Bulletin #22

Volume 6, Number 3, Issue 22, March 1996
The Graduate Faculty - New School for Social Research
65 Fifth Avenue, Room 404 & 423 - New York, NY 10003
Tel: (212) 229-5580 - Fax: (212) 229-5894 - E-mail: BreuerI@newschool.edu

Director: Elzbieta Matynia;
Program Coordinator: Ina Breuer;
Assistant and Bulletin Editor: Heshan de Silva-Weeramuni;
Associate: Lidia Bialek

The ECEP is made possible through the generous support of The Eurasia Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mr. Aso Tavidian and The G-Tech Corporation

Table of Contents

Democracy & Diversity: Our Fifth Annual Summer

Our core faculty of longstanding ECEP associates from the Graduate Faculty will be joined at this summer's session by distinguished scholars from Israel, Ukraine, and South Africa, for innovative comparative courses on state-building and democratic transition. In addition to our traditional (but ever-evolving) offerings on citizen participation and the role of gender, this summer's Institute will see our annual Public Policy Workshop emphasizing environmental issues, with a special focus on Cracow. This will give an added dimension to the historical and cultural features of our quintessentially middle-European setting.

This year's special guests will include Czeslaw Milosz, Jeffrey Sachs, and Adam Michnik. I hope you can make it.

E.M.

Pax Daytonia 
Ivan Vejvoda

It is seemingly easy to be cynical and pessimistic about the Dayton peace agreement (initialed in Dayton on November 21, 1995, and signed in Paris on December 14, 1995.). And perhaps one should be: a peace was attained through "proximity talks" involving three inner Bosnian actors, two key actors on the outer rim (Croatia, Serbia), five of the major world powers (U.S., Russia, U.K., France, Germany), and two multi- lateral organizations (NATO and E.U.). The Agreement was achieved through a self-contradictory Constitution written for one state composed of two independent entities, although de facto made up of three entities. It was attained through a Constitution written by U.S. State Department legal experts, a document which in effect offers the most generous human rights provisions known to date in any constitution, but which contains no indications as to the control of the military. It is a constitution and peace process which is to be backed, for one year, by a multi-national, 60,000-strong military force under NATO's command, after which a plethora of foreign appointed civilian experts are to oversee the proper functioning of the new institutional framework. (A local proverb says: too many midwives make a feeble child.)

The cease-fire is precarious, and for many, the outcome of the talks is reprehensible, unjust and unrealistic.

But cynicism gets one nowhere. Since there was no velvet divorce, no peaceful parting of the ways between the former Yugoslav republics, there can be no good outcome after a violent separation. There can only be - for better or for worse - bad solutions, and their longevity and improvement will depend on the will of the signing parties (both internal and external) to implement them. The Dayton Agreement is what one has, and one has to work with it. It is, as with all such agreements, a compromise to which all parties adhere in an attempt to save what they can of what they have left, a power game in which all those who were in leading roles at the beginning of the war are still in power after it. Those in whose name this war has been fought, the countless civilians, are the losers and victims, virtually dependent on aid, without work, plunged back into darkness, after having attained a relatively prosperous standard of living before the war in the former country. That is the result of war.

The Dayton Agreement has stopped the killing. This is its greatest and its most crucial short- term accomplishment, which, on the macro-political level, is an ongoing, painstaking, precarious process strewn with as many pitfalls as the countryside is strewn with landmines. The recent violent interruption in the Northern Ireland peace process with the IRA's bombing of Central London on February 8, 1996, exemplifies the huge obstacles that stand in the path of a search for stable settlements.

The physical reconstruction of the country requires enormous effort. Commitments have already been made, although not all the money from the main contributors is yet forthcoming. But even more importantly, overcoming the still pervasive fear, insecurity, and uncertainty among individuals will require many concrete and successful examples of freedom of movement, of freedom of speech and assembly, of returning refugees, of opportunities for work, of media openness, of war criminals being brought to trial, of the de-ethnification of politics. Trust and confidence in people and in institutions have to be rebuilt, just as much as the infrastructure and the economy, though the former is a much more intricate and complex parallel process.

The top-down nature of politics in post-communist territories means that the rhetoric used by, and signals sent by, the respective leaderships in talking to each other and to their own populations will have a great influence on the overall political climate, and therefore on the prospects for change. The leverage the U.S. and other foreign countries have over the internal actors (who have, after all, accepted it) is a key tool in furthering the search for peace. The conditioning of economic and financial aid on compliance with the spirit and letter of the Agreement is an integral part of the road to a lasting solution.

But the Agreement remains only a stepping stone. Whatever happens further down the road, (successful integration, partition, new institutional arrangements with third countries) peace, trust, confidence and normality require that those truly committed to abandoning violence prevail over those who still long for its return. This process demands that the tired, war-weary, disillusioned population recover its energies and begin voicing its needs and interests. For this, people will need effective guarantees of human rights to feel the security they so urgently seek.

The recovery and rediscovery of the political in a post-war situation, the process of re-establishing the social fabric and social bonds and of forging plurality and legality, are as important as jobs and social security once the bare essentials have been provided. This is true of neighboring Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia/Montenegro). It is important to stress this since, without a return to a normal political dynamic and the fostering of democratic practices in these countries, there will be no stability in the region and no "creeping normalization" that can lead these new states from a cease-fire to peace. The dangers loom large and a return to violent conflict is still possible. Because such regression is possible, there is all the more reason to press forcefully those who have agreed to act on behalf of the internal actors, as well as the international community, to do what they have agreed to do, in order to avoid a return to the extremes of suffering.q

Social historian Ivan Vejvoda, a long-time ECEP Fellow and member of the Institute for European Studies in Belgrade, is currently teaching at the Sussex European Institute, University of Sussex at Brighton.

Slovakia at the Crossroads: The Third Year Of An Independent State 
Silvia Mihalikova

The image of Slovakia in the international media (recently in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal), as well as in international organizations such as the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly and the European Parliament, has become negative during the last two years. In 1995, the Slovak government received two diplomatic recommendations from Western Europe and the U.S. urging respect for democratic principles and a guarantee of the freedom of expression in the media and public life. Is there some special reason for this singling out of Slovakia from among other East and Central European countries?

Public discourse concerning the question is divided into two schools of thought among politicians, intellectuals and the media in Slovakia. The first represents the view of the present government coalition and may be called a syndrome of persecution. To them, all resolutions and warnings coming from abroad are understood as part of an "international conspiracy against our young state," supported by "internal enemies of Slovak independence," who might be found in all social strata, in particular among intellectuals. According to this opinion, it is necessary "to improve the positive image of Slovakia abroad," which should be promoted by the establishment of a special information agency, journals, and media organs, ideally paid for by the state. At the same time, governing parties are trying to limit freedom of expression and access to foreign media for those critical of present politics. The draft law on the protection of the Republic submitted to parliament by the governing Slovak National Party includes fines for the "dissemination of information threatening the security and good name of the Republic on Slovak territory or abroad".

Adherents of the second school of thought are those people who openly discuss negative developments in our internal and external politics. They consider the return of old, and the birth of new, authoritarian tendencies to be a major reason for the warnings addressed to Slovakia from abroad. In their opinion, avoiding the "negative image of Slovakia on the international scene" requires an increased respect for basic democratic principles and the Rule of Law inside the country, as well as a clear declaration of Slovakia's foreign policy intentions.

The two sharply contradictory views on current Slovak politics are rampant in the media, in statements of political parties, among friends, and even in pubs. It seems that Slovakia is on the verge of becoming a divided society. Although many reject this idea, the evidence is clear. This polarity further intensified with the collapse of the Czecho-Slovak Federation in 1993, and as the result of early parliamentary elections in 1994.

Differing views on how to solve the persistent problems confronting Slovakia cause constant squabbles among relevant state and political bodies. The main disputes concern: (a) building a democracy governed by the Rule of Law: note the opposite views, for example, on the very meaning of democracy (majoritarian model versus minority-respecting model); on the relationships between state institutions (the President, the Prime Minister, the Parliament, the Government, the Constitutional Court); and on challenging the mandates of democratically elected legislators (for example, the mandates of the Democratic Union's deputies were discredited in proceedings of a so-called Parliamentary investigation committee); (b) managing ethnic-minority problems (the consequences of an already approved State language law, delays in ratifying the Slovak- Hungarian basic treaty, and plans for new territorial-administrative reform); (c) establishing a market economy (the concept of a social market economy and a "third way" is still alive, the present coalition having already cancelled the second wave of voucher privatization, now replaced by "direct sales privatization," or, in other words, clientele privatization); (d) determining foreign-policy orientation and external security arrangements (inclining toward East or West); and finally, (e) aiming to build a civil society while drafting laws on NGOs and foundations that include placing financial limits on, and centralized control over, their activities.

Slovakia, in contrast to the other so-called Visegrad Four countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary), is still at a crossroads: the process of transition has not been accomplished, and a struggle is going on over its future design. The outcome of this process may be, on the one hand, a more or less consolidated democracy, or, on the other hand, a new form of authoritarian regime. There is a considerable degree of uncertainty, and apprehension about the course of the transition is mounting because of the politics of the present coalition government, which is a conglomerate of authoritarian, nationalist, and populist tendencies. There are many politicians, scholars and journalists who are confident that the emergence of civil society will overcome these anti-democratic tendencies through the activities of the academic community, professional associations, interest groups, and NGOs. However, opinion polls and other analyses confirm that Slovaks, in contrast to West Europeans or Americans, place much greater emphasis on economic and social rights such as guarantees of work, free education, health care, child allowances, and pensions, than on civic and political rights.

The majority of Slovaks hold a rather skeptical view of the post- l989 regime. This is evident in the succession of names given to the collapse of the old regime. The first poetic term, the "Velvet Revolution," lost favor very quickly: one year after November l989, students started to talk about the "Stolen Revolution," and afterwards came the widespread use of terms like the "Communist Riot", the "Velvet Outbreak", the "Palace Revolution", or the "Jewish-Bolshevik Conspiracy", and other derogatory names.

As in the other countries, we may observe in Slovakia a tendency towards an idealization of the communist regime, and with it, a corresponding increase in nostalgia for the "good old times," while the injustices of real socialism begin to be forgotten. This becomes obvious in everyday life, in the contradictory acceptance of the economic transformation, in the confusion surrounding solutions to important problems, in the growing anxiety about the future. Citizens often seem to miss "the certainties" which had become a natural part of their way of life under the former communist regime.

The deterioration of the sense of security among citizens, the confusing changes in public values, and hasty interventions into the existing political culture have caused a cultural shock. This shock is not only related to the speed of the three-fold transition in the political, economic, and national spheres in Slovakia, but also to stereotypes and images already implanted in the social consciousness. It is one of the features of the post-modern age that we deal more with images than with reality. These positive or negative stereotypes at the international level are influenced by Western policy-makers who adopt quick oversimplifications. I agree with Miroslav Kusy that from this point of view, Slovaks, in comparison with other Central Europeans, are more separatist, more nationalistic, more Christian-, left-, and eastward-oriented.

The process of transition in Slovakia is open-ended, and we can expect a prolonged struggle between democratic forces located mainly in the current opposition, and an authoritarian inclination represented mostly by the current coalition. However, I do not believe that the citizens of Slovakia are going to become mourning survivors wailing at the grave of democracy.q

Sylvia Mihalikova is Professor of Political Science at Comenius University in Bratislava, and was a Social Science Research Council Visiting Fellow at the GF in the fall of 1995.

CURRICULUM ACTIVIES

Fifth Annual Democracy & Diversity Summer Graduate Institute, 
July 21 - August 10, 1996

Citizenship & Democratic Politics Today, David Plotke, GF Political Science
After communism and the cold war, problems in established democracies and in post-communist countries overlap enough to make possible a common discussion. This course will explore common problems in diverse democratic societies today, using the idea and practice of citizenship as a lens. We will consider what it should mean to be a citizen in a democratic polity. How much should citizens participate in politics and with what aims? What forms should their participation take (political parties, interest groups, movements) and how should citizens be represented in political decision-making? In this manner we will consider several problems that now appear in North America and Western Europe, East and Central Europe, and elsewhere, regarding participation, political values, immigration, and competing identities.

The Making of State and Society: Israel and Ukraine, Shlomo Avineri, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, Bohdan Krawchenko, Kiev-Mohyla Academy, Kiev, Ukraine
This course will compare state-building processes in Ukraine and Israel and examine the variety of societal forces that shape them. In the case of Israel the course will try, on a comparative basis, to delineate the specific ingredients of nation-building under the conditions of dispersion, lack of territoriality and powerlessness. The current challenges facing Israel in the transition from war to peace will be discussed. In the case of Ukraine the course will focus on the challenges of state-building in the period of independence and examine such problems as corruption, administrative reform, policy-making processes, and bureaucratic culture, while at the same time investigating the impact of societal actors and regional forces on the process.

Problems in Democratic Culture, Jeffrey Goldfarb, GF Sociology
Political correctness, affirmative action, multiculturalism, and identity politics are controversial topics in the United States today. In this course these contemporary topics will be analyzed as part of the on-going struggle for a democratic culture. The controversies will be considered in historical and theoretical contexts which involve on-going attempts to address the problems and promises of democracy in America. It will be a primary task of the class to consider how these issues relate to the pressing problems of the new democracies of East and Central Europe. Readings will include de Tocqueville's Democracy in America and a selection of Hannah Arendt's essays, as well as texts by Stephan Carter, Andrew Hacker, Toni Morrison, Robert Bellah, Patricia Williams, and Paul Berman.

Theories of Gender in Society, Ann Snitow, GF Committee on Gender Studies and Feminist Theory
Now in its fifth year, this course keeps changing to include developing debates, from both East and West, about the ways in which gender structures social and political life. This summer, the course will introduce a wide range of discourses about male and female as key variables in both private and public experience. We will discuss a variety of feminist movements -both their theories and practices- including a critical assessment of the current globalization of feminist ideas and action.

South Africa's Transition in Comparative Perspective, Stephen Gelb, University of Durban, South Africa
A growing body of literature seeks to understand democratic transition and consolidation by analyzing the experiences of Latin America and Eastern Europe. The interaction of economic and political reform with democratization is also an important recent area of research. This course will locate South Africa's abolition of apartheid in a comparative perspective, drawing on these international experiences. It will focus upon the social and political processes which led to a negotiated transition to democracy. We will also examine the efforts to construct a post-apartheid society, economy, and state.

Workshop
Public Policy and the Environment: Assessing Need, Creating Policy, Mobilizing the Public, Elaine Zimmerman, Executive Director, Connecticut Commission on Children
While continuing to address several major policy issues in contemporary North America and Europe, such as child care, education, and social welfare, we will be giving special emphasis this year to environmental issues. We will look at the practical side of policy-making: turning good ideas into legislation, helping legislative proposals become laws, and devising ways to implement new programs. In the course of the workshop, we will examine ongoing efforts to fight environmental degradation in the city of Cracow and its surroundings.

For more information, contact Ina Breuer at

(212) 229-5580.

Democratic Politics and Policy Workshop

Feb. 20, Labor Policy, presented by David Howell, Chair of the Urban Policy and Analysis Department of the Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy.

Feb. 27, Foreign Policy, presented by Sherle Schwenninger, Director of the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research.

March 5, Policy toward Minorities and Marginalized Populations, jointly presented by Ari Zolberg, the University in Exile Professor of Political Science at the Graduate Faculty, and the Spring 1996 Visiting Professor in Democracy at the New School, Galina Starovoitova, who is a Presidential candidate in the upcoming elections in Russia.

March 12, Environmental Policy, presented by George Hamilton, the Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainable Communities, Montpelier, Vermont.

These presentations by policy experts will be augmented by individual presentations of the Pew Democracy Fellows and other Fellows of the ECEP. The Fellows will present their own research on issues specific to their home countries, synthesizing the different perspectivs they have been exposed to through the Workshop.

To participate, please call (212) 229-5580.

Junior Teaching Initiative

• Sharon Cooley, Graduate Faculty Ph.D candidate, and former Program Coordinator of ECEP, is currently teaching a course entitled "The Political Culture of Democracy" at ELTE in Budapest in the Ethnic and Minority Studies Program.
• Andras Topalcai, a 1994-95 Democracy Fellow of ECEP, is also teaching a course at ELTE in Budapest entitled, "Race and Ethnicity in Theory and Methodology: The Case of the Roma in Hungary."
• Radim Marada, GF alumnus and an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, taught one course in the fall entitled, "Transitions to Democracy - Political and Social Aspects", and is teaching a second course this semester entitled "Civil Society or Society of Citizens? Politics and Publics in Liberal Democracy."

Recent Publications

• Barbara Lobodzinska, (Ed.), "Family, Women and Employement in Central-Eastern Europe", Recent Contributions in Sociology, No. 112; Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group; 1995; ISBN 0084-9278.
• Amrita Basu, (Ed.) The Challenge of Local Feminisms - Womens' Movements in Global Perspective, Westview Press, 1995. This publication -launched by the Ford Foundation's Women Program Forum- includes seperate chapters on Russia (by Elizabeth Waters and Anastasia Posadskaya) and on Central Europe (by Elzbieta Matynia).

Mustafa Emirbayer's Work In Kyrgyzstan

Professor Emirbayer also met administrators from the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University in Bishkek, as well as with a wide variety of independent researchers (thanks to the public affairs office of U.S.I.S. in Bishkek) to discuss possible ways in which the Graduate Faculty might help in the rebuilding of the social sciences in Kyrgyzstan, at both formal and informal levels. Also discussed was the desirability of more extensive and fruitful contacts among Kyrgyz researchers themselves, as well as with their colleagues from the rest of Central Asia, potentially through the creation of new regional journals and social science institutions.

Kudos for Three of our Friends

It is our great pleasure to let you know that this year's Amalfis were awarded to two distinguished scholars associated with our Program, one of them from the New School and one from the region: an Amalfi Award was granted to the New School's University Distinguished Professor Charles Tilly for his book European Revolutions, 1492-1992 (Blackwell, 1993). An Amalfi Distinction was given to Jerzy Szacki for his book entitled Liberalism After Communism (CEU Press, 1995).

We are also delighted to learn that another ECEP Associate, Shlomo Avineri, recently became a joint recipient of this year's Israel Prize. Avineri, one of our faculty this summer at the Fifth Annual Cracow Summer School, is the Herbert Samuel Professor of Political Scientist at the Hebrew University. He shares the prize with Moshe Barash, an art historian, and Meir Sternberg, a literary critic.q

Brno's School of Social Studies (and its Founding Father) 
Radim Marada

The last time I met Martin Butora and Zora Butorova at the New School (in the spring of 1995), they told me, with characteristic kindness, that he envied the pioneering role Masaryk University's Department of Sociology had played after 1989 in reorganizing the system of study at the Faculty of Philosophy. At a time when the Faculty's leadership was still only planning to implement the more flexible credit system, students in the Sociology Department had already been studying for credits for two years. By the spring of 1995, it was no longer only the sociology students who studied for credits. This "luxury" was enjoyed by more students because a larger, semi-independent institution had emerged from the Department of Sociology: the School of Social Studies. Although dependent on the Philosophy Faculty's budget, the School has independence in designing the way students study and the manner in which courses are organized.

Though the School of Social Studies arose gradually from the Department of Sociology during 1993 and 1994, it included from its beginning two other departments: the Department of Social Policy and Social Work, and the Department of Political Science. As of the beginning of the current academic year, the School is offering a program in journalism, and has a new center for environmental studies. Recent experience shows that this has made the School even more attractive. Despite the obvious competition from the much more 'lucrative' Faculties of Law or Economics, the School has no shortage of applicants. Its advantage seems to lie in the gradual character of its emergence and growth. It was not established by an administrative decision in the hectic, post-velvet revolutionary times (when state funding was still generous to those who had the right connections). Rather the School has emerged and developed in response both to the actual demands of students and to new social needs.

To take one example: it was clear to many after 1989 that with the changing socio-economic system in the country, the need for well-prepared and adequately educated social workers would grow. Yet only few realized that 'adequate' also meant the right proportion between time devoted to study and time devoted to addressing needs that arise beyond academia. The Departments of Political Science and of Social Policy and Social Work were the first two Departments within the Philosophy Faculty to abandon the old uniform, rigid academic model, and implement instead the more flexible 'anglo-saxon' one, with the bachelor's and master's degrees. This has provided students with the opportunity to choose either to work as professionals in the field after three years of university training, or to continue in their studies at the graduate level.

The pragmatic mind behind the whole project is that of the respected sociologist, Professor Ivo Mozny. He is a former journalist (which made the recent establishment of the program in journalism a lot easier), and has worked with the Sociology Department in Brno since 1964. Though politically he was rather a poor choice to guard the ideological purity of education before l989, he had been tolerated by the University and protected by the Department's Chairs. He was among those responsible for the quite stunning liberal atmosphere within the Department in the 1980s, which made studying sociology in Brno so different from studying sociology in Prague. I was lucky to meet him there when I was a student. He introduced me to Berger and Luckmann's Social Construction of Reality in l985, which, by the way, led ultimately to my dissertation defense in the sociology of knowledge at the Graduate Faculty of the New School ten years later. Soon after 1989, Mozny became the Chair of the Sociology Department, and the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy. Today, while remaining Deputy Dean, he is the first Chair of the School of Social Studies, which everyone regards as his baby.

For all his pragmatism, Ivo Mozny is by no means a narrow-minded manager, as my own experience with him has shown. He makes sure that the empirical and theoretical poles of study at the school are well balanced. In this regard, the School of Social Studies follows the tradition of the Sociology Department which Mozny alone helped build. This is just another reason why studying the social sciences in Brno is so attractive for students that the School this past June had to refuse six out of seven applicants. Disappointing as it is for many applicants, it is challenging for those of us who teach there.q

Radim Marada, an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Studies, is a Graduate Faculty alumnus and a Fellow of ECEP.

NOTES

IN FEBRUARY:
Tuesday, February 27
Sherle Schwenninger, Director, World Policy Institute, spoke on Foreign Policy, at 12 p.m. in room 212;

IN MARCH:
Tuesday, March 5
Ari Zolberg, University in Exile Professor of Political Science, GF, and the Spring 1996 Visiting Professor in Democracy at the New School, Galina Starovoitova, will speak on Minorities andMarginalized Populations, at 12 p.m., room 212;

Thursday March 7
Galina Starovoitova, Visiting Professor in Democracy at the GF and a candidate for President in Russia, will speak on Presidential Elections in Multicultural Russia, at 6 p.m., room 242;

Tuesday March 12
George Hamilton, the Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainable Communities, Montpelier, Vermont, will speak on Environmental Policy, at 12 p.m. in room 212;

Wednesday March 13
Stefan Amsterdamski, Director, Graduate School for Social Science, Poland, will speak on the Philosophy of Science or Sociology of Knowledge, at 2 p.m., room 217;

IN APRIL:
Thursday, April 25
Rountable on Nationalism and Sexuality with Rada Ivekovic, Professor of Philosophy, University of Paris; Svetlana Slapsak, Institute for Studies in the Humanities, Ljubljana; Zarana Papic, Professor of Social Anthropology, Belgrade University; Julie Mostov, Director, Women's Studies Program, Drexel University, at 8p.m. room 217.

More info.? Call 212/229-5580.

Announcement

We were invited to attend the opening of the Institute for the Study on the Foundations of Democracy, which had launched its activities at the end of 1995 in Warsaw.

The Institute is an independent and non-profit scientific and research institution, the main objective of which is the analysis of the philosophical, historical, social, political, and cultural conditions of emerging and functioning democratic social systems. Among its founding members are two collaborators with ECEP, both members of the sociology faculty of Warsaw University: Miroslawa Grabowska and Tadeusz Szawiel.

The Institute's mailing address is: ulica Sosnowskiego 6 m.9, 02-784 Warsaw, Poland. We would like to extend to the Institute our best wishes for a fruitful life!

Meetings

• Dr. Andrzey Tymowski, American Council of Learned Societies;
• Dr. Nikolai Rudenski, Institute for the Economy in Transition, Moscow;
• Dr. Steven Gelb, University of Durban-Westville, South Africa;
• Adam Michnik, Poland;
• Laura Silber, author and Balkans correspondent, Financial Times;
• Martha Loerke, Director, and Carol Tegen, Senior Program Administrator, Consortium for Academic Partnership, Open Society Institute, New York;
• Martha Henry, Educational Advisor, Central European University, Prague.