Dean's Address to Students

Dear Students,

The university resumes the academic process. I hope that you are all in good health and ready to mobilize your strength. Here are some requests:

1. We are transitioning to a distance learning format, which is completely new for us. You have received instructions from your programme study office outlining how the learning process will be organized. Please take your courses in the online format just as seriously as you took them when they were held on campus. While the formats of instruction and student-faculty communication have changed, the academic requirements remain the same. Moscow is in a difficult situation. Both students and faculty members may face difficulties. It is important for all of us to overcome these difficulties together. None of us should give up or put in less effort because of the circumstances. 

2. The university has been developing online learning for a while now.  However, so far, we merely supplemented our curriculum with online tools. Now we are forced to fundamentally change our mode of instruction. This is a challenge for the entire university: for you, for faculty members, and for programme offices. Over the past two weeks, a lot of work has been done to organize distance learning. But we are aware that we could not foresee all the issues, and many of them will have to be quickly addressed by trial and error. In this regard, I ask you to recognise temporary issues, and we kindly ask you, as university stakeholders, to identify problems and, if possible, propose constructive ways to solve them. Moreover, you are all majoring in economics. Your professional competence is, while understanding goals and limitations, participating in the development of the most effective solutions. Let me reiterate this general concept: if during class you experience any technical issue, discuss it with your instructor in order to find a solution. Report learning problems directly to the programme office. Additionally, I ask the Faculty of Economic Sciences Student Council to inform the dean with up-to-date issues that students encounter in their online courses. For its part, the Faculty will make every effort to quickly solve general and individual problems.

3. With distance instruction, issues of academic integrity may become more acute. HSE University strictly adheres to the principle of academic integrity and honesty and maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward academic dishonesty. Faculty members will have to modify formats of examinations and assessment, taking into account the specifics of their disciplines, and pay closer attention to conscientiousness. Bear in mind that objective assessment is important for each student as a feedback element, as well as for the entire student body. Those who violate academic ethics impoverish themselves and disrespect their classmates who are conscientious. The basis for violations of academic integrity is the desire to achieve personal gain at the expense of the team. In these current circumstances, this kind of behavior is unacceptable. I trust that you understand the importance of this matter.
 
Some encouraging information for graduating classes:

- We are discussing ways to make the process of your thesis defense — from the moment you upload it to LMS to the defense — less time-consuming. I hope that this will allow us to move the submission deadline for the full text and allow you more time to complete the work.
- Many students traditionally do empirical research, and many used Bloomberg data. Thanks to the efforts of Professor Ivashkovskaya and colleagues, we expect to be able to restore access to data in a remote format.
- In any case, if the initial thesis plan has to be urgently changed in the last month of work, taking into account the limitations that have arisen, discuss this with your supervisor as soon as possible. For its part, the faculty will try to fine-tune the format of achieved competencies assessment during the thesis defence. 

Take care of yourself! Help each other during this difficult time — without breaking social distancing, of course!

Dean Sergey E. Pekarski