‘It Is a Great Experience – Being Happy for Your Students’ Success and Watching Them Outdo You’

On December 23, 2015, the 15^th Golden HSE Award ceremony took place at the Central House of Artists.

Anti-crisis festival

HSE founders gave opening speeches before the awarding ceremony. They spoke about the crisis, and changes, and, as usual, their talks were full of humour. Nevertheless, Evgeny Yasin, HSE Academic Supervisor, started with a serious tone saying 23 years (the university’s age this year) is a long period, and HSE is an ‘example of success achieved by Russia over these years’. ‘I want to wish our staff unity and the feeling that whatever happens, we are doing something exceptionally important’, he said and added, addressing researchers and students, that if anyone can finds a way out of today’s crisis, they will be the ones who do it.

‘Not “if”, but “when”’, HSE President Alexander Shokhin optimistically clarified, ‘I would like you not only to tell us what to do, but how to do it. And the today’s winners and nominees could be our pioneers in this’.

Yaroslav Kuzminov hoped that everyone present would hang on to their sense of humour, in the same way as they kept it in the 1990s. ‘Those who participated in the Rector’s Council meeting today, remember that I finished it with Viktor Chernomyrdin’s quote: “It has never happened before – and here it is again!”. I believe that this fits our situation surprisingly well’, the HSE rector said.

All hail the winners!

You can always be certain that the Golden HSE will never be the same. From next year, the award will be given in all new categories. And some of these innovations have been trialed this year. Particularly, nominees and winners this year were selected not by a board of tenured professors, but by a jury created in each of the six nominations, including the ‘Silver Nestling’.

And here are the winners.

Achievement in Research – Vladimir Gimpelson, Tenured Professor, Director of the HSE Centre for Labour Market Studies

Svetlana Avdasheva, Tenured Professor, who, when introducing the candidates in this category, noticed that they have one thing in common. All of them ‘study issues of human happiness’. ‘The world of the Russian labour market, which Vladimir Gimpelson unveiled to us, makes us happy as employees,’ Professor Avdasheva explained, ‘What does it mean if the Russian labour market is tough? It means that the employer will share the last piece of bread with us and will burn the last copy of the labour law to warm our hands, but won’t fire us, colleagues. The only thing Prof. Gimpelson didn’t explain is how the administration can manage us, researchers, under such conditions’.

‘What I have managed to do is largely a result of joint work with my colleagues from the Centre. And the university has maintained great conditions for research over all these years. And this acknowledgement is not only an acknowledgement of my achievement, but also an advance for the future,’ said Vladimir Gimpelson taking the prize.

Achievement in Teaching – Leonid Voskov, Professor at the MIEM School of Computer Engineering

Professor Voskov has been working at MIEM since the foundation of the institute. Officially, he was nominated for the award for ‘creating a research school in wireless sensor networks and the internet of things, for the achieved results in training researchers and teachers for the HSE Faculty Development Programme and innovative research work with the students’. But one of Leonid Voskov’s students probably expressed this better: ‘He is a very good tutor and a very interesting person. He is always full of ideas, many of which are ahead of our time’.

‘It is a great experience – working with talented students, telling them “Follow my lead”, being happy for their success and watching them outdo you’, Leonid Voskov said when received the statuette.

Alumni Success in Academic Activity – Svetlana Bryzgalova, graduate of the HSE campus in Nizhny Novgorod, and master’s graduate of ICEF

Vladimir Avtonomov, Academic Supervisor of the Faculty of Economics, who headed the jury in this category, confessed that he was especially happy ‘to see that so many young people are willing to go into research in these difficult times’.

Svetlana herself couldn’t attend the ceremony, but this only emphasized that her victory was deserved. After graduating in economics in Nizhny Novgorod and the master’s graduation at ICEF, she got a PhD at London School of Economics, and now does research and teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

For Kindness and Personal Involvement – Irina Filimonova, Head of the Department for Regional Cooperation, Office for Occupational and Gifted Student Guidance

According to HSE Academic Secretary Natalia Savelieva, Irina Filimonova works with the HSE Lyceum, with affiliated schools, regional centres, and school contests. One of Irina’s achievements is that there are so many high school contest winners among HSE students.

By the way, that night Irina Filimonova should have been sitting on an airplane, but to allow her to participate in the ceremony, her colleagues changed the reservation to the next day. ‘Now I know for sure that a positively charged particle can make change’, said the winner, who, incidentally, graduated in engineering.

Yaroslav Kuzminov made a symbolic personal gift – an ‘Angel’s Set’ – to each of the candidates in this nomination.

Contribution to the Development of HSE – Sergei Lando, Tenured Professor, first Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics

Lev Yakobson, First Vice Rector and chairman of the jury, said that all the nominees made a contribution to HSE’s development despite certain circumstances. Particularly, Sergei Lando who ‘founded the Faculty of Mathematics despite the fact that our higher school here is of economics’.

‘Everything that we do, we do for the development of HSE’, Sergei Lando said, ‘The next year will be difficult, but nevertheless we want the university to continue developing, and I’m absolutely sure that it will’..

20 Silver Nestlings

The jury headed by tenured professor Oleg Voskoboynikov selected the 20 best students (see the full list) out of almost 100 candidates. They represent almost all faculties and areas of studies in which HSE is involved, from philology to nanoelectronics.

‘I hope you stay who you are’, said Oleg Voskoboynikov to the ‘nestlings’, ‘And I would ask you, if possible, not to leave us, since we need you’,