new ground. Moreover, their spread meant that across the past followed a familiar path by blending into an ever more powerful, global, cosmopolitan Web that now prevails among us—a huge Web of cooperation and 8

Since the mid-1990s globalization has been recognized as “perhaps the most fundamental challenge faced by the University in its long history.”9 The processes that take place on the world stage, that affect education are extensive. Knight international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of post-secondary education.”10 especially when the competition is becoming more agile with new markets technologies.

bility include but are not limited to: demographics; economic growth and decline; the expansion of local higher education systems; immigration policies and regulatory environments of competing host countries; government-initiated scholarship programs; and the emergence of technology-enabled alternatives like MOOCs.”11

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Figure 1. Long-term growth in the number of students enrolled outside of their country of citizenship from 1975-2010, millions.

Source: OECD and UNESCO Institute for Statistics www.dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932663283

What is most noticeable is the steady increase in the number of the world’s mobile students, easily seen on the Figure 1, with the key players that take in the consider are the countries of origin of the students and their relationships with the host countries and reasons for choosing particular paths of study.

The term mentioned by Wilhelm von Humboldt “knowledge producer” becomes the driving force of “global knowledge economy." The modern vagabond surveys the market in order to be competitive, not just in his own country, but also in the international market, considering acquiring intercultural skills is becoming essential. “This is referred to as the “capacity-building approach” to policy formulation at the national and the institutional levels, which can be extended to include the desire of students themselves to acquire a good education, as well as developing intercultural skills that will make them employable in the global labor market.”3 It is important to conclude with Bologna University, founded in 1088, considered words, the university in its origins was a demand driven institution structured by market forces. It was centuries later that universities became creations of the 12

effectively absorbed within the state bureaucracy.3 We see below, in Figure 2, the distribution of foreign students by country of destination. The "academic honey pots" are those countries, which have been able to position themselves historically by attracting the “knowledge producers," and in Figure 3, we see the main countries from which these foreign students come. The largest number of foreign students are from China, India and Korea.

> Economic strategic alliances, where post-secondary education becomes a foreign policy tool and establishes alliances and increases competitiveness in the global markets.3 > Competition for the global minds, innovative research and tuition fees — top 13

> Manufacturing in the global economy. "The new era of manufacturing will be marked by highly agile, networked enterprises that use information and analytic as skilfully as they employ talent and machinery to deliver products and services ties between industry and education.14

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Figure 2. Distribution of foreign students in tertiary education, by country of destination (2010) Source: OECD and UNESCO Institute for Statistics, www.dx.doi.org

Figure 3. Distribution of foreign students in tertiary education, by region of origin.%age of foreign students enrolled worldwide (2010).

Source: OECD and UNESCO Institute for Statistics www.dx.doi.org

BRAIN REMAIN. MOBILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

GOING MOBILE From the perspective of the student and his social support network, approaching the topic of “going mobile” is similarly strategic. Ultimately, the goal for most is to be competitive in the job market and secure a career path, which will be in demand. Newly emerging education services are also a form of market relations, represented by an Anglo-Saxon educational system, where education becomes a contract between an institution and a student. When mentioning “education," it is necessary to immediately specify, that this broad term encompasses many groups of users and many forms that this process can take. The biggest emerging of digital education and vocational training, aimed at developing manufacturing markets.

Rankings, language, tuition and living cost all become important criteria that a student considers. Although, one might think the modern vagabond is free to choose where to go — most students react to established networks of migratory paths.15. Geography, social networks, immigration policy, historical links to the country of origin, accreditation policies and the job market for future work all become important.

Once the diploma is in one’s hand, there is a choice of using a newly acquired degree for kick-starting a successful career in the country of origin or stay in the country for further research, work or teaching opportunities. This phenomena is often referred to as "brain drain," and the example of United States shows impressive results in the number of foreign born Nobel prize winners, cited foreign-born researchers, and over 115,000 international scholars teaching in the institutions in the United States.16

RUSSIA IN A SHIFTING WORLD When the topic of academic mobility is applied in the context of Russia, there are ity. Russia is considering both a priority for its economic and foreign policy goals. weapons, but export of education and culture will help create favourable conditions for Russian trade, services and ideas. We have to multiply and increase our educational and cultural presence in the world — including those countries, that already understand and speak our language.”

The process of internalization in Russia started in 2003 with the process of modernizing the degree structure in line with Bologna Process model, enacting the lowed by a two-year master’s degree, which is referred as a “two-tier education model." 18 In March 2011, at the time president, addressing the reforms in education, Dmia university, should be the main indicator of the quality of the given instituuniversities, accepted on the country scale, that are applying for the "federal" and "research" university subsidies. Moscow State University voiced its long term plans to increase the number of international students in the span of ten years Kazan State University from 2.1% to 3.2%, Tomsk and Novosibirsk State Universi15

against others.19

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According to the latest UNESCO statistics, that analyses the numbers of outbound and inbound mobile students, there is a pattern in USSR countries of high numbers of students coming to study to Russia, from Kazakhstan, Belarus, ing from our talent, with other ties introduced through the former channels of political expansion.

Maria Safonova discusses the chances of Russian universities on the world stage

USSR allies and countries, which were former members of The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, united by socialist ideals in the past. “Lessons from former countries of colonization show that, the more independent and decentralized the system becomes, the more chances there are for the formation of new mobile routes.”15

FUTURE VISIONS

To answer the urgency of investing in academic mobility, both international and 1. RESEARCH - CENTERED UNIVERSITY "the unity of teaching and research"

“The ability to generate, search, adapt and apply knowledge and to use it to generate income is one of the decisive factors in the sustainable development of society. The Research University is what plays the most important role in this process."21

2. COMPETITIVE MA PROGRAMS “let's realize what we are good at and sell it”

Masters programs might cause a spike in mobility numbers, because as dean of the Faculty of Economics in Moscow State university, Aleksandr Auzan in his ileged in many aspects because we have had a chance to understand what we are working with. We have adopted the 4+2 system in 1991, so we had time to understand what it takes to create a successful Master’s program. It is not just a continuation of the Bachelor style teaching, where students are given the foundation of their knowledge. In the Masters program, you have to have a oneto-one approach, understand the mindset of the students, their way of learning. bachelor’s of the required 4+2 system will leave the university — is that they will have nowhere to go. The bachelors degree will not be competitive in Russia, with the high number of students and level of education. He suspects that the

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BRAIN REMAIN. MOBILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

number of mobile students will rise — they will move to the centers of highest gravitation. They might even go to the third tier Higher Institutions of Europe in order to be competitive in the global education market. “We are at the risk of losing those students”22 Infrastructure and trade routes, in the example of Putin’s project of strategic gies, science with the boost of academic mobility can create ground for future innovations and economic gain.23 One of the most famous precedents, ERASMUS program, can serve as an example for stimulating internal academic mobility. Federal Universities, or chosen Universities based on a particular area of study can serve as nodes of a network. By providing a University Charter, guaranteeing the quality of the program, the program is managed on the federal level by “centralized” actions, such as creation of networks and standards, while “decentralized” actions promote individuals mobility through the participation in the program on the regional level.24 In this scenario, the direct link is established between the need for the new agile markets in manufacturing and education of the work force. In some degree, this goes back to the importance of vocational training, along with the rising trend in continuing and lifelong education. Of course, with such precedents in Soviet history as "raspredelenie," or "job distribution’" which was obligatory job placement of a recent graduate for a period of three years, this direction might require economic incentives from manufacturing sectors. According to a 2012 McKinsey

3. INFRASTRUCTURE + TECHNOLOGY “knowledge corridors and special economic zones” 4. UNIVERSITY NETWORK — DECENTRALIZED

5. INDUSTRY LINK “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” — Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

manufacturing and act on the powerful trends shaping the global competitive environment, they can thrive in this promising future.”14 American universities currently earn more than $1 billion a year in royalty and operate their own venture funds.25 Hewlett-Packard, Google, Yahoo!, Cisco, and Sun Microsystems were all incubated at Stanford. Thus, not only was a new source of income created for the universities, but the ties with corporations grew stronger, and the university came to be viewed as the place that supplies “commercially valuable” initiatives, and corporate giving to universities increased considerably.26

LOCALITY What naturally comes as the counterpoint of mobility is the study of locality.

This study of the movement back to the periphery and the search for local sources of initiatives has proved to be a challenging, but a gripping journey. Not only because of the vast history of colonization that the structures of power and knowledge have had, but also due to the complex geographical, social and cultural landscapes that exist within the physical borders of Russia. The notion, that academic mobility might drive innovation in the reverse direction from centers of knowledge to centers of potential resources and industry has to be thoroughly examined. To attempt to provide an answer, would mean to take each individual key business players, investors, resources, active citizens and produce a compreis helpful to look at the regional picture from the perspective of economy, geography and social context.

FUTURE OF MOBILITY IN THE REGIONAL CONTEXT There is strong "path dependency" or "spatial genetics" writes Tatyana Nefedova

6. INCUBATORS

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there is a dependency on the old Soviet structures, that often come up in her analysis of the use of territories, spatial developments, use of regional resources and work activity. “Throughout the reforms and crisis, endogenous factors ritories outside of big cities. Neither capitalism or socialism nor economical factors, represented by the market forces had similar effects.�27 Although the dynamics of economic expansions of agglomerations will have its effects, businesses will tend to invest in large cities, with available infrastructure in place and raw materials readily available. As Aleksandr Auzan commented, resources such as raw materials will never compete with creative capital in attracting investors.22 Natalia Zubarevich, director of the regional program of the Independent Institute for Social Policy in Moscow, predicts continued growth of cities with over one million inhabitants, which act as the centers of economic development. In her tion," she states that the number of students has reached the maximum number in the whole history of the country, which serves as an indicator of a better adaptation of population to the current economic conditions. The numbers declined in the early 90’s, but from 1999 they began increasing not only in the capital and economically stable cities, but also in the regions. The demand for higher education created a market for new private universities of higher education. 96% tion, and the quality of education steadily declined. Even the rural population in the statistical reports showed that education is the main guarantee of success in life for the third of the polled group of young people. 30 ulation over a million, will continue to grow, they will continue to attract the mobile, prospective students. Mobility will continue to increase, especially with the introduction of 4+2 educational system, according to Auzan, with graduates looking for competitive Masters programs upon completing the undergraduate programs.22 Figure 4. "Goroda-millionniki."

As far as the move of recent graduates back to the towns and regions that they came from, the situation is as follows. The ones that leave the cities of origin are intelligent, entrepreneurial and do not see the possibility to realize their better education, better salaries, better job market. In most cases, the talented young people from the regions are hard workers and they work hard to stay, in such universities as Moscow State University. They do everything in their power after graduation might be the strong social links and family support network, that is present back home. They know that they have a better chance of kick starting their career there, but they would not start climbing a ladder from the low paying salary.28 The situation in cities with a population over a million is quite different, but they all have the tendency to hold recent graduates. Ekaterinburg and Novosibirsk are developing fast and show a strong hold on the population. The far east cities are becoming weaker. Vladivostok and Khabarovsk are not holding their students, and the out migration is quite strong. Krasnodar and Samara are quite different, not a lot of people leave after their studies. The fact is, post-industrial towns and mid size towns do not hold the population. Main migration now happens from smaller size cities into the larger ones.28 Brain drain will increase, with the continuation of the current situation in Russian politics and as the global economic situation improves there will be more and more people leaving the country. it to Moscow or St. Petersburg, now people are able to leave straight from their cities, such as Volgograd, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok.28

BRAIN REMAIN. MOBILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Moscow agglomeration works as a vacuum and sucks the human resources out.

Even now, such marginal areas as Pokrov are housing the new industries that support Moscow. This process will continue and the economic boundary of Moscow will keep expanding, as the infrastructure and communications become betmore strength in attracting people. So these are two sides of the same coin.28 “The link between the quality of education and the job market is very weak in Russia," says Zubarevich. Russian higher education system produces a large numuniversities that are good at producing low level professionals and taking their money. Of course, there are still universities that are holding their positions in the market. But again, their success has to do with the social links that this uniare not a part of this network, you walk alone.28 vantages of which are the networking capabilities and social links it creates for face interaction.28 To sum up the dynamics of movement within the regions of Russia, both Nefedova and Zubarevich agree that after the crisis and reforms, the patterns of active urbanization, the tendency of migration into the large urban centers is still strong. Russia is not yet ready for de-urbanization and the spatial factors of development will continue to be uneven. Thus, the regions and smaller towns will have to continue to adopt and form new support systems.

BRAIN REMAIN REPOSITORY

> Moscow, St. Petersburg and large urban centers over a million will keep working as a VACUUM. > The Russian Government has set off on an ambitious journey to attract GLOBAL MINDS. This proposal attempts to stay outside the system. It does not attempt to compete with or suggest a new strategy for the Russian system of higher education

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to be globally competitive, make miraculous leaps in the rankings or attract Harvard graduates. space, follows the invisible path of endogenous factors, collects stories of recent graduates, dissects the local job market, analyses the current tools students rely that remain.

I propose to call it a LOCAL BRAIN REMAIN REPOSITORY, or LBR2 > ITINERANT — nomadic, mobile and curious. > DECENTRALIZED — the power is distributed within the network , where individual nodes act as centers of knowledge. > INDEPENDENT — the ability to stay outside the centralized and controlled system. > RESPONSIVE — able to adapt and manoeuvre in landscape. > CONNECTED — establishing colonies and connections at landing points and in transition, forming networks and relationships between typologies and cases. > TACTICAL — aware of geographies, potential resources, future reforms and high-speed infrastructure pathways.

In other words, this is a machine.

“Battles themselves must be treated as machine-like assemblages of tactical formations, terrain and weather, and then linked together with diplomatic skill to give them a political direction."

What will be the STRATEGY and will this be a BATTLE for locality? It remains to be seen. For now, a lonely agent LBR2 will set off on a journey. It might choose to be highly provocative and visible. At times, it will stay undercover. It will attempt to create typologies, categories, case studies of success and failure.

The proposal will not assume that by assembling a team of thinking — it will collect what it seeks. Rather, the LBR2 is set free, there is one Naberezhnie Chelni as post-industial "TOWN-FACTORY." there, and the city is one of the largest planned centers in the world related to vehicle production. With more than two square miles dedicated to production, the Kamaz plant is the largest vehicle factory in the world.

In 1993 the factory was burnt down. Although slowly recovering, rumours have it26 that this industrial town is now changing orientation and turning to other industries. Young workers, recent graduates are staying in the city, and by using a highly interconnected network are focusing on creating their own job market.

The town has a long history of attracting and producing top-notch engineersthey are the ones rethinking the future of post-industrial TOWN-KAMAZ.

CONCLUSION Departure on the topic of mobility and arrival upon a clear vision requires a pause somewhere in between. The pause produces snapshots of typologies — territories that exist between the nodes of gravitation.

BRAIN REMAIN. MOBILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

economic impact and social networks they are able to establish. A repository of local initiatives is an attempt to understand the forces at play, strategy of entering the global knowledge economy and tactical tools that can be used to remain competitive in the regions of Russia. By conducting interviews and spatial development analysis, it dissects the processes that come into play when smaller cities, rural areas and former industrial areas get drained of their most no longer attracts a competitive work force — what happens to the population that remains?

Are shrinking cities able to produce a new kind of relationship between institutions of higher education and the governing structures, business ventures, community? Can the ones that stay re-imagine their role?

Does immobility cause rooting or indifference? Do spaces in between become the "waiting room" for the ones that can not compete?

the social and economic impact of such person and his choices.

REFERENCES

2."Millennials Survey. Millennials at work: Reshaping the workplace," PwC, 2009-2013, accessed May 2013. www.pwc.com/gx/en/ managing-tomorrows-people/future-of-work/index.jhtml 3. Gürüz, Kemal. “Higher Education and International Student Mobility in the Global Knowledge Economy," State University of New York Press, 2008 4. Makdisi, George. “The rise of colleges: Institutions of learning in Islam and the West," Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 1981 5. Rubenstein, Richard E. “Aristotle’s children," New York: Harcourt, 2003 6. Altbach, Philip. “Internationalization and exchanges in a globalized university” Journal of Studies in International Education, Spring 2001, Volume 5, no1: 5-25 7. Sheller, Mimi and Urry, John. “The new mobilities paradigm, Environment and Planning,” E A 38(2) 207 – 226, 2006 8. McNeill, John and McNeil, William. “The human web: A bird’seye view of world history,” New York: Norton, 2003 9. Scott, Peter. “Globalization and higher education: Challenges

accessed April 2013. www.polit.ru/article/2011/10/10/safonova/ 16. Foderaro, Lisa. "More Foreign-Born Scholars Lead US Universities," New York Times, March 9, 2011, accessed May 2013. www. nytimes.com/2011/03/10/education/10presidents.html?_r=0 17. Putin, Vladimir. “Russia and the Changing World,” Rossijskaja Gazeta 27.02.2012, accessed March 2013. www.rg.ru/2012/02/27/ putin-politika.html 18. The Bologna Process and its Implications for Russia. The European Integration of Higher Education. RECEP, 2005 19. World Trade Organization/ Accessions / August 22, 2012 the cessed May 2013. www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/acc_e/a1_russie_e. htm site, accessed March 2013. www.uis.unesco.org/education/pages/ 21. Salmi, Jamil and Frumin Isak. “Excellence initiatives to establish world-class universities: Evaluation of recent experiences,” Journal of Educational Studies #1, March 2013 22. Auzan, Aleksandr, president of the National Planning Institute (NPI), member of the President's Council for Support of Development of the Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights, President of the Social Contract National Project Institute, Dean of Faculty of Economics in Moscow State university in personal interview.

Education, (Spring) 2000

Agenda,” The Wall Street Journal, USA September 6, 2012

approaches and rationales,” Journal of Studies in International Education, (Spring) 2004 11. World Education Services. “International Student Mobility Trends 2013: Towards Responsive Recruitment Strategies,” March 2013, Volume 26, Issue 2 tion,” Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 1998 13. Torkunov, Anatoliy. “Education as a tool of "soft power" in foreign relations of Russia,” accessed March 2013. russiancouncil.ru/ inner/?id_4=1467#top 2012 14. McKinsey Global Institute, Operations Practice "Manufacturing the future: The next era of global growth and innovation," November, 2012 15. Safonova, Maria. “Chances for the universities,” October 2011,

eu/education/lifelong-learning-program/erasmus_en.htm 25. "Brains Business," The Economist, September 8, 2005, accessed March 2013. www.economist.com/node/4339960 26. Newman, Frank. Couturier, Lara. Scurry, Jamie. “The future of higher education,” San Francisco: Joessey-Bass, 2004 27. Nefedova, Tatyana. “Ten Current Questions about Rural Russia: Answers of the geographer,” Lenand, 2013 28. Zubarevich Natalya, Director of the regional program of the Independent Institute for Social Policy (Moscow) in a personal interview.

29. Nefedova, Tatyana., Ioffe, Grigory. “Continuity and Change in Rural Russia. A Geographical Perspective,” Westview Press, 1998 30. Zubarevich, Natalya. “Social Development of Regions of Russia: Problems and Trends in transition," Librokom, 2012

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STANDARD #270100.

BORDERS OF FREEDOM

by Inesa Kovalova

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63 architecture schools in the Russian Federation operate according to the Federal Standard of Higher Education “Architecture” # 270100. Every year more than 4500 BArch graduates per year meet this document’s criteria.1 Architectural education in Russia is currently in decline. Recent debates on the ineffectiveness of MArchI brought this problem to the top. “MArchI was listed as ineffective," “Who needs a MArchI diploma now?," “MArchI administration prayed to God to save it from closing,” such headlines were on top in Google search in al architectural school in Europe's Top 100 Ranking by Domus2 of the situation in architectural education in Russia. For the last 20 years no new architectural school has appeared in Russia, and most of the existing ones were the same time new programs are not accredited, as not meeting Federal stan-

The Federal Education Standard #270100 regulates architecture education in the Russian Federation.

It sets the structure of educational programs and hours distribution, determines objectives and outcomes of study, and emphasizes for architecture schools across the country.

educational standards,” conclude the HSE and World Bank in the recent research “Lack of Skills in Russia: education system challenges in the transition to an innovative economy.”

What is wrong with the Federal Architecture Education Standard? Is it holding schools back from progress and effectiveness?

Recent global statistics show that Russia has very few architects compared to other countries. For example in Japan, Italy and Greece there are more than 1300 architects per million inhabitants, while Russia has only 3004. So the issue of architectural education development and emerging new architectural schools is relevant for the country. How should these schools be organized in order to produce professionals who are competitive in the global economy? This report is an attempt to rethink architectural education in Russia from a systemic perspective, analyzes educational standardization approaches, explores boarders of freedom inside the existing system, and highlights areas for improvement.

QUALITY ASSURANCE this reason a lot of accreditation/validation agencies emerged worldwide.

Meeting standards is evidence of program quality.

There are several groups interested assurance: Universities that prepare future architects (suppliers)

signal to students and the public that an institution or program meets at least minimal standards for its faculty, curriculum, student services and libraries. The accrediting process is intended to verify that each accredited program substantially meets those standards that, as a whole, comprise an appropriate education for an architect. So, how should an ideal system of architectural educational and professional management work?

Architectural graduates (product) Architecture, engineering and construction industries (customers) Accreditation agencies

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NINE KEY ARCHITECTURAL ACCREDITATION AGENCIES The Australian Institute of Architecture (RAIA) The Korea Architectural Accrediting Board (KAAB) The National Board of Architectural Accreditation in China The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) The Commonwealth Association of Architects(CAA) cation Board (CACB) The National Architectural Accrediting Board (the United States) Consejo Mexicano de Acreditación (Mexico) The UNESCO/ International Union of Architects (UIA) Validation Council

Groups interested in quality assurance of architectural education should form a consistent and well-organized system to ensure both educational and professional excellence. To make this system work, documents and rules must be synchronized and an administrative body must be responsible for upholding them.

We can see examples of such regulation systems in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Representatives of all groups take part in the accreditation process, so it becomes as objective as possible, and their points of view are taken into consideration.

Collective feedback is an important part of the standard development process.

To keep this system up-to-date, standards and criteria are reviewed and edited every several years. It’s important to react to architectural industry changes. standards and accreditation/validation agency’s criteria/conditions.

Federal educational standards exist only in Russia and several CIS countries, while accreditation/validation agencies' criteria/conditions are spread worldwide.5 The UNESCO-UIA Validation Council for Architectural Education was developed in 2000 based on the experience of the accreditation systems of Canada, the Commonwealth Association of Architects, the United Kingdom, and the United -

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“The … societies creating this accrediting board, here record their intent not to create conditions, nor to have conditions created, that will tend toward standardization of educational philosophies or practices, but rather to create and maintain conditions that will encourage the development of practices suited to the conditions which are special to the individual school. The accrediting board must be guided by this intent.” 6

Educational Accreditation requires a lot of resources. For example to get considitation educational consultancy by it costs 500 pounds per person per hour. It’s impossible for institutions and programs to pass through all the accreditations as well as for one organization accredit all architecture institutions. A mutual recognition system is an important step to consider at this time. The objective of a mutual recognition program among validation agencies is to assure that credits and degrees earned at schools of architecture that are accredited/validated by the agencies are recognized by all of the schools accredited/validated by these agencies.

INTRODUCING DIVERSITY There is a mutual recognition between accreditation systems, but there is a huge diversity between accredited universities. So, while they are meeting the same criteria, all the schools have their own identity. Andrea S. Rutledge, CAE, Executive Director of the NAAB, based in Washington, D.C. provided a clear explanation

"Standards should not make everyone exactly the same."

“We are not going to tell any school what to teach, how to teach, when to teach. We focus on the results,” she said, explaining how they manage architectural education in the United States. “Whatever the standards were, they should not lead to standardization in education.” The American Standard is as positioning there.

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RUSSIAN CASE document since 1990. This process of standards development began in Russia in was based on the Soviet “specialist model,” a list of requirements for architecture graduates during the Soviet period.

The second edition was released in 2000, following the Bologna agreement in Europe and a new Federal Law on Education focused on Russia’s integration into the European Higher Education Area. This standard introduced BArch and March

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) was launched along with the Bologna Process's decade anniversary, in March 2010, during the Budapest-Vienna Ministerial Conference. As the main objective of the Bologna Process since its inception in 1999, the EHEA was meant to ensure more comparable, compatible and coherent systems of higher education in Europe.7

The last edition followed Russia’s 2003 inclusion in the Bologna process. It was edition in order to synchronize with the upcoming edition of the Federal Law on Education to be released in September 2013.

STANDARD FOR A STANDARD

Figure 1. Russian Ministry of Education Template for a standard NAME OF THE PARAGRAPH

FOCUS

1. Area of implementation

document positioning

2. Characteristic of study

duration of the course

3. Characteristic of professional implementation

areas architects can work on and implement skills gained during the study list of competences for graduates

structure 6. Study program realization 7. Evaluation

list of disciplines and hours distribution, sets up study objectives modes of delivery and assessment. control of study programs and students evaluation

"Results requirements" is one of the most important part of the document. It is the list of competencies that architecture graduates must obtain by the end of the study. There are general and professional competencies.

STANDARD AS FREEDOM: 3 LEVELS OF FREEDOM THE FIRST LEVEL

er graduates meet them or not. At the same time while “general competencies” formed by

In the Department of Architecture at the University of California, take courses of: social and behavioral sciences; physical science; biological science; international studies; arts and literature; historical studies; philosophy and values.

School of architecture, planning and geomantic, a part of the Cape Town University, has core courses in Studio-work and Technology, supporting courses. Studio-work encourages "learning by doing" with emphasis on developing analytical skills, performance criteria and spatial design. Even through one accreditation system there is a possibility for a difference in approaches: Dessau Institute of Architecture has a clear technical focus, while in School of Architecture under the Royal Danish Academy the program is based on the artistic foundation of architecture.

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the federal government and then aligned by EMU for each program, "professional technical design knowledge, integration of structure, construction technologies society is free to set up any knowledge or skill that is important for a professional architect.

THE SECOND LEVEL Results must be achieved through the study program. The study program consists no obligatory subjects except "history," "physical culture" and "life safety."8 A school is free to choose its route to reach the list of required learning objecThe regional 50% component is supposed to be developed by school itself.

50% of programs allow freedom for school identity.

So they can introduce courses according to their identity, either implement new subjects or develop existing ones indepth. Also, new additional learning outcomes can be introduced in the regional component.

THE THIRD LEVEL Moreover, the regional component of the blocks “Humanities, Social and Economic studies” and “Math and Science” must provide 30% for students’ choice.

Procedures and disciplines of selection are regulated by a school. All the levels represented on Figure 2.

Figure 2. Three levels of freedom.

DOES FEDERAL MEAN GLOBAL? How can the existing standard be improved?

FEEDBACK

Today there are important debates taking place in Russia over the quality of foreign languages are the disadvantages of current higher education,” said Elena Bazhenova, PhD in Architecture, deputy chairman of the Board of Architectural

“Internships provide aspiring architects an essential, hands-on opportunity to experience the actual practice of architecture.

With accredited architectural education serving as the foundation, internships provide a structured environment where theory and precedent can be applied to actual projects, and knowledge of materials and systems is transformed into thoughtful construction details.”10

of the Union of Moscow Architects9. She is convinced that Russian architectural schools should go the way of program standardization, while classical humanitarian and artistic traditions should be kept. Collaboration with European schools in construction studies should be established.

She added that the unique character of each architectural school should be preserved and developed further. She also recommended introducing a professional internship requirement for Russian architectural education. Internships are an important component of degree programs in many countries, including the United States, Switzerland, and Great Britain. Architectural internships serve as an important bridge connecting education with licensing. A relevant and practical internship remains a necessary component of the path to licensing as an architect architecture programs and their international peers. Low levels of construction expertise were also mentioned by Elena as a disadvantage of architectural education in Russia. I asked different experts about their ideal vision of standards for architectural education. Although they represent different organizations, all agreed that standards should be set by a professional society.

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From the perspective of Nikita Tokarev, a practicing architect and professor with ucational standardization process. However, there is no mechanism for this...”

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“The Minimum Competency Standtion in Architecture” (MCSPQA) set course consists of three parts:

architectural education in Russia. gram assessment in Russia. Nikolay Metlenkov, the head of the EMU, mentioned nance. And that's a good model.”

STRUCTURE

"Characteristic of study" stipulates that the course duration for a bachelor’s derequired internship following course completion. Considering recent changes in Russian educational policy and up following attempts to introduce a of ‘practical on basic architectural knowledge and skills and the second part will be integratopment.

PART I is focused on developing in students a creative, diverse and rigorous approach to design. Duration: 3 years.

PART II is focused on developing an understanding of the relationships between design, technical and environmental realization or projects; practical understanding of professional studies and management; responsible design; and relationships with clients, users and society as a whole. The Graduation Project/ Final Project. Duration: 2 years. of practical training under the direction of a registered architect.

Duration: 2 years. 11

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CONTENT

"Results requirements" is one of the most important parts of the document. It is the list of competencies that architecture graduates should obtain by the end of

There is no particular order for acquiring these competencies, so you can not organize continuous study processes where more complicated subjects follow after basic knowledge. divided all the competencies of these 10 groups and did the same for the international ones.

The list of competencies mentioned above has 10 main focuses: > General knowledge > Teamwork > Construction > Ethics > Design excellence > Communication skills > Environment > Creativity > Design theory

There were many similarities. According to comparative analysis and professionals feedback, the following areas need investigation and further criteria develop> TEAMWORK > CONSTRUCTION > ETHICS > DESIGN EXCELLENCE > COMMUNICATION SKILLS > ENVIRONMENT Professional ethics is one of the most essential. As professional standards by the Union of Architects in Russia focuses on understanding "professionalism" and professional ethics a lot, correlation should be established with architecture educational one. "Requirements of the study program structure contains minimum program components and hours distribution.

According to the standard, all programs should contain the following study > HUMANITARIAN, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES > MATH AND SCIENCE > PROFESSIONAL STUDIES

another focus of the study program: > Design > Culture/user studies > Environmental design > Construction and architectural technology > Communication skills > Professional practice

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There are no obligatory disciplines in the UIA analog. The whole document encourages diversity in architectural educadescriptive rather than prescriptive curriculum, to encourage architecture schools to tailor their programs and courses in relation to the needs and resources they have, particularly in relation issues, and to produce architects with a wider range of skills and ambitions.” 12

required for a basic part of "Humanitarian, Social and Economic Studies." "Physical culture" and "Life Safety" are essential parts of the professional bloc of disciand environment. Components and hours distribution need detailed discussion and restructuring.

STUDY PROGRAM REALIZATION REQUIREMENTS One of the most important issues here is encouraging architectural schools to eters.

PROCESS, FEEDBACK, UPDATE The American model of architectural education is considered to be one of the most effective in the world. I looked how the NAAB is the sole agency authorized to accredit US professional degree programs in architecture. Because most state registration boards in the United States require applicants for licensure to have graduated from an NAB-accredited program, obtaining such a degree is an essential aspect of preparing for professional practice.

EMU is responsible for issuing standards. The Federal Ministry and several required components for the general knowledge block. The Russian Educational Supervision Agency — Rosobrnadzor — is responsible for further program accreditation according to this standard; however, the team who accredits a program does not always include professionals in architecture, according to Nickolay Metlenkov, head of EMU.

current changes in the architecture profession. It is developed through a form of collective feedback, which all the players in the architecture market submit to NAAB during this period. A year before standard’s updating all organizations and persons interested in it are encouraged to send their feedback to NAAB. Then, all the letters are reviewed, discussed and suggested changes implemented. years. A special commission — formed by the NAAB and including representatives from all four organizations — reviews student projects to assess quality and interests between schools. “Our teams are very smart,” Andrea continued, “they can easily understand whether student work meets the criteria or not.

Teams for accreditations are formed from professionals that have no connections or interests in a particular program they assess. It is a process of “peer-to-peer” review. Accreditation lasts three days, during which the commission reviews stuare no certain numbers for learning resources assessment , every school is individual and it needs for learning resources also varies. So the point is to understand if there are enough resources for providing students quality education that can lead to recommended outcomes, or not."

What makes this system independent from the government? “Professional eduity. There is a trust law to prevent a monopoly in any sphere.” This kind of system has roots in the country’s political system from the very beginning. Allowing for control by a professional society, as opposed to government control, is the key factor in the success of this system. And it helps enormously in the highly specialized areas of expertise, such as architecture, art, theatre and other creative obvious quantative parameters to assess achievements in creative spheres. You should be a professional to understand quality of work.

Currently, new educational standards are developed spontaneously. EMU claims to invite representatives from interested groups to participate — professional

45

societies, students, etc. — but this doesn’t work in practice. As I found out visiting one of the sessions of EMU, few people from outside the EMU participate.

I found the American experience fair and worth implementing in Russia. Constant updating and feedback should be set up for this standard. As it sets just a minimum of architecture studies, schools should be encouraged to develop their own internal standards of quality in architectural education. This will help not only to raise knowledge of graduates but also to allow for unique identities among different architectural schools in Russia.

Architectural education in Russia is not as bad as it seems from recent headlines.

Existing standards contain almost all essential issues of architectural education.

And what is more important, they leave room for experimentation and identity development for every school. There are many similarities with European stand-

Developing a system of professional architectural education accreditation system parallel to the federal one

It will help the country to follow the Bologna process guidelines and integrate into the European Higher Education Area.

REFERENCES tecture.edu.ru 2. “Europe’s Top 100 Schools of architecture and design 2013,” Domus, April 2013 3. “Russian education is not oriented to the labor market,” www. opec.ru, May 28th 2013 4. “Regulating Architects Across the Globe,” Dr Garry’s Key Center for Architectural Psychology.

Accessed 2012. www.archsoc.com 5. Rubin, Yuriy. “No standards,” Vzglyad Business Paper, May 22nd 2013.

6. “The NAAB founding agreement,” www.naab.org, accessed 2012 8. Federal governmental standard #270100 “Architecture,” BArch of August, 4th 2010. N 18066 9. “Problems of Contemporary Architectural Education,” Accreditation in Education, www.akvobr.ru 10. “2012 NCARB Practice Analysis of Architecture: Internship Report," National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. Accessed 2013. www.ncarb.org UIA, 2008, www.unche.or.ug

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CONSERVATION, NEW CONSTRUCTION OR REMODELING? The Future of Tradition at MArchI

by Anna Pozniak

“Instead of top-down reforms, we need to consider ways to achieve a selective jamming of the machinery of architectural education.”

— C. Greig Crysler, Critical Pedagogy and Architectural Education institute. Its curriculum was replicated and is still used across Russia and other post-Soviet countries.1 After enjoying special status as the nation’s premier school of architecture for almost 80 years, MArchI was labelled “ineffective” by the Russian Ministry of Education in 2012.

The school has faced a litany of criticism in recent years. “The existing building of MArchI is not working well,” said Bart Goldhoorne, founder and editor of the architecture magazine Project Russia. “Long corridors, cabinet typology, cellular structure do not facilitate communication between students and professors of different departments.”3 A round-table on the Bologna Process, conducted at are useless — you do wash drawings, pencil shading. ... As a result, during the 4

At the same time, MArchI was listed among the 100 top European schools of architecture and design by Domus Magazine in 2013. According to Domus, MArchI “does not focus on self-promotion, relying instead on its prestigious reputation.”2 tradition. This tradition represents the legacy of Moscow School of Architecture, of Moscow.”5

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CONSERVATION, NEW CONSTRUCTION OR REMODELING?

school of architecture. Since then, Moscow architecture school transformed from guild-based practical institutions to investigation and research of Russian architecture heritage and history, avant-gardist experimentation with form, archi-

What does it mean for a university to be effective or ineffective? A closer look at MArchI has shown that existing problems within the school are similar to those model of knowledge sharing, in which students are treated as passive “containers” of knowledge, along with excessive hierarchy “Everything that happens is decided by someone other than the student — the school activities. Democracy, whilst praised in theory, is rejected in practice by the school.”6 While this quote addresses global problems of architectural education, the knowledge about Moscow architecture school pedagogies remains

self-promotion made by Domus Magazine. But its prestigious status can’t save being used against it. Discussions around MArchI focus on structural and institutional critique of the school, instead of placing its pedagogies in a larger context In approaching this research project, I was concerned with the role of “tradition” the students’ part, and a “besieged fortress” mentality on the part of teaching and administrative staff. I sought to identify opportunities to “revive” the heritage of MArchI, making it available for past, present and future generations of students and society at large. This is important in a situation when debate about urbanism and architecture is becoming increasingly popular in Russia, and the only information available about the education of architects represents the system in negative light.

I conducted a comparative analysis of the MArchI curricula in relation to 38 with international architectural education, I focused on MArchI and examined students and professors’ experience, and examples of student projects.

Considering my experience and data collected, I arrived at three potential scesecond would involve creating a new school from scratch, and the third would be a combination of the best of both approaches, serving to reanimate the existing pedagogical tradition. In developing these scenarios, I tried to classify existing While identifying possible trajectories for change, I was using the statements that the rector has made about possible changes and trying to connect them with possible solutions and examples. I also mapped areas that need to be changed regardless of which scenario is chosen, as they touch upon the way MArchI stands out as an educational institution and communicates its statement and values.

“The minimum program for local theory of architecture within the educational system is helping students to navigate in modern culture through understanding of its history, including the "history of ideas." As a result, students can develop a personal, highly informed position towards existing cultural trends and forces in — Sergey Sitar, architect, critic

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In this light, I introduce another understanding of tradition — tradition as “a message.” the sender and its audience. Currently, if we view MArchI as the “sender,” and the students, the professional community and the city as its audience, the result of this communication is either “hidden” in professional media or discussed during round-tables and conferences, keeping this knowledge detached from wider cultural, political, social and economic debates. This implies the use of professional language and narrow focus of debates, without contextualizing architectural ed-

MARCHI TRADITION dents of the architecture school, founded by Dmitry Ukhtomsky, were directly connected with the building industry and, under the guidance of the chief architect, developed buildings and city plans. Pedagogies before 1918 included direct connection to building and city planning industry, Beaux Arts model, focused on preparing architects, painters and sculptors. The Beaux Arts tradition was built upon the art of reproduction, with emphasis on the architecture of the Roman Empire, the Italian Renaissance and the French and Italian Baroque periods. Stu-

Figure 1. Structure of the MArchI curriculum, numbers are given in academic hours.

antique models, constructing analogues and reproducing models. By the turn of the century, architects were in high demand due to economic and technological development. The Stroganov School of Industrial Art emerged with a mandate to offer education to anyone without prejudice. Its mission was to incorporate traditional crafts with industrial production, create a school for students of all classes with free education, accumulate the number of professionals, able to build and decorate buildings and interiors. Its architecture curriculum included freehand drawing, sculpture, mechanical drawing, art history, composition theory, perspective and architectural history.

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Moscow architecture schools remained based on the Ecole de Beaux Arts tradition until 1918, when the system of artistic and architectural education was reconstructed by the new socialist government. Existing architecture schools were reorganized into Free State Artistic Studios, where students were allowed to elect directors for their ateliers or work without guidance. Studios were merged training craftsmen and artists in modern technologies and industrial production.

The VKHUTEMAS tradition could be characterized as focused on search of new forms of expression and architectural design. Courses on mechanical drawing, volumetric spatial composition, visualizing rhythmic and formal construction of space were introduced to the curricula, along with experiments of professors on morphogenesis. With the goal of creating a state system of architectural education in the 1930s, different architecture faculties of Moscow were reorganized to be the predecessor of MArchI. From 1930s the Institute saw the integration of the Socialist Realism agenda into the curricula, which determined itself by stating that “all cultural products must be socialist in content but the realism meant they must be national in form.” After Stalin’s death Khrushchev’s “thaw” providwere the years of “brutally enforced rejection of that architectural culture and of architectural subtleties as a language.”8 According to architecture historians, by 1980s-1990s the meaning of profession was lost. being the ultimate “container” for pedagogical and methodological tradition, preserved by the institute. “The curricula as it is now was compiled in the end of 1950s beginning of 1960s. Structurally it didn’t change much. It carries some elements from the Beaux Arts tradition, prevailing before the 1918 revolution.

This tradition was re-introduced to the curricula in 1930s, but taken away during

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Figure 2. Comparative Analysis of Architectural Schools and Departments

MArchI Architectural Association School of Architecture The Bartlett Bauhaus University Weimar University of California, Berkley University of Cape Town Columbia University The Cooper Union Cornell University Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Delft University of Technology Dessau Institute of Architecture The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts The Glasgow School of Art Geritt Rietveld Academie Harvard University IE University Institute for Advanced Architecture in Catalonia Mendrisio Academie of Architecture Metropolitan University MIT New Delphi School of Planning and Architecture Princeton University Rice University Sci-Arc American University of Sharjah Umea University Barcelona Tech Catholic University of Valparaiso Yale University

artistic expression social responsibility balanced curricula

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Khrushchev’s “thaw.” It was academic drawing and painting that had no connection to architectural design. "People can copy images, but can’t sketch architecture. Different components of curricula don’t correspond to each other. These are rather fragments of different pedagogical systems from different times,” comthe mixture of different methodologies as confusing, the rector understands it as academic ideals. Three sources of pedagogical creativity merged to become the tutions of St. Petersburg, search for new forms, representing the avant-garde expression and methodology of construction practice, connected to technical courses.”9 Pedagogical tradition of MArchI could be characterized into three major catearchitecture school, VKHUTEMAS tradition, represented by subjects on spatial practically the same structure as in 1980s.10

recycling material at MArchI. Maybe architectural design professors see students as personalities, but the system itself is made that way that student is seen as an absolutely passive. Maybe even seen as secondary material.

When I came to teach at MArchI, I was surprised to see that students are seen as a necessary condition for existence of the teaching staff. Students are not the reason why we’re here, but an inevitable thing. We have to teach if we want to do research.”

— MArchI professor

Before applying to MArchI, students must complete preparatory training in freehand and mechanical drawing, which is another long-standing tradition of the school, going back to the Faculty of General Training at the School of Painting, tablished by the Soviet government in 1919 to courses, drawing studios, Sunday school and a separate department within MArchI. The goal remained the same - “prepare the matriculants for the enrollment and full value penetration into the profession. Primarily, teach students the professional languages of architecture and mechanical drawing.” 11 The tradition of preparatory courses based on training in perspective and black and white drawing is meant to develop spatial thinking, skills in developing visual representation of ideas. The curriculum for preparatory courses at MArchI includes classes on technical drawing, breadboarding and architectural drawing. There is also a basic drawing course which progresses from perspective drawing of simple geometric forms to drawing of an antique head. One of the professors, teaching at MArchI, noted that existing exams have a narrow focus on particular skills, and thus eliminate a number of people willing to start a career in architecture but not feeling “talented enough” to go through the admission process. exams hasn’t changed over the past 60 years. Drawing examinations eliminate many capable students.” This contrasts with the opinion of the rector, who understands existing entrance exams as part of the uniqueness of the school.

First and second years of learning represent the Faculty of General training, with curricular focus on drawing, painting, compositional modelling and sculpture.

Its tradition draws back to XIX century School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where students had to complete the same number of “general” courses before proceeding to specialization. Those two years give them a deeper understanding of the creative process of architectural design and morphology, introduce them to the profession. The next two years are Faculty of Fundamental training, providing students with knowledge on engineering, history and economics. After second year ,students have to choose a particular studio of archithree years. According to their grades students are distributed among different professors and remain in these groups for the next three years. This studio system represents another tradition of MArchI. As one architecture critic mentioned, “until XVI century architecture wasn’t formally taught. Learning was happening in guilds, from master to apprentice. This system remained untouched until XVIII century. Then, when architecture was introduced at universities, a studio system was implemented, keeping the semantic connection with guilds. MArchI has the

CONSERVATION, NEW CONSTRUCTION OR REMODELING?

same system, only ideology changed.” Faculty of General training is combined with Faculty of Specialized training, where students learn subjects, taught by departments they have chosen.

MArchI has also had a rich history of informal “bottom-up” traditions. It is “paper architecture," an artistic movement initiated by MArchI students in the late evolved to a theoretical concept of urban planning. These two were mentioned by many experts interviewed as important parts of MArchI history in the context of Moscow architecture school. Another student tradition is called “slavery.” It is graduates. This tradition consisted in mutual and voluntary help from younger to older students. “First and second-year students were called slaves. It didn’t have negative connotations and was seen as a noble affair at MArchI. "I remember friendships evolving from this, when some freshman helped another student with diploma project and then they become best friends. It was a nice tradition. I don’t remember diploma projects being completed without the help of ‘slaves’. It was a mutual help. Don’t know when it started, but it was there when my father were incredibly popular among young muscovites. “People didn’t think much considered one of the best spots in the city, with plenty of hippies and musicians member people couldn’t get to the institute and there were 500 people standing outside, trying to get through the guards,” he recalls. Information about NER and paper architecture is already included in the historical accounts of the institute and has appeared in articles by architecture historians. Traditions like slavery

STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS

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> Narrow specialization of departments

> Mission, vision and values of

> (28% of the total budget)

> Website doesn’t have an English version and has a confusing structure

> Structure of entrance exams didn’t > Pedagogical tradition of MArchI change for about 60 years isn’t clearly articulated > Low staff turnover

> Knowledge is communicated only to professional community through a > Unstructured methodological fund limited number of media > Library based on card-catalogue system makes the existing library system inaccessible to students

CONSERVATION AS POLICY The conservation scenario implies a "no change" statement and suggests a critical view of the new. The institute could, of course, keep the existing curricula, design assignments and structure of the school as they are and thus “can” the tradition, established in the 1980s.12 That could lead to a further indoctrination of the profession and reproduction of a regulative system that, according to the professional community, doesn’t respond to reality. “No change” means there is

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“Humanities are a problem area in Russian architectural education. They are on the periphery of the curriculum history of architecture. Students are left with a collection of certain facts, names, buildings, and not a route There is no problem behind the buildings, no context in which they appeared. There is only enumeration of ‘100 masterpieces of world architecture.'”

— Nikita Tokarev, architect, director of the MARCH school of architecture

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“The problem about professors' wages at MArchI and funding of education must be articulated. This -

no room for structural transformation of curricula. It is worth here to look at students experience and see if the tradition of MArchI was communicated to ing architect, noted that “the curricula was scattered and I didn’t follow the meaning of assignments. I had do to them but didn’t understand why” . Another

education. Many prominent scholars teach at MArchI and earn very little money.

This break between people’s experience and their wages is terrible.”

atmosphere of MArchI and different perspectives between professors, but also

— MArchI professor

In developing the conservation scenario I would focus on building a communication strategy for MArchI, making its activity more public and open to professionals from various disciplines. Students’ projects might be exhibited in the Museum of Architecture, presentations of diploma projects could become a public event, where experts from different areas would discuss the results of students’ work.

A special campaign for explaining the pedagogical tradition of MArchI must be launched in order to create symbolical value of the school. That would also help to improve the reputation of the Institute after being labelled "ineffective."

sometimes professors from the same department have great discussions, I think nected to reality. You want to design something real and understand, are you an architect or not.”

This developmental trajectory is considered to be the less traumatic, as it implies the preservation of teaching and administrative staff. It doesn’t demand any investments too. Thus, it might lead to the indoctrination of the profession, conservation of wide angle perspective on profession, represented by existing specialization within the Institute.

NEW CONSTRUCTION: OLD SCHOOL, NEW TRADITION The new construction scenario means the creation of a new school and establishment of a new tradition at the Moscow Architecture school. As one informant noted, “I see the future of architecture here in appearance of new schools. It is hard to change anything inside MArchI, it’s easier to create the new ones.” A number of other experts have also described this scenario as less probable and desirable for a number of reasons. The professional community is being defensive about MArchI and consolidates around the attempts to introduce additional regulations on the Institute.

Nevertheless, the post-1918 experience led to the creation of Free State Artistic The instruction of election and admission process for studio directors describes the process and provides an interesting insight into how the learning process Moscow school of architecture and also as an important educational experiment, that would bring many questions about architectural education to light. tations from instruction for the elections procedure might explain the level of freedom and experimentation within FSAS, and serve as a manifesto > all artistic styles have their place at Ateliers > all artists can become candidates for atelier directors > before the elections artists can exhibit their works in ateliers > students of FSAS divide themselves into groups by style or specialization > groups independently choose atelier directors > students can work without atelier director > all those willing to get specialized artistic training have a right to enter FSAS > applicants don’t need to present their diplomas to enter FSAS

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That is one possible scenario for a new school, but it would be worth taking existing social, cultural, political and economic issues into account and develop ing a new local school, specializing in work with its local context and production of riculum to inspire future generations of architects, just as revolutionary slogans inspired the founders of FSAS in 1918. The establishment of new traditions for the Moscow Architecture School could bring a new developmental shift in local architectural discourse.

REMODELING AND REANIMATING TRADITION The remodeling strategy is connected to the statements that rector and interviewed experts has made about possible changes within MArchI. I’ve chosen this strategy in order to keep as close as possible to the actual needs of the school.

In one of the interviews the rector mentioned the will to “change the content, sleeping traditions, if you wish, the structure that allows you to build something isting framework.”13 Among possible measures he mentioned the preservation and reproduction of academic staff and development of feasibility studies. That implies a research component in theeducation process. That coincides with his tistic center and a research university. This will keep safe the prestige and future of the school.”

The example of Vienna Academy of Arts might be relevant in this light. Their -

> ANALOGUE PRODUCTION, DIGITAL PRODUCTION > CONSTRUCTION, MATERIAL, TECHNOLOGY > ECOLOGIES, SUSTAINABILITY, CONSERVATION > HISTORY, THEORY, CRITICISM > GEOGRAPHY, LANDSCAPE, CITIES Such transformation might lead to changes in architectural design assignments and creation of thematic readers for each department, structuring the knowledge transfer. Interdisciplinarity, collaborative and critical thinking could be introduced into the new content structure of the curricula. This might solve the creating an atmosphere in which students and professors learn from each other.

A need to reproduce the academic staff might be solved by introduction and development of methodology studies. This could be implemented into curricula; as well as teaching assistance might become another form of students practice.

Rich historical archive of MArchI museum and library fund provides a necessary foundation for such an initiative. Seminars on text reading and analysis could be introduced into preparatory courses in order to prepare students for analytical work with historical and theoretical texts. Preparatory courses could be assembled into the Foundation Year, representing a solid and up-to-date introduction serving as theoretical basis for future practice, drawing courses and seminars on text reading and analysis. could be based on an existing long-term plan of socio-economic development of studios. Tradition of the institute might manifest itself in growing complexity of design assignments, their functionalism and utilitarianism. Regular change in de-

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sign assignments might bring MArchI closer to the market and it’s actual needs and also prepare students for unstable and changing world of professional practice. Better understanding of how to communicate and reform traditions could be brought by establishment of network based on experience among “traditional” Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Harvard Design School,

CONCLUSION In today’s world, each school is trying to establish and state its identity and spescape. When the speed of change and innovation increases dramatically there is no time left to question the validity of the new as a discourse of progress dominates. How can we map and preserve truly unique schools? How do we prove previous pedagogical traditions are still effective in the 21st century? It might be a challenging task, especially for a school that has been exemplary for many years. The history of the Moscow Architecture School has shown that tradition of Though forms of change were different and the context is changing with time, different schools at different times were trying to adapt to the needs of State, society and economy by creating new pedagogic methodologies and developing new courses. What is the future of this tradition and what is going to happen next?

MArchI has a unique opportunity to try and open up its heritage to a wider pubcated to future students and actual citizens, changing the structure of entrance exams in order to make them more accessible to people with different backgrounds. Why does it need to happen? The discourse of architecture and urbanism has become increasingly important in Russia in the last decade, and there is a need for a progressive architecture school, being at the forefront of theory and practice, but also change in profession. In a situation where the State labels the the best 100 European schools of architecture a number of problems, articulated by the professional community, are not easy to address. In such a situation, introducing incremental change is of tactical importance. Talks about problems of for change. I would suggest thinking about how to manage the situation when a change in tradition occurs. Representation of the three scenarios of change help to understand how institutional and curricular change could be managed and what could be its possible effects. gressing from a distinction between pre-industrial and industrial society to a complex discourse through which we learn our roles, construct identities and build connections between past, present and future. Other explanations of the term include characteristics such as authority, invented character, a form of rationality, supporting cultural diversity, an orientation for action and a learning process.15 But is tradition also a basis for common-sense thinking? According to the Oxford Dictionary, traditions are “established” but society at large doesn’t seem to take part in this process, leaving the priority of description and evaluation of traditions to anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers and many others.

Architectural education today faces competing paths with regard to tradition, including digital versus analogue approaches, market versus social orientations, and standardization versus free exploration. Even when not clearly articulated, ligate and excessive times, education truly suffers and, open to such rapidity, learning becomes consumption. Followed by a time of pragmatic information gathering, learning settles on the facile and brushes aside wider issue to go for

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an attractive core. The attraction of simplicity usually outweighs the richness lost. Agendas are kept, simple objectives met and the illusion of completion and achievement given.”15 Managing change within educational institutions and preserving original traditions of schools might be of critical importance, as that zations of curricula.

REFERENCES 2. Domus. "Europe’s Top 100 Schools of Architecture and Design," January 2013. Accessed March 2013. www.domusweb.it

6. Reich, C.A. The Greening of America, Random House, 1970.

7. Cooke. C. “Beauty as a Route to 'The Radiant Future': Responses of Soviet Architecture," Journal of Design History, Vol.10, No. 2.

8. ibid.

14. Smelser, N.J. and Baltes, P.B. “International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences," Traditions: Social, New York, Elsesier, 2001.

15. Connah. R. “Deschooling Architecture," Vertigo Press, 2013.

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LIFELONG ARCHITECTURAL LABORATORY

by Nataliya Orekhova

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LIFELONG LEARNING AND ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION "...education should not be the preserve of students.

Education, instead, is something that is present throughout one's career in architecture: as student, as tutor and as practitioner. In an era of rapid technological, economic and disciplinary change, the chance to retrain, rethink and reskill is becoming more vital."1 — Sam Jacob, Director of the AA Night School.

Today’s world is facing rapid technological development. The pace of life is increasing tremendously. People invent and produce new ideas, knowledge, and only the way people live, but also the way they operate in new situations. Twenty years ago only 22.8% of the US population had a personal computer3, and now almost everyone has a computer on their phone, on television, even on their refrigerator. Architects in the 1980s used to design and draw by hand, while today’s architects rely on digital devices. Professionals who had graduated over 30 years ago must now adapt their skills. This implies not only computer literacy, but also understanding emerging technology, building materials, construction systems and more.

Total Internet Server Information in 2008: 9.57 zettabytes 9.57 x 1021 bytes Each of the world’s 3.2 billion workers would have to read through a stack of books 58 km (36 miles) long each year.2

prehension by the generalist. Large disciplines are eroding, and fragmenting. An architect is not the “chief builder” anymore, but a contributor within a large team.

Engineers, construction professionals, developers, project managers, 3D artists and model makers are all specialists that emerged out of the discipline, leaving architects with almost nothing but design. market to the global economy. Since then, national companies have been placed consider their business models, marketing strategies and quality control. Russian architecture scene has a disadvantage in a lack of management and organizational skills, and weakness of the legislation system, in that national architects are only responsible for project documentation and could be easily removed from the venture. While western architects carry responsibility for the built ob4 And that gives them privilege over the Russian professionals.

RIBA’s recent survey “The Future For Architects?” issued in 2010 warned that there is a threat for the medium sized practices who might be misplaced by starchitects or big construction companies who, as in any other corporations, would control the largest part of the market. And that small metropolitan boutique practices in order to stay on the market might “partner up, either with a group of smaller practices or with one of the larger practices.” Building Design’s ranking of the World’s 100 Largest Architecture Firms, released in 2013, does not include any examples from Russia. The two main parameters were the number of architects employed and fee income. One might say that this ranking is controversial and does not measure a company’s success; nevertheless if the RIBA’s prediction come true, most of national companies would be bankrupt or obeyed by the capitalist world. Overcoming the challenge is another reason why

"The medium sized design-led practices, employing between 30 and 100 staff, are increasingly under threat from the parts of the industry listed above (Global interdisciplinary consultancies), who claim to be able to provide their services more cheaply, comprehensively business acumen, while possessing a greater ability and inclination to share risk with their clients."5

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professional architects, especially in Russia, should keep up-to-date with their international colleagues by retraining and enhancing their competence. Especially today, in current period of information overload, knowledge obsolescence, increase of global mobility and international competitiveness professionals might constantly mastering their skills and retrain themselves.

LIFELONG LEARNING CONCEPT "Over the past decade, neuroplasticity research has enriched the biopsychosocial perspective by demonstrating that psychosocial experiences not only processes but may actually change the structure of the adult brain... Although neuroplasticity research is ings suggest that the effects of psychosocial experiences such as learning and mental training on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functions may be mediated by alterations to the architecture of the brain."5

Lifelong learning is a prominent theme in contemporary education theory and practice. Lifelong learning is becoming more and more necessary in today’s rapmeeting this need. We tend to link learning processes with formal institutions, assuming that they are a prerequisite for professional development. For a long to develop in adulthood. But recent studies in neuroscience showed that human situations such as talking with friends or reading a newspaper, playing games or traveling abroad. We learn one thing, unlearn another, and reapply old ideas to create new knowledge. We all naturally learn throughout our lives, and by keeping our eagerness and passion in education, we help our health system stay young.

The term «lifelong learning» can be described as an educational experience throughout ones life; as a continuous journey for gaining knowledge within a personal, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective; as accumulating and processing information from nature, environment, culture, people, community, institutions, media, publishing and so on. Lifelong learning includes forms like adult education, home schooling, continuous education, professional development, on-the-job training, self-directed learning, community-based learning.

scription of these terms.

introduced their own de-

"Formal education: the hierarchically structured, chronologically graded ‘education system’, running from primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic studies, a variety of specialised programs and institutions for full-time technical and professional training.

Informal education: the truly lifelong process whereby every individual – from family and neighbours, from work and play, from the market place, the library and the mass media.

Non-formal education: any organised educational activity outside the established formal system – whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity – that is intended to serve However, there is an ongoing debate on where are the boundaries between formality and informality as today we have much diverse educational models. For example, Rogers8 most personalized, self-didactic way of studying. Thus non-formal education is lying in between two extremes, combining their features. Coley, Hodkinson and Malcolm9

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Today we can see that formal institutions are trying to move their strategies towards informal learning by introducing more adaptive practices and public program to their agenda. On the Figure 3 you can see various educational mod-

FORMAL FIGURE 2

teacher as authority educational premises teacher control planned and structured summative assessment/accreditation externally determined objectives/outcomes interests of powerful and dominant groups open to all groups, according to published criteria propositional knowledge high status education measured outcomes learning predominantly individual learning to preserve status quo pedagogy of transmission & control learning mediated through agents of authority learning is the main explicit purpose learning is applicable in a range of contexts

INFORMAL no teacher involved non-educational premises learner control organic and evolving no assessment internally determined objectives interests of oppressed groups preserves inequality and sponsorship practical and process knowledge low status not education outcomes imprecise/unmeasurable learning predominantly communal learning for resistance & empowerment learner-centered, negotiated pedagogy learning mediated through learner democracy open-ended engagement

By combining different kinds of learning activities, one can build his or her own personal trajectory. An array of unique and sometimes random skills and knowledge could make a person a professional in high demand depending on his/her in one discipline and broad knowledge on many topics. In his The Ten Faces of Innovation, Tom Kelley claims that "the future belongs to T-shaped people. And it’s not easy to replace a T-shaped person. The broader your talents, the more your ability lies in the overlaps between disciplines, the less likely you will 10 The question of how to track personal trajectories and prove expertise is being addressed through accreditation companies who 11

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Development of Vocational Training create a guideline for validating non-formal and informal learning13 which provides opportunities for individuals, business sector, municipal agencies, NGOs, councils and more to establish their own validation programs.

festival lectorium experimental laboratory people's house pioneer’s palace “znanie” society cultural and educational institution community center

people's university anarchistic free schools folk high school adult literacy classes employee training program emergency adult education course cooperative education apprenticeship training program internship lecture course crafts studio self-education circle summer school distance education conference consultation mentoring workshop seminar master class skill-sharing coaching

micro-lecture self-study program interactive book reading room

expedition outdoor activity activism mass media publishing how-to guide

library museum exhibition zoo theatre observatory cinema application virtual museum

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FACING A WILD ANIMAL MUSEUM

INFORMALITY HOW-TO GUIDE

PUBLISHING PEOPLE'S HOUSE

LIKBEZ CIRCLE

evening worker's university higher evening education for adults higher extramural education for adults technicum faculty of continuing education institute of professional development extramural postgraduate school

evening adult secondary school evening vocational school faculty of professional development vocational training mooc distributive education trade school part-time continuation school university extension school of continuing education occupational extension class invisible college community college higher peasant's school youth peasant's school youth worker's school

evening shift-type adult's school night school alternative university Indigenous education University of the Third Age Mechanics' institutes lifelong learning centers continuation school cooperative enrichment association supplementary classes vocational classes worker's university factory apprenticeship school

Community of practice media lab fab lab living lab youth lab the lyceum movement literacy school school for adults LIKBEZ club evening school peasant people's university sovpartschool

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The Council of Europe recommended reinforcing formal educational systems, that "alone could not respond to rapid and constant technological, social and economic change in society" with non-formal practices.14 By adding an alternative model to the traditional system, we can create more freedom and learning opportunities not only for students, but also for children and professionals, cultivating student engagement and helping traditional systems adapt to the current agenda. From one side, it would bring new life into the school environment, attracting more people from outside — experts, critics, professionals and broad er publics — and shake up conservative institutions. Informal programs could also make traditional institutions more innovative and democratic, helping them improve their offerings to society. From another side, informal learning could association with a formal system.

CONTINUING EDUCATION IN ARCHITECTURE Prior to the 18th century, architectural education in Russia was based on the medieval Italian tradition by which pupils trained in craft guilds, inheriting knowledge from a master. With Peter the Great’s reforms, architectural education took formal paths — one was continuation of the craft's tradition, when masters arranged drawing, de-picturing and design classes for their students, and where the frame of the study depended on a project in which they were involved 15

In the 20th century both models were merged into the one complex institutionalized system we know today. The major Russian school of architecture Moscow along with Strelka Institute for Design, Media, and Architecture in Domus’ Europe’s top 100 schools of architecture and design 2013.

Lifelong learning appears in MArchI as a department of continuous education, independent schools of urban design and landscape architecture, drawing lessons for children, and preliminary courses for those who did not pass the enpreparing children for exams, but they do not give them an overview of what the study or profession is about.

For MArchI, future students are the ones who are good at representational drawing. Professors from MArchI teach in both schools of design and landscape architecture, but their programs are independent from institute. The Department of Continuing Education provides open programs for professionals and non-proprofessionals, developers, engineers, decision makers and so on. ning, Basics of Urban Design, Basics of Landscape Design, Lightning in Megapolis` Architecture, Shukhov Unique Structure and Contemporary Building Practice, and Engineering System Ecology. What can professionals get from these classes? to the school curriculum.

In comparison, the United States' continuing education system, which is mandatory for licensed architects in most of states, has a more developed network of possibilities — lectures, webinars, conferences and courses offered not only by universities but also by architectural associations and other institutions, such as imal annual requirements for the program are 2.5 hours in California, while a maximum of 15 hours is marked in Kansas and South Dakota. The range of top-

L.A.LAB

ics is very diverse, and can be found in the AIA online catalogue — a list of 888 topics comprising 5-50 courses each. The main themes are Building Science & Performance, Design and Design services, Legal, Materials & Methods, Practice, Project Management, Project Types, Sustainable Design, and Other.16 In fact, there are plenty of opportunities to learn something new, from design methodology to group dynamics or presentation techniques. Nevertheless, the learning process is still very formal and didactic as it is based on linear "transmission" of knowledge.

Continuing education in Europe is not mandatory and consists of open lectures and conferences in most undergraduate and postgraduate programs. An excepgram. Each RIBA chartered member must acquire at least 35 hours annually, 20 hours of which must be gained from the RIBA CPD core curriculum syllabus. It can be formal or “structured” and informal including community-based learnjournals and technical material, mentoring, visiting trade shows and exhibitions, listening to podcasts, or carrying out relevant voluntary activities.

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"'CPD' is a general term for any learning activity.

Depending on the expertise you need, your time spent on CPD can include anything from weekly reading at one end of the spectrum, the other, with an endless variety of learning activities in-between."17

The program of professional development at MArchI today is not well established, has weak objectives and provides a limited variety of courses. Thus, it is important for the national education system to take a step further and create more learning opportunities for professionals in order to stay strong and competitive among the global architectural community. Intentions to develop a longterm action program for continuing education were announced at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Russian Architectural Union in 2010,18 but they have not yet been realized.

L.A.LAB What will architectural education look like in the future? Will it expand outside the institution? Who will be teaching and who will be learning? And how will this learning take place?

While formal education offers important advantages in preparing large numbers of students to meet professional standards, these advantages can place limits on experimentation and innovation. They also limit the time students and the faculty have to interact with people outside the institution’s walls. Incorporating non-formal and informal approaches to education can help reduce these students, institutions and society at large.

The Architectural Association Night School, for example, is an experimental proa book club, professional seminars and group critiques on topical issues related to the built environment. Such additions to formal architectural schools can help improve their integration with the public realm and begin to reinvigorate the profession. learning into traditional educational institutions. It allows students of architecture to interact with experienced practitioners and interested youth in an experit possible for participants to adapt the lab to meet their needs. throughout the room and give shape to the interior according to participant veloped by participants. Anyone can run a studio, arrange an exhibition or create tors elected from among the participants. They would curate programs, help with projects, invite new participants and maintain open lines of communication.

AA Night School is a non-formal platform that seeks "to turn an architecture school inside out, offering what are usually internal activities to a wide audience of professionals, clients, other creative practitioners, the general public as well as students. Its format is short evening classes and events that engage issues of design, culture, history, theory and professional practice.

Through these it aims to redraw lines between practice and theory and between student and professional."19

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Participants learn through collaboration. By working with experienced colleagues, students develop a practical understanding of the problems architects Both take on the role of teacher and learner in different situations based on their areas of expertise. Thus, it is important to consider interpersonal relations and group dynamics in the process of study.

While learning in mixed age-groups is a crucial part of L.A.Lab, it also has a purpose that goes beyond the school to the outer world. The program includes urban and architectural design, research and action projects, which respond to local problems with political, economic, social and cultural dimensions. Groups of participants devise solutions that can be implemented in the places where they live. Ideas for these projects may be based on commissions and competitions or on research conducted within the lab. They could take the form of urban interventions, performance acts, curatorial practices, conferences, festivals and many other possibilities. discuss a workshop they are preparing. They decide to invite professionals from a Moscow district. The program for the workshop is ready and participants are in-

process of collaboration between people, analyzing interactions and individual behavior of the members as well as personal design approaches and decision-making processes. students work with high-school students on building pavilions they designed in their classes. The process involves detailed structural design of the pavilions, keeping track of the construction budget, studying solutions for materials via a 1-to-1 cardboard model, and eventually building the structures.

l. a. l a b

Starting at lunchtime, the lab transforms into a co-working space for students, undergraduates, architects and freelancers. Some space is devoted to a Competition Without Expenses team made up of an architect, students and children.

The architect wants to participate in an open competition for developing a Moscow park and decides to invite the younger generation to help him. Work in the lab’s budget. The day ends with a public lecture by a famous Moscow architect.

Co-working continues throughout the afternoon at open tables.

Lifelong Architectural Laboratory will change the future of architectural education. By bringing different age-groups together in one space, we bridge gaps between professionals, students, and children; between industry, academy and society; between old school, avant-garde, and naivety. We create potentially uncomfortable and challenging situations that could revitalize learning processes sian architectural society from a dead-lock to new horizons.

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L.A.LAB

REFERENCES 1. Jacob, Sam. “Architectural education must change," April 2013. Accessed May, 2013. www. dezeen.com/2013/04/18/sam-jacob-opinion-architectural-education-crisis/ 2. “How Much Information? 2010 Report on Enterprise Server Information.” University of California, San Diego, 2010.

3. US Census Bureau report “Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2003.” Issued October 2005.

5. Building Futures report “The Future For Architects?," 2010. Accessed May 2013. www.buildingfutures.org.uk/assets/downloads/The_Future_for_Architects_Full_Report_2.pdf 6. Garland, Eric L.; Howard, Matthew Owen “Neuroplasticity, psychosocial genomics, and the biopsychosocial paradigm in the 21st century.” Health and Social Work. Vol.34. Issue 3. National Association of Social Workers: 2009.

7. Coombs, P. H. and Ahmed, M. “Attacking Rural Poverty: How non-formal education can help.”

Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1974.

8. Rogers, A. (2004) ‘Looking again at non-formal and informal education - towards a new paradigm’, the encyclopedia of informal education. Accessed May 2013. www.infed.org/biblio/ non_formal_paradigm.htm.

9. Helen Colley, Phil Hodkinson & Janice Malcolm. “Non-formal learning: mapping the conceptual terrain. A Consultation Report.” University of Leeds Lifelong Learning Institute, 2002.

10. Kelley, Tom. The Ten Faces of Innovation. New York: Currency Doubleday, 2005.

11. “Accreditation of Prior and Experiential Learning.” The UK Center for Materials Education (2005). Accessed May 2013. www.materials.ac.uk/resources/library/apelintro.asp.

12. Felton, Nicholas. “The 2012 Feltron Annual Report.” [limited edition]. www.feltron.com/ 13. European Center for the Development of Vocational Training centers’ report: “European Publications of the European Communities, 2009.

14. Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1437 (2000) on non-formal education, adopted on 24 January 2000. Accessed May 2013. www.assembly.coe.int/documents/adoptedtext/ta00/ erec1437.htm#1

16. AIA continuing education online course directory. Accessed May 2013. www.aia.org/educa17. CPD at the RIBA. Accessed May 2013. www.architecture.com/EducationAndCareers/CPD/ NewCPDCoreCurriculum.aspx 19. The AA Night's School of Architecture. Accessed May 2013. www.nightschool.aaschool.ac.uk

IMAGE REFERENCES: page 1. koxinor.mambor.com/foto.htm page 5.

1. Image courtesy Orekhova Nataliya 2.“Dogs must be Carried” Photograph by David McEnery 3. www.blatner.com/adam/consctransf/historyofmedicine/1-overview/brief.html 4. Reggia di Venaria I, Piemonte 2007 | photo © Massimo Listri 5. www.perunica.ru/rukodelie/4236-skvorechnik-svoimi-rukami.html 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdNAUJWJN08

8. Young people taking dance lessons at the Young Pioneers Palace. (Photo by Howard Sochurek//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images) 9. Apprentice. Man and boy making shoes.

Repro. of painting by (Louis-?)Emile Adan (1839-1937), copyrighted by Braun & Co., N.Y. menu01=72&hmenu0=7a

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12. Emblematic image of a Rosicrucian College; illustration from Speculum sophicum Rhodo-stauroticum, a 1618 work by Theophilus Schweighardt.

13. Professor lecturing to students. (Photo by Ed Clark//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images) 14. Nigeria, Kano, Ooron Dutse, Senior Islamic Secondary Level 2, Social Studies. Image courtesy Julian Germain

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“... I don’t beleve in this possibility of knowing. I am almost an agnostic. Knowledge distracts us from our main purpose in life. The more we know, the less we know. Getting deeper, our horizon becomes narrower ...” — Andrey Tarkovsky 1

Network of Guilds

by Victor Karovskiy

INTRODUCTION innovation is expanding the capabilities of existing institutions, this innovation study, between teachers and students, and between education and daily life are increasingly at odds with new possibilities in digital networks.

You can teach the relationship between objects. The subject is a way of cutting out the pieces of a whole.” — Vyacheslav Glazychev2 is needed. Perhaps the future of education is visible in its past.

ELEMENTS We are surrounded by networks. The network is an abstract concept, referring to linked elements at various scales.3,4 This study focuses on networks related to education.

5,6

education net-

This model suggests six types of interaction between elements. The quality of education depends upon the strength of these interactions. When they are equally available for use, they allow for mutual enrichment among elements in the education network.

One-way transmission of information often dominates. According to Garrison, meaningful learning is rooted in direct interaction between elements. Thus,

NETWORK OF GUILDS

Figure 1.

Transactional Relationships in Higher Education (adopted from Garrison, 1989).

effective teachers also help learners access, understand and utilize content directly. The importance of direct interaction in education networks is also evident in the formation of universities in Western Europe during the 13th century.

FREE GUILDS Medieval guilds, or voluntary associations of merchants and craftsmen, played

Figure 2.

Medieval universities of the 13th and 14th centuries.

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Studium Generale meant simply a place of higher education, open to people from abroad and free from direct control by religious authorities. Building upon the tradition of guilds, they functioned as relatively autonomous organizations of masters and apprentices.9-12 Great masters produced a magnetic effect, attracting scholars and creating energy around institutions in Bologna, Paris and other nodal cities.9-12 Those who came to the Studia for study were generally not inexperienced youth. Many ters as well as their peers.

Figure 3.

The birth of universities.

Network of free guilds with two main centers.

Withdrawal of English students and masters from continental Studia.

Creation of a new network in Oxford.

Division of Oxford’s network leads to the founding of Cambridge.

Many of the foreign students in Paris were from England, and political disputes between kings forced them to return home.9-12 As a result, Oxford emerged as a prominent Studium along with Paris and Bologna. Later, a disagreement among

Figure 4.

Characteristics of guilds.

autonomous open to all foreign students adult students students with professions free from religion free learning no diploma free teaching voluntary associations no buildings freely-elected rectors

Strelka Institute Free Guilds

NETWORK OF GUILDS

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1

3

2

CONTEMPORARY GUILD The Moscow-based Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design is in Russia and abroad after having completed tertiary education and working for a number of years.

Strelka’s education network has been expanding since its start in 2010. It is made up of students, tutors, administrators, alumnae and external associates.

Participants can be grouped and linked according to studio themes, countries of origin, areas of expertise and periods of collaboration. and 13,452 connections between them. It can be viewed on screen as an ani-

Figure 5.

Network of students, tutors, directors, experts, institutions, universities and organizations associated with the education program from 2010 to 2013.

The map includes 771 nodes and 13,452 connections. Colors represent each year of Strelka's existence: 1, 2, 3.

Explore the Strelka network:

Strelka’s education program forms a tree-shaped, hierarchical network with some cross-linking among peripheral nodes. It is a core-periphery network — highly interconnected in the middle and sparse around the edges — but its

S

P

E

A

Figure 6.

Interactions between members Studies, Political Studies, Architecture and Culture. Colors represent each year of Strelka's existence: 1, 2, 3.

C

NETWORK DEVELOPMENT According to Thomas Jerome Baker, for any given participant in a network there will be a certain number of connections that produce maximum value.13,14 He adds that we can increase the point of maximum value by adjusting the netIn addition, distributed networks of autonomous clusters have been found to be challenge lies in strengthening these ties without limiting the diversity, autonomy, openness or interactivity of the network.

NETWORK OF GUILDS

Figure 7.

Increasing connections begin to detract from the actual value of the network for each participant. Maximum value is linked to the diversity, autonomy, openness and interactivity of the network.[13,14]

Figure 8.

Network of the education program in 2010-2011. The map includes 199 nodes and 3,103 connections.

Figure 9.

Network of the education program in 2010-2012. The map includes 413 nodes and 8,388 connections.

Figure 10.

Network of the education program in 2010-2013. The map includes 771 nodes and 13,452 connections.

In addition, distributed networks of autonomous clusters have been found to The challenge lies in strengthening these ties without limiting the diversity, autonomy, openness or interactivity of the network.

[3,4]

1

Figure 11.

Grouping of members by year, and their interactions. Colors represent each year of Strelka's existence: 1, 2, 3.

3 2

of maximum value. At the same time, its connections are somewhat tenuous. To increase the quantity of connections without diminishing their quality, Strelka would have to strengthen its links to similar autonomous clusters. These may include an architectural association, a social activist group, an economic

Figure 12.

In “Small World� networks, tight clusters are connected to other clusters via bridges.

LIMITS OF INSTITUTIONAL NETWORKS The emergence of printing in Europe in the 12th century led to the rediscovery of ancient thinkers and part of the lost works of Aristotle.9-12 This transfer of

Figure 13.

Communications timeline.

knowledge through manuscripts was the next reason for the appearance of university education. The shift from an industrial society to an information society, 15

NETWORK OF GUILDS

USA

Germany

Italy UK Netherlands

Figure 14.

Interactions among members of the Strelka education program for the past three years, grouped by country.

Russia

A

C

S

E P

Figure 15.

Interactions among members of the Strelka education program for the past three years, grouped by Economics, Social studies, Political studies, Architecture, Culture.

“Universities are becoming stupidity-reduction machines. Cities themselves are more experimental than universities now.” — Mark Wigley16 Strelka is now small enough to provide relatively direct interactions among a growing international network. Its size also allows for rapid experimentation in improving its program and responding to change. Interaction and experimentation within larger institutional networks is a much greater challenge.

Since the days of Studia Generale, universities have become increasingly bureaucratic and institutionalized. Although they are still communities based on shared interests, and their impact on society is perhaps more substantial than ever, the policies needed to maintain them can impede their ability to innovate and adapt quickly to societal change.

Linking to other autonomous clusters could help Strelka expand its network meaningfully without becoming a large institution. It could play the role of guild, allowing people at different stages in their careers to learn with experts and collaborate toward common goals.

A NEW EDUCATIONAL MODEL Network of Guilds is an approach to education through free associations of people with shared interests. Like medieval guilds, these associations would allow professionals to connect with experts and peers while developing new skills. Each guild would be an autonomous cluster within a distributed network of similar clusters, thereby increasing connections without reducing their Columbia University's Studio-X is another autonomous cluster that could be part of a distributed network with Strelka.

Students from Strelka’s current class recently completed a questionnaire survey This natural attraction to experts and diverse communities with shared interests appears to have remained strong since the era of medieval guilds.

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Building a Network of Guilds may be a practical way of simultaneously expanding and strengthening education networks. My Facebook contacts now include fellow students as well as experts from around the world, showing the impact

Figure 16 Network map of my Facebook contacts before (left) and after (right) enrolling at Strelka.

NETWORK OF GUILDS

REFERENCES

Meant for Buisness, Science, and Everyday Life,” USA, April 29, 2003.

Framework, Research and Practice,” IGI Global, September 30, 2012.

8. Laurie, S.S. The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities with a Survey of Mediaeval 9. Le Goff, Jacques. “Intellectuals in the Middle Ages,” Wiley-Blackwell, 1993.

10. Le Goff, Jacques, “Medieval Civilization 400-1500,” Barnes & Noble, 2000.

12. Rait, Robert. Life in the Medieval University. Cambridge University Press, 1912.

13. Baker, Thomas Jerome, “Connectivism & Connected Knowledge,” CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, March 15, 2012.

15. Martynov, Vladimir, “Time of Alise,” Moscow, 2010.

16. Wigley, Mark. Dean of the Columbia University School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Conversation,” Studio-X Report 002. Columbia University, 2010

During the research I was involved in a 9-week Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) called “Social Network Analysis,” taught by Lada Adamic from the University of Michigan.

ADAPTIVE. LIQUID STRELKA "The new education must teach the individual how to classify and reclassify information, how to evaluate its veracity, how to change categories when necessary, how to move from the concrete to the abstract and back, how to look at problems from a new direction – how to teach himself. Tomorrow’s illiterate will not be the man who can’t read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn."1 — Herbert Gerjuoy, psychologist of the Human Resources Research Organiza-

In today’s economy, in which there are constantly new activities and professions 2

lifelong learning and adapting to new challenges — abilities that can serve over the course of one’s lifetime.

As the skills needed from today’s graduates are shifting, many postgraduate programs are still focused on providing students with formalized professional knowledge. Having developed standardized approaches, such programs lack the tools for developing competence in “learning to learn” — an ability to self-manable opportunities and to overcome obstacles in order to learn successfully.

Where learning is directed towards particular work or career goals, an individual As revealed in a study of the Russian education system conducted by the World mand and available skills increases at every level of the education system. It becomes even more important after the graduate enters the labor market.3 The Agency for Strategic Initiatives estimates the adequacy of Russian student qual4 This suggests that the postgraduate programs need to be in better contact with employers in order to understand their needs and better prepare students.

In response to these developments, the Moscow-based Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design is working to become an incubator for developing critical thinking and independent learning skills among postgraduate students from Russia and abroad. Initial results have been promising, as 84% of Strelka alumnae end up pursuing jobs in the institute’s areas of focus.5 Strelka is an experimental research-based education project that also hosts public events, consults on urban development and publishes leading books on urbanism, design, media and architecture. The institute is dedicated to achieving tangible change in Russian cities and communicating the results to interested audiences in Russia and around the world.6 Strelka focuses on enabling participatory learning — and there are numerous which has resulted in the development of a Studio Generale course to bring each research studio together and provide students with important skills and stimulating talks on urbanism, architecture and other topics related to the school’s areas of focus. So far, the third-year Studio Generale includes a series of training sessions in relevant professional and social skills, as well as theoretical lectures, with a stronger emphasis on theory over practice.

As an experimental institute, Strelka is constantly trying new ways of improving its approach to education. In keeping with this goal, the current project is dedicated to learning from students and staff what aspects of the program need improvement. I started with a questionnaire survey, completed by 33 of the 36 students in Strelka’s class of 2013. I then interviewed tutors, directors, trustees and survey results.8,9

Q&A WITH STRELKA whether it’s a school, a think tank or a research lab. Correspondingly, whether the students are actually students, young experts or research interns? dents to Strelka is a desire to attain progressive knowledge and, for almost half of respondents, an ability to interact with international students. For some prospective students, applying to Strelka was not only a way to discover what kind of knowledge the institute produces, but also a place to develop their professional trajectory.

and skills in collaborative research. Instead, we were considered students from the day we arrived, never as professionals with useful knowledge and abilities.”

In answer to such comments, a representative of Strelka administration, argues that students are the ones to choose a passive or active position. One of the tuare expecting orders. This is the position of an executor, not an initiator that a Strelka student is supposed to be.” no space for initiative, innovation and pushing the limits? instincts — the more you handhold the student, the more requests for handholding you get. Everyone should be treated as an adult until proven otherwise.” The survey indicates that students have given the possibility of independent learning our own and inspire others to follow, that way getting more enthusiasm into the projects.”

10 negative aspects listed by students.

Should they be following a set of instructions or is the interaction meant to proceed organically? involves combining independent work with curation by a tutor, coach or instructor via teamworking independently. One of the directors claims that it is almost impossible to have a general program that suits everyone, but notes that it is important to develop self-management and independent working skills in students. Although, remarks, “a lot of people who want to be self-directed — shouldn’t.”

As for activities that enhance students’ learning and teamwork abilities, Strelka introduced a sneak-peek during a welcome workshop in year three. The student at Strelka, but almost 20% claim that it should be executed in a way that’s more relevant to further studies.

and each other’s learning?

active young people in one place,” admits one of the respondents. Others feel that the professional background of their fellow students didn’t play as big a role as expected. A quarter of the students learned very little from their peers, which expertise, and that is a big issue. We should learn more from each other.” One of “Only doing one research project over the entire period is ridiculous, old school thinking. Think about what this group could have done when complementing each other’s strong points, reinforcing the many great ideas that are in the group.

Instead so much struggle, even frustration.” the institute does not provide the students with a “special methodology for exchange,” disrupting the concept of interdisciplinarity. In reference to group dytive feedback or interest in students opinion,” though more than half of students claim to freely express their opinion in the group. edge exchange and group dynamics have been important themes in Strelka’s education program this year, the institute is willing and maintaining a commitment to experimentation and adjustment.

With a shifting world economy and emerging technologies placing ever greater demands on graduate students, the ability to be independent and curate one’s own education, successfully working both alone and in groups, challenging oneself to react to new conditions, is in great need.

How can a postgraduate program provide conditions that stimulate and promote such qualities? Taking the interviews and survey results into account, as well as my personal experience as a student, I developed an adaptive program for Strelka that could eventually be applied in the Russian education system. It focuses on building strong competence in “learning to learn.”

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ADAPTIVE LEARNING ADAPTIVE — readily capable of adapting or of being needs or situations

roots of adaptive learning lay in learner-centered teaching theory by Carl Rogers 10, which has in turn been a forerunner of current concern with the teacher’s central mission to facilitate the learning process rather than simply transmit

Donald Schön, Chris Argyris11 and Peter Senge,12 tive learning via the notions of organizational, generative and single/double-loop learning. As follows, adaptive learning can be explained through a double-loop learning process that involves questioning the role of the framing and learning single-loop learning whereby, when facing a failure or error, taking the existing policies for granted, and carrying on the error-and-correction process without questioning goals, strategies and values. Double-loop learning occurs when error norms and objectives. enable constant “going through the loops” and inner policy questioning. Adaptive learning itself can be viewed as an algorithm and seen in many learning methodologies. In order to identify those, a sample analysis was conducted for -

to numerous factors like degree of tutor involvement and student activities, use

to relate, being grounded in direct experience, equipping students with skills ensuring competence, performance and productivity, expanding the setting to include a broader range of people to learn from and places in which to learn and lifelong learning. with the main principles of self-directed learning — almost directly recapping them. A conclusion could be made that an adaptive approach to education is closely linked to self-directed learning — a process in which the subject of education takes the initiative to diagnose their learning needs, formulate learning goals, identify resources for learning, select and implement learning strategies, and evaluate learning outcomes.13 It is also a process that contextualizes direct experiences and focuses on developing strategies for maximizing learning through the extraction of implicit rules.14 According to Roger Hiemstra self-directed learning is focused on learner empowerment with many possible tools and takes on the task of self-curation as a lifelong process, keeping in mind the group and enabling students to be a resource for each other, including shifting the role of tutor from direct teaching to mentoring and coaching.15 This kind of approach could serve as an appropriate base for developing new tactics and strategies for improvement at Strelka. Having mapped student self-management, peer interaction, reciprocal teaching and group dynamics as the main areas of need, the next step is to detect the means of incorporating them into the program, which starts with equipping students with a set of techniques and tactics in the framework of learning to learn.

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PROJECT PROPOSAL: LIQUID STRELKA Based on my research and experience as a student, I decided to develop

of testing the suggested methodology. with leading experts in educational methodology.16 According to Nancy Gropper, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Bank Street College of Edfor students to be self-directed. At the same time, Janet Rankin, Senior Associate Director for Teaching Initiatives at the MIT Teaching and Learning Laboratory, suggests that such an approach might start with providing a framework to increase self-awareness through a “working backwards approach,” in which students set their learning goals by imagining their perfect future selves.

OBJECTIVES

CURRENT ISSUES

LIQUID STRELKA Lack of peer review / knowledge exchange

student's role

To empower learners to be self-directed

To enable reciprocal peer teaching

Lack of methodology for a diverse group

To provide tools for self-management

ACTIVITIES

METHODOLOGY

Setting goals IDEAL SELF

EVALUATION

Acting PRACTICE

Evaluating assets REAL SELF

Support system

Strengths + gaps Planning AGENDA

Personal learning plan

Peer to peer education units

Setting up a toolbox for students

Individual mentoring units with the primary adviser

The opportunity to offer additional courses, designed and organized by students

Work checkpoints structured as expert roundtable discussions organized by students

Empowerment by mini-cycles with real briefs

Figure 1.

The model includes a synthesis step model of self-direction, self-knowledge continuum by Boyatzis18 and Kolb’s learning cycles.19

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She adds that working with the model of Blooms taxonomy would help students improve their critical thinking skills and add-up to a conscious approach to building their learning trajectory.

During a visit to the Gallatin School at N.Y.U., a learning program in which students independently determine their area of study and create a learning plan, it was highlighted numerous times that the role of mentor in such an approach is extremely important. David Moore, Gallatin’s Associate Professor, emphasizes things you learn at school,” noting that it is a necessary element in pedagogics enabling students to conduct self-help. learning, a coherent framework was also designed, representing a package of aims and objectives, methodology and activities, tools of reference, monitoring and evaluation.

PILOT I The Liquid Strelka strategy is focused on the adapting to the needs of the stuprofessional knowledge unit and a “learning to learn” unit, with equal amount a common intellectual base. The second is dedicated to self-directed and peer learning, suggesting principles for an educational program that ensures learner-empowerment. which students detect their learning needs, evaluate their skill and knowledge and create a learning plan to achieve the goals they’ve set. It would start from a series of workshops that students give to each other in order to increase interaction and knowledge exchange among students and better understand the skills and experience present in the group. Further suggested practices address ACTIVITIES Regarding students as experts.

Personal learning plan Peer to peer education units — student teaching something to another student and learning something in return, collaborative projects in which one remixes The opportunity to offer additional courses in the program of Studio Generale,

tools suggested by the institute and generated by students “Mini-cycles” group activities with briefs from clients being not a research simulator but mini-researches on their own — Studio Generale knowledge units thematically clustered around them Individual mentoring units with the primary adviser acting as facilitator, enabling the student to make useful decisions in his or her personal learning plan,

Numerous work checkpoints structured as expert roundtable discussions organized by students around the topic of their work and their project

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Step 1 — setting goals — ideal self The kind of thinking that helps provide a “need to know” in students by setting the personal goals of their education — could be depicted as a model of “ideal self” — what would they like to end up with in 9 months. It is also aimed at collecting expectations of what could be gained at Strelka and what is the reasoning behind the decision to join it’s educational program.

METHODS Aims at an autonomous student, who does not need a tutor.

Step 2 — building a self-inventory — real self Increasing self-awareness via conducting an inventory of already possessed knowledge and skills gained through pre-Strelka experience and professional practice. This also allows us to catalogue overall spectrum of knowledge possessed by the group for future mutual exchange and to also collect expectations of what could be gained at Strelka and what is the reasoning behind the decision to join it’s education program. expects from the students and their projects in order to synchronize the overall goals.

Step 4 — self-management — how to get to X? Building a learning agenda according to personal and institutional goals, as well as identifying what is already present in the group and whom to learn from. As this is the moment right before the groupwork begins, it is the right time to set the group culture and rules for teamwork.

Step 5 — experimentation + being a resource Implementing appropriate learning strategies. Effective learning occurs when a 20

This could also be imple-

Step 6 — self-assessment and loop continuation Referring back to overall goals, “ideal self” model and group culture — questioning whether they need to be changed and adjusted. Continuing to a next loop.

practice.

The toolbox approach is successfully implemented in the European Commission’s ucation methods for youth trainees to browse through and to contribute to. The Strelka toolbox could serve as a storage of methods already in use throughout all three years of the institute activity, to ensure transferability of previous edu-

equal attitude to students, freedom of choice, mutual educational interaction to create such conditions.

REFERENCE TOOLS Aims at the institute having the power to share tools and express position.

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MONITORING AND EVALUATION

of the program. experiences, goals and accomplishments, and can serve as a dynamic tool for planning and capability assessment. It could include completed assignments, of implementing this tool at the University of Pittsburgh, University of Cincingroupwork and interaction experience; identifying links between curricular and co-curricular involvement; integrating learning across experiences; maintaining a comprehensive resource for developing and achieving short-term and longterm goals; providing access to an organized record and the ability to demonstrate growth over time. analysing and interpreting experience so as to learn from it. According to the research conducted at Vanderbilt University in Nashville21 during, and after the experience; connected — are linked to the intellectual, academic, and civic learning goals; challenging — encourage critical thinking and analysis that produces new understanding; contextualized — consider the course, developmental stage of students, place in the curriculum etc.; coaching — provide ongoing, rather than intermittent, feedback.

PILOT II: SUMMER PROGRAM This intensive two-month experimental program for young profesfor development into self-directed learners. The overall goal of the summer course is to test the idea that, given enough tools, resources and support, as well as fully using the human resources of the group, students can successfully organize and curate their own learning processes.

COURSE OVERVIEW The course is designed to last for two adaptive cycles, providing students with an opportunity to relive the same experience, correcting mistakes, improving their approach and questioning the underlying goals and policies. Each of the two cycles consists of skill-intensive and independent group-work unit, focusing on an urbanism-related brief that derives from Strelka’s previous student projects or consulting pracThe skill-intensive unit, includes a series of 90-minute intensives on critical competences, group dynamics and project management — all of action and review. Second is an independent working unit put together by the participants themselves, with mentoring sessions provided for support. The group would be divided into three subgroups to work on three project briefs. Learning portfolio and feedback sections would serve as a “monitoring in progress” tool, allowing the course to be modPROGRAM SCHEDULE

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REFERENCES 3. “Russian education is not oriented to the labor market,” Report of the World Bank and the Higher an innovative economy.” Accessed June 2013, www.opec.ru 4. Belkov, B. from the Agency for Strategic Initiatives during his speech on Educamp conference in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 2013.

5. Strelka Report, 2012.

9. Interviews conducted for this research by the author, 2013.

Random House, 1990.

13. University of Geneva. Accessed June 2013. www.edutechwiki.unige.ch 14. Bateson, G. Accessed June 2013. www.learningandteaching.info 15. Hiemstra, R. “Self-directed learning,” 1994.

16. Interviews conducted for this research by the author, 2013.

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and Co., 2001.

20. McLeod, S. A. “Kolb’s Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Cycle,” Simply Psychology. Accessed June 2013. www.simplypsychology.org

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S.P.A.C.E. READER

by Elena Yarmanova

— L. Menand1

S.P.A.C.E. READER

designed to educate adult professionals of different areas of expertise, united by an interest in urbanism.

S.P.A.C.E. stands for Sociology, Politics, Architecture, Culture, Economics — the interdisciplinary basis for the institute’s core curriculum. We propose to bring it to a new level.

Intradisciplinary

working on one project, which eventually provides its participants with new knowledge2. The term was chosen as a primary term for research due to its learning aspect, also expected to be practiced by Strelka Institute.

The need for an interdisciplinary approach to education was introduced during the student revolution in France in 1968 as a single-discipline was seen to be reductionist3. As it entered the discourse, it was later acknowledged at the level of UNESCO that “other more complex, more unifying and more transposable lines of approach are being added to existing disciplines in the discovery, structuring and understanding of facts and relationships.”4 Multidisciplinary

Fe Institute. While acknowledging that “the royal road to the Nobel Prize has generally been through the reductionist approach” 5, its founder George Cowan claimed that the institute would aim to educate ”the renaissance man of the world.”6 The institute served as a model for similar institutions in dealing with collaboration, ability of ask right questions, ability to teach” .

The discourse about interconnection of disciplines remained on the surface ever since. In both science and policy contexts, interdisciplinarity became a “label almost synonymous with creativity and progress, signalling reform and moderni-

Crossdisciplinary

8

CLARIFYING TERMS to the collaboration9. The diagram illustrates the level of it and remaining or stirring disciplinary borders. For instance, multidisciplinarity implies collaboration of a variety of disciplines with no integration of concepts, epistemology, or methodologies restricted to the linking of research results only. Interdisciplinarity would be seen as a more enriching experience for participants leading to exchange of knowledge between different domains. Transdisciplinarity would provide holistic schemes that subordinate disciplines, looking at the dynamics of whole systems.

Interdisciplinary

INTERDISCIPLINARITY XXI The general concept of interdisciplinarity was gradually embraced by the sci-

out of the discipline.”10 Research-wise, this illustrates the necessity to engage in

Transdisciplinary

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At the same time, this necessity is also now acknowledged by organizations. A good example is creative consulting agency IDEO’s talent management strategy, which seeks so-called T-shaped people. These professionals combine a depth of and build up on colleagues’ ideas. IDEO CEO Tim Brown would comment “Each individual discipline represents its own point of view. It basically becomes a negotiation at the table as to whose point of view wins, and that’s when you get gray compromises where the best you can achieve is the lowest common denominator between all points of view. The results are never spectacular but at best average.”11 Within this paradigm, T-shaped people would be able to moderate the discussion in the team by themselves.

RUSSIAN CONTEXT report that Russian education does not equip students with the skills needed for the innovation economy. Among the skills lacked, management lacks the ability lack the ability to collaborate. The latter is the skill that needs to be trained, as the same employees spend 80% of their time communicating with their colleagues.12 Effective communication and collaboration skills must be developed to address market demands.

In Russia, the interdisciplinary aspect of cooperation between disciplines in acly-emerged sciences that yet have no professionals as nanotechnology and shortterm conferences of representatives of human and social sciences. At the same time, the start of systematic preparation of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary professionals is foreseen by the state Agency of Strategic Initiatives to be started in 2015 as a result of “pressure from employers.”13 Big universities are reported to face structural and faculty challenges while introducing interdisciplinary programs. Therefore smaller establishments are more likely to create programs for successful interdisciplinary collaboration implementation.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY My research began as a study of interdisciplinarity based on personal interest, but turned into a detailed case study of Strelka — research from the inside. It began with a survey of the current state of interdisciplinarity, through literature on the development of disciplines, interdisciplinary theory and interviews with experts.

The Strelka student case study was based primarily on a questionnaire survey completed by 33 of 36 students, along with published and personal interviews with current and former administration and faculty.

Discussing internal issues, I see the necessity to leave out the names relation to the educational program in 2012/2013. The full list of interviewees can be found in the references list.15

S.P.A.C.E. READER

STRELKA AS INTERDISCIPLINARY LABORATORY The Strelka Institute is a unique example of an institution providing a program of an interdisciplinary nature in Russia as it states its intention to analyse the urban Strelka’s experience might be useful for those preparing future courses.

Strelka sees the city as a platform for the transformation of Russia’s physical and social environment14. Combining students of different professions and creating a unique personal trajectory for each of them, it therefore creates a “Strelka-type urbanism.”15 Rem Koolhaas and AMO helped design the educational program man, often involved in campaigns of seduction”16 and thus requires new skills of communication with society — listening, interpreting and producing information.

As the curator of the 2012/2013 educational year explains, “Strelka started as an architectural school. The goal was to bring people into another atmosphere and, with no theorizing, show that when he would graduate and face a challenge, he should involve a sociologist.”

Interaction among disciplines at Strelka takes place primarily in the following THE NAME. tiated, a sphere of its interest and skills needs to be established. As the project professions determined the sphere of interest.” of faculty and students.

FACULTY. As the director of the course 2012/2013 states, one of the aspects of Strelka nature is “cross-disciplinary research, which is fundamentally manifested through the diversity of studios and studio directors.” In changing Strelka’s nature this diversity of faculty was preserved since the institute’s inception in 2010. Over three years, all of the studios would have a combination of directors and tutors representing different professions. The creation of teams is similar to very well.”

STUDENTS. Current specializations include architects, urbanists, journalists, soyear the majority of students were architects, the diversity gradually increased up to 65% in 2012/2013.

The idealistic intention of combining various professionals is welcomed by the ing the position which is against specialization and I am totally up for it.” And profession, but a school with an objective to think.”

The ultimate goal of this blending of professionals with different backgrounds and experiences is that it is expected that these, combined together, will be able to create a new vision/solution for the topic of research.

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start up sociology scientist producer political analyst place marketing media marketing management journalism IT

historian education economic expert curator culturologist consulting

On the personal level, as one of the administration representatives stated, there is an aspiration that participants, “whether it’s a student or a faculty would cross-pollinate.” Therefore, to stick to one notion in the analysis of the disciplines collaboration, we would choose interdisciplinarity which, in short, implies mutual enrichment of participants through teamwork, as it was mentioned above.

On its website Strelka Institute invites “opinionated, intelligent and proactive students” requirements for entrance include three years of working experience, social engagement experience. For the fourth year of the program the minimum age requirement has risen from 21 to 25 years. The latter one implies a higher maturity and, possibly, a level of professional expertise, but might encompass the issue of higher disciplinary silo.

business branding arch critic artist activist photographer

/10 /11 /12

urbanism design

Taking that into account, the minimum aspiration for the results of the program impossible to teach a person to switch between the modes of interaction. This requires more time. Therefore it is crucial just to show that the switching is possible.”

architect

Figure 1. Tutors by expertise.

STUDIO FRAMEWORK One of the most frequent criticisms of interdisciplinary programs within universities is the inability of university departmental structure to accommodate interdisciplinary programs18. This is not the case for Strelka as following architecture schools tradition, it is organized around studios researching a certain theme. The faculty would always be represented by various professionals, the students as the diversity grew, would also be distributed regardless their profession.

Curators of the current course would advocate that “The institute’s know-how is dio students will end up in. Throughout all the years of existence of the program studiowork would take the major amount of the academic year at Strelka.

urbanist social science political analyst philosophy marketing manager journalist

This way the major part of students’ time would be spent in a team of approximately 10 people and the educational process would mostly be led by the studio directors. It is important to mention that there are no guidelines for directorship of the studio, it is only tutors that would receive a manual on the goals and methodology of the program. Therefore “methodology would rely on each studio director” and studio type of directorship can be considered as one of the reasons rectors are not project leaders, they are just people to provide structure for the researchers to do their own thing. That’s tricky because you can’t even affect the work that they do if you were actually doing a project.”

geographer economist digital media designer curator culturologist creative entrepreneur communications artist art historian

/10 /11 /12

activist architect

Figure 2. Students by expertise.

While the studio educational format would assume students work more collaboratively and socialize while commenting on each other’s visual works, half of the respondents of the student survey of 2012/2013 would acknowledge they did not visual nature of the task, as it would have been in an architectural studio.

Intellectually there are no limits created for various disciplines self-expression but the format is pretty "mono-disciplinary," as some students would point out. cult to do anything truly interdisciplinary because there’s a standard format that everyone has to take and there is standard production that every student has to do, and that preferences certain disciplines over other ones.”

Visual expression is stated as one of four qualities of a highly-assessed student projects along with qualities of originality, rigour and articulation. This clearly

S.P.A.C.E. READER

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Figure 3.

To what extent was the concept of interdisciplinarity clearly articulated at Strelka?

Very clearly Clearly Unclearly Got it on the way

has an impact on those of non-visual backgrounds who would start working in graphic software by the end of the year.

The visual professionals in their turn could gain from research methodologies applied by their mates - sociologists, international relations specialists, market specialists. That does not happen to full extent. As one of the directors would mention, “There is certain — surprisingly present at Strelka — lack of understanding what is research.” In 2012/2013 the lectures on the research were not supplemented with workshops, which might have resulted in smaller likeability to use the methods represented during individual research.

The importance of teamwork was reassured at the very initial stages of involvement to Strelka. However, it appears that for the moment of May 2013 tutors are the one only ones working in the groups from the very beginning until the very graduation. At the level of the student cooperation, while most studio directors admit trying to encourage collaboration within the studio - either in smaller collaborative nature of work.

This trend existed during all the years of Strelka’s existence. Out of 99 students these are the outcome of major importance of the whole study year.

The visual format of presentation and individual research would end up in intuitive understanding of how other classmates’ knowledge would be useful. The realization of fellow students’ potential is totally individual. This is proven by the students without knowing how each of the disciplines works” and another claimed “you get to know student’s strengths in the course of one conversation.”

Apparently, just as with different personalities of directors, students would have different experience examining their peers. Therefore we would propose a more structured process of sharing what each of the students’ skills are.

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COMMON GROUND GROUP DYNAMICS

Group work and interdisciplinary collaboration inevitably encompasses the fac2011/2012 study year in “Citizens as Customers” studio and created the feeling of the unity of studio participants, as Strelka’s former administrative representative mentioned. The next year the exercise was repeated on the level of the whole useful. At the same time, “David Erixon’s magic works," as one of the studio tutors stated. An workshop guest speaker would point out a “very strong feeling of unity” among all students.

COMMON REFERENCES

With the growth of representatives coming from different backgrounds, an issue of common use of terms has occurred on various levels.

Firstly, regarding the use of the term 'disciplines collaboration' by Strelka and the subsequent understanding by students and different understanding between students shows how common terms are interpreted in a multitude of different ways. In its descriptions of the level of collaboration of different disciplines, the use of the notion varies. Inviting people on the website to join a multidisciplinary program, Strelka opened its doors on May 16, 2013, with presentations that 19 .

Different use of terms leads to the different understanding of the goals of the collaboration. As administration representatives would state, “it would be interseems an architect might assume interdisciplinarity at Strelka implies learning 'to play all the instruments' in nine months. And one has to pretend he knows nothing about architecture and behave as a sociologist.” confessed that the concept was unclear, while another 13 claimed it was clearly articulated or understood on the way.

Secondly, the issue of different use of terms during the working process was the common use of terms had equally opposite assessments from both students that many students don’t talk about the same things when they talk about pol-

PROPOSAL 1. EXPLORING S.P.A.C.E WORKSHOP The workshop is dedicated to addressing the lack of understanding of other participants’ competencies and their application in the solution of complex issues related to the city. Participants of different professions will Liquid Strelka course.

Step 1. Interview a fellow student Step 2. Being interviewed Step 3. Share what you heard with the group Step 5. Public presentation

S.P.A.C.E. READER

itics, about the city, urbanization … there is not a common understanding.” The tutor of one of the studios for the 2012/2013 term suggested that there was a glossary created within his studio for easier communication of students. Two only 12 see a problem in it. Continuing dialogue was pointed out by another Different use of terms became clear also on the level of everyday interaction, in the year 2012/2013, within the framework of candidates aged 21—32, with the work within some studios, “as a director you base your steps on assuming this kind of background that exists maybe with less than half of the students. That’s problematic.” Being recognized by highly-adaptive Strelka Institute, a generalist theoretical course called Studio Generale was introduced. It was also described as “a certain intellectual public space where they could discuss various relevant subjects that exist outside their research themes.”20 In 2011, lectures addressing both the theoretical state of affairs touching upon such subjects as Russian history and economics as well as practical aspects of work with strong emphasis on the research techniques. It was a “forced measure” as “people who came to study at Strelka have to know everything that is being told to them at the lectures. But it appeared that Russian students don’t know even the basics that they are expected to know.” The task was to create a set of lectures that would address two controversial issues of low and high awareness In 2012/2013 Studio Generale schedule appeared to include more lectures, rerent students were appointed to moderate lectures. Special weeks of Urban and translated as Sociology, Politics, Art, Culture, Economics would be Strelka’s interStrelka played a major role in a discussion of issues related to the city and urban development. First two years of study examined mostly Moscow and Russian contexts, the third year studio themes, proposed by selected directors were a reply to the set broad topic of “Agents of Change.” In 2012/2013 this resulted in two of the themes to be more distinct from urban issues than usually — Foresight in Hindsight, Education as a Project. With no special emphasis on sphere of research and the implied need to produce an individual project those students who to the city.

In this regard, one of the directors would acknowledge that in 2012/2013 as most of the studio topics are very broad and general “Studio Generale exists in the context of already general topics.” imagine how it is possible to try and compensate for all the knowledge that the person should have been receiving since childhood.” speakers and agree with them on the format of lectures appropriate for unusual educational program; student’s perception differed.

Students’ assessment of the lectures would vary. For instance, in 2011-2012 the studio was assessed as “a very positive, very useful set of lectures” which was also “useful for internal socialization after studio distribution.” The positive feedback was received year later, but, interestingly, the immediate feedback that was collected last year was critical. In 2012/2013 the attendance of the lectures would remain relatively high as the lectures would be promoted as mandatory. At the

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same time, the assessment of the relevance of the lectures would sometimes unture on various topics can be applied to the project or one’s professional practice.

Having in mind a utopian idea and Strelka’s attempt to rationalize it’s own schedwork. We are limited in time. We need to create a common past for people very fast.”

In the interdisciplinary environment of Strelka, Studio Generale therefore is aimed at creation of a common experience of all the participants that would incentives to attend Strelka-tailored lectures. coming to Strelka was “intention to get progressive knowledge in new areas, upgrading their knowledge.” Getting new knowledge requires a degree of self-conlowed up after the lectures. The survey held among Strelka students 2012/2013 showed that when asked which lectures/workshops they would like to see more, top priorities would be sociology, architecture, Russian context, research.

REFERENCES 1. Menand, Louis. Marketplace of Ideas, 2010.

2. Stehr, Nico and Weingart, Peter. Practicing Interdisciplinarity, 2000.

3. Newell, William. A Theory of Interdisciplinary Studies, 2001.

4. "Interdisciplinarity in General Education," UNESCO. Accessed June 2013. www.unesco.org 5. Thore, Sten. The Diversity, Complexity and Evolution of High Tech Capitalism, 1995.

6. Dillon, Dan. "Review of the Santa Fe Institute: Institutional and Individual Qualities of Expert Interdisciplinary Work," Accessed June 2013. www.thegoodproject.org 7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Stehr, Nico and Weingart, Peter. Practicing Interdisciplinarity. 2000.

10. Klein, Julie. Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice, 1991.

11. O’Reilly, Patrick, at Zuckerman Conference at Columbia University. April 18, 2013.

12. Hansen, M.T. "T-shaped Stars: The Backbone of IDEO’s Collaborative Culture," January 21, 2010. Accessed June 2013. www.chiefexecutive.net March 4, 2013. Accessed June 2013. www.hse.ru 14. "Foresight Education 2030 Report," Accessed June 2013. www.metaver.net 15. "Strelka Vision," Strelka Institute, Accessed June 2013. www.strelka.com 16. Interviews with Strelka administrative board and faculty: Anna Krasinskaya, Varvara Melnikova, Anastassia Smirnova, Yury Grigoryan, Alina Vasilenko, David Erixon, Ilya Tsentsiper, Dmitry Likin, Felix Madrazo, Brendan McGetrick, Reinier de Graaf, Vasily Auzan, Kuba Snopek, Daria Paramonova, Eugenia Pospelova, Kayoko Ota. 17. "John Edwards Lecture 2011: Rem Koolhaas, OMA, in Conversation with Nicholas Serota, Tate," Accessed June 2013. www.vimeo.com 18. "Apply to Strelka," Accessed June 2013. www.strelka.com 19. Stehr, Nico and Weingart, Peter. Practicing Interdisciplinarity, 2000.

20. "Strelka Open Doors," Strelka Institute. May 2013. Accessed June 2013. www.youtube.com 21. Smirnova, Anastassia. Strelka Institute. Accessed June 2013, www.vimeo.com

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PROPOSAL 2. S.P.A.C.E. READER S.P.A.C.E reader is a collection of highly relevant material in the areas of social studies, political studies, architecture, culture and economics. It will be presented as an online collection of texts and links. terms that, during the short term of the educational program, can impede communication. The reader would help establish a common basis of knowledge to reduce confusion and facilitate collaboration.

Inspired by the “Best Books” course at Columbia University, the reader aims to

> state Strelka’s intellectual ambition for new applicants and the public > establish a common set of knowledge for students of different backgrounds > serve as a "self-education" resource for students and the general public > illustrate Strelka's vision and focus on interdisciplinary collaboration

I. Introduction to “Strelka-type urbanism” > Recommendations from studio directors, tutors, outside experts, alumnae > Recommendations from current students via a questionnaire survey II. Revision & addition > Classic texts > Classic visual and multimedia resources > Focus on resources missing from standard Russian curricula

Man” by Marshall McLuhan / “Delirious New York” by Rem Koolhaas / “Learning from Las Vegas” by Robert Venturi / ”Culture Two” by Vladimir Paperny / “The Death and LIfe of Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs / “On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness” by Jacques Derrida / “Myths of the Economy” by Sergey Guriev III. S.P.A.C.E experience

-

Mark Wigley / Elizabeth Diller / Richard Saul Wurman / Bohlin Cywinski Jackson / Tim Brown / Alfredo Brillembourg and others

Институт медиa, aрхитектуры и дизaйнa «Стрелкa» Берсеневскaя нaб., 14, стр. 5А Москвa, 119072, Россия www.strelka.com

Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design 14, bldg. 5A, Bersenevskaya Emb. Moscow, 119072, Russia www.strelka.com