Our US: why I gave up my career in Moscow and under what conditions I am ready to return - ForumDaily
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Our US: why I gave up my career in Moscow and under what conditions I am ready to return

Peter Staroverov, professor of linguistics at the University of Detroit, told Republic about why he abandoned his scientific career in Moscow and under what conditions he is ready to return.

Emigration from Russia - professional and student - has dramatically increased in recent years. If you believe the relatively recent monitoring of the RANEPA, the most representative group of those leaving are students of graduate and postgraduate studies at foreign, mainly Western, universities.

The increasing outflow of gifted youth may seem to be a flight, and yet it is not necessary to look at it as an irreversible phenomenon. “Only a third of the emigrants do not consider returning to Russia,” the RANEPA notes.

Peter Staroverov, a promising graduate from the Moscow League of Schools and the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at the Moscow State University, told Republic own history of moving ten years ago. Having received PhD at Rutgers University (New Jersey) and after spending a couple of years in Germany as part of post-doctoral studies, the Old Believers did not easily receive a teaching position in a place that I hardly dreamed of - at Wayne University, located in Detroit, the once-successful center of the American automobile industry, which in recent years has headed lists most depressed cities in the country.

Peter methyl is clearly higher, and when I ask if the 32-year-old scientist is tormented by the height reached, my companion’s lips stretch in an ironic smile: “Why am I in Detroit, and not at Harvard? Of course, I thought about it. ” Staroverov says that at any time he may decide to continue his academic career at home, but he is not in a hurry to change Detroit to Moscow.

- To start, tell me, How you got professorial position в such a unexpected In place?

- Upon my return from Germany to the States, I began to look for work in my specialty. Now американских in American universities there are a lot of very good graduate students in linguistics. Every year, dozens of graduate students graduate, but there are few teaching positions in phonology.

- Did not have a choice?

- Why? There is always a choice. Just for places there is the sharpest competition. I had to go through more than a dozen interviews on Skype, go to several campuses with a report. All this is a little nervous and tedious. I would not like to repeat. But ultimately I received an offer.

- From Detroit?

- It was the only one. And believe me, for me it was good luck - to get a professorship in a research university. I know many talented people who have been searching for more than one year, but they cannot find such work. I accepted the offer to become assistant professor (associate professor. - Republic), and began working under conditions somewhat reminiscent of the 5 – 6 one-year trial period. During this time, I need to publish a number of scientific works, prove myself in teaching, solving administrative issues, etc.

- So what is next?

- They'll give me more freedom, and it will be harder to fire me. There will be more free time. For years of service, for example, you can qualify for the so-called sabbatical - A wonderful time, from one to two semesters, when you get paid, but you are not required to teach. It is assumed that in this way I will be able to write a book or launch a major research project - not a fact that with quick returns, but fundamentally important for my further development as a scientist.

“The courses you read — how successful are they in Detroit?” How many, by the way, do you have students?

- I read two courses. The first, less advanced, is 30 – 40 man. The second, which is more complicated and deeper, is 15 – 20.

- And what do all these people want from linguistics?

- Education in the States is much stronger than in Russia, focused on career and money. Every specialty in the United States has a price tag, behind which are the average salaries of graduates, and everyone is looking at it. In the US, there is a great demand for speech therapists. And doctors there, as you know, earn good money. There is also computational linguistics. Well, you know - speech recognition algorithms, the Internet of things with voice commands. This further enhances the demand for my discipline among students. They understand that with a diploma of a linguist, and even with certain programming skills and technical training, they will not remain without work. At the same time I have a lot of foreign students. For example, Arabs, because in the same Saudi Arabia, until recently, there were quite liberal conditions for granting state scholarships to study abroad. Many teach English at home and learn linguistics more for show, without delving into the subject.

- Chinese?

“There are Chinese too.” And if we talk about their motivation, then it basically comes down to stay in the States. The incentives to return home are not that great. In general, it is strange that the state continues to invest in programs of foreign education, hoping that all students will be guaranteed to return. Well, the man left and never returned. What will you do with it? Do not you poison him as a violinist?

- Russian students, as I understand it, you do not.

- In Detroit - no. Although from Moscow State University, where there is a strong linguistic school in the West, I know quite a few people who have entered the graduate school of other American universities. This happens annually.

“They arrive and then remain in the States?”

- Not always. Someone is coming back.

- But not you.

- In linguistics, I deal with the sounds of a language, the alternation of sounds, as they are pronounced and changed in different contexts. In Russia, there is less opportunity for scientific work in this direction than in the States — fewer professors and projects. That is, it would be more difficult for me to continue my education in phonology. Moreover, in Russia, graduate school is three years, and the United States is five years. Two years of additional education, of course, bribed. I understood that I needed it. Much at that time was based on ambitions: if I want to do science at the world level, I still have a lot to learn. Living in another country is definitely not an end in itself. When he left, he even seriously considered the possibility of returning.

- And what ultimately outweighed the doubts?

- The stability factor - he, perhaps, was decisive. I did not leave alone, but with my wife - she also received a PhD in the States, only in the related field of communicative psychology. I wanted my children to have a legal opportunity to live abroad. Of fundamental importance were solid guarantees of work in the specialty. So that, figuratively speaking, they would not knock a chair out from under me. And in Russia there are no such places.

- Not at all? You say it yourself - with Russian linguistics order.

- It's like that. But the question is, for how long? Do you have enough money? Anyway, too many uncontrollable events around. The war in Ukraine, sanctions, crisis - all this somehow frightened. Understand correctly, I am far from politics. I just wanted to do phonology. But when this happens, you are already not sure of anything: today there is a department at Moscow State University, and tomorrow it can be closed. And what should I do then? In addition, I realized that, moving back to Russia, I would rather close some career opportunities, and remaining in the States on the international market, I would leave them open. I can still move here, but to get someone from here, with a long experience at Moscow State University, HSE or RSUH, move to a permanent position in an American university without any problems, I don’t recall them right away.

- One of my friends, who faced a similar choice, told me how he ended up not willing to sacrifice the comfort of working in his favorite team.

- I understand him well. But the American academic environment is much more open and is actively pushing a person to go beyond the limits of his little scientific world.

- Give an example.

- Well, let's say, Wayne University at some point will evaluate me, my achievements, successes as a researcher on the basis of the so-called post tenure review. Am I ready to go to the next stage of my academic career? The university will ask for feedback about me from professors from other universities. The people I worked with on joint projects or simply came across at conferences and discussed something. Your place in the international scientific community is largely based on your reputation, and not least of all, on contacts with colleagues. They have to build and maintain. Linguistics are not done in a vacuum. You need incentives to interact with colleagues.

- It sounds as if you force yourself to do it.

- I am not used to being imposed, it is difficult for me to communicate with strangers, telling them about my works. But in professional terms, I understand that this should be done. In Russia, this is not.

- No reputation institution?

- The Institute of External, International Reputation, which has to be earned in this way. As there is actually no choice of work outside of Moscow.

- Are you now about the chronic poverty of education in the province?

- Because this is true. I know Russia well: I have a wife from Perm, and besides, I travel a lot as part of scientific expeditions. America, Germany, England - what do they take? The fact that in almost any city a strong university that attracts scientists. I would have worked in many of them, like my colleagues. There are many more such universities there than in Russia. There is a whole system, a market. And this competition brings dynamics to your scientific career: you can expect to work in one place, then go somewhere else. We have only Moscow competing with itself. But, you know, I still do not completely abandon the thought of return. The attitude towards those who return is generally good. And the teaching load is less here, although the money, of course, is incomparable. My wife is not working yet, but my salary alone is enough to support a family with two children. However, I know those who returned and feels fine. Apparently, more money and grants began to appear. Although relative to other professions science is paid worse.

- Money - the first condition of return? Suppose personally yours?

- More important is a clear plan of scientific work, as well as an understandable mechanics of financing projects, in which I could act as the head of my selected team of students. Now in Russia, officials decide everything, but I think it would be better to entrust decision-making to specialists, ideally, to scientific supervisors. The same foreign graduate school, which in Russia is associated with a brain drain, could have a completely different effect. As a supervisor, I need my graduate student to obtain additional qualifications and participate in a promising project. The state has a grant program that gives me the necessary money. This is how it works, for example, in Germany, in particular, in the Humboldt state fund, where every foreign trip of a graduate student is, in fact, a separate research project with its own goals and timetable. And so it should work in Russia. Yes, afterwards, on the implementation of the project on which my graduate student is involved, he may decide to go abroad, and you are unlikely to keep him. But the main thing is different: we will make Russian science with it!

- And you don’t mind doing Russian science, but with clear rules of the game and with minimal government involvement.

- Do not mind if you have a solid position - constant at least on paper. I occasionally ask myself why I do all this. One of the things that motivates me is the interaction with smart, interesting students. Here in Moscow, students, graduate students are still ...

“... smarter and more interesting than in Detroit?”

“It’s just that the general intellectual level of students at Wayne University and Moscow State University differs, and sometimes quite seriously. There are, of course, exceptions. One of my students works as an acoustic engineer at GM - at headquarters Pontiac. I think it earns good money. At some point, she realized that she was interested in linguistics and she had to prepare for admission to graduate school. It is always very interesting with her, because she combines this sincere passion for the subject with a practical understanding of how sound works. But like her, a little. I confess, it was a discovery for me, how difficult it is for many students to understand some basic and, in my opinion, elementary laws of linguistics.

- I hope you do not feel like a teacher in a rural school?

- Undergraduate students are mainly students from the Midwest: Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin. Many of Detroit metrothat is, a large area of ​​suburbs surrounding the city of Detroit itself. Most have parents without higher education, although they are willing to pay for it for their children. But children themselves do not always clearly understand the value of university education. The quality of secondary schools, not always high in America, is also affected.

- I understand that Detroit is the place where you mainly work. But otherwise, how do you spend your time?

- Want to ask if I feel at the bottom of American society? I do not feel, I assure you. I live in an eco-friendly suburb. In a fairly prestigious area, where nonetheless affordable property. There is a rich cultural life in the city itself, and I am sometimes surprised at the quality of the projects that are being implemented here, for example, in contemporary art, which I am interested in. Of course, there are minuses, there are a lot of them, and we know about them. But even in the outflow of the population has its advantages. There are practically no traffic jams on the roads.

 

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