For the Sake of the Future, not the Past. An interview with NRU HSE prorector Maria Yudkevich about the HSE Generations books

Abstract

Mariya Yudkevich, Ph.D. in Economics, prorector at the National Research University — Higher School of Economics, Director of the Center for Institutional Studies at the NRU HSE, tells in the interview about the conception and the history of creating the Pokoleniya VShE (HSE Generations) books published to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the university. The book Uchitelya ob uchitelyakh (Teachers about Teachers) contains reflections of famous scientists on the academic environments they made their first steps in. In Ucheniki ob uchitelyakh (Students about Teachers), young HSE researchers tell about the teachers who helped them get their idea of the university and of their academic ways. At first, the  essays that gave birth to these books had been a special supplement to the Okna rosta news bulletin and had won the readers’ love. In the end, nearly one hundred NRU HSE employees contributed to the books. The Pokoleniya VShE books make it clear that formation of the university became possible due to a combination of various traditions which coexist today within the same institution through openness, academic honesty, professionalism and without a backward glance at disciplinary, institutional or national boundaries.