MSU brings choice to Eastern Europe

10/04/2001 BOZEMAN -- Bozeman -- The Western World takes choice for granted. But for former Soviet Republics, choice is an entirely new concept. Greg Weisenstein, Dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Development at Montana State University, is helping to introduce choice in the educational system in Eastern Europe.

For the past year Weisenstein has been working with the Republic of Moldova to restructure its 12 institutions of higher education. This fall, the project is seeing its first outcome as the entering freshman class at the State University of Moldova will, for the first time, be able to take classes outside of their major, enroll in a minor, and take elective courses, all within the structure of a four year course of study. Eventually the restructuring in this university of 20,000 students will include transferable credit hours that will allow students to transfer work between Moldovan institutions of higher education and institutions outside the country. The structure is largely based on MSU's operating system.

"This is a very different philosophy," Weisenstein said. "In the traditional Soviet system of higher education, study was limited to only one area, such as mathematics. All courses taken during college would be math or math related courses."

"The old system allowed for no breadth of preparation and that would show itself in the lack of creativity in problem solving," he said. "In our system, with people coming from different minors, there might be three solutions suggested for a problem instead of one."

The educators in Moldova knew that to compete in today's world they would need to change. They also realized that if their largely agrarian oriented country of some three million people was going to develop economically, they needed a way to foster  a spirit of entrepreneurship in their young people.

"The people of Central and Eastern Europe see an opportunity today to change their lives and improve the quality of life," Weisenstein said. "The current generation has the opportunity

that the previous generation, under Communism, was denied and they want to make the most of it."

"Moldova is the poorest nation in Europe. More than 50 percent of the college graduates in Moldova leave. This is a huge loss of talent. They can't find work because there isn't much industry. "

The project began when the Minister of Education in collaboration with various university rectors, initiated the idea of restructuring the educational system. The Minister worked with the United States Ambassador to Moldova. The State Department later contacted Weisenstein and asked him if he would be interested in working on the project. He had previously worked in Russia with former Soviet President Mikheil Gorbechev on a distance learning project.

Weisenstein worked with the rector and top administrators of the University of Moldova in implementing this program including: Petru Gaugash, Elena Murau, Galina Dragalina, A. Crivoi, I. Ciobanu and Eufrosinia Axenti. These administrators make up a transition team responsible for planning and implementing structural changes to the University.

"We lead the world in part because of the way we educate people," Weisenstein said. "Our system fosters creativity and innovation. Once the Moldovan educators understood the value of our system, they were very quick learners. They were extremely bright and very adept at changing long held educational philosophies. I was amazed at how quickly they were ready to make significant changes in their educational system."

Modifications were made in the western educational system to accommodate the realities of resources in Moldova.

"They don't have many library resources, textbooks, Internet," he said. "So you can't expect a lot of independent research outside of the classroom. For this reason, students meet in classes much longer than in the west. Most of the learning takes place in the classroom, and students have few assignments outside of class. So, the credit hour system developed in Moldova reflects that expectation."

A modern concept being introduced for the first time is tuition. "That's really hard for

such a poor country, but if the university is to survive, they have to charge tuition."

This fall semester is a shakedown period for the program.

"It's the first time professors will have students in their classes who aren't majoring in that subject," Weisenstein said. "Students were excited about the idea of choice in their classes and that they could change their major. This generation of students is not intimidated by choice."

One of the most personally endearing elements of his work with the program is that the

rectors refer to him as "teacher."

For Weisenstein the experience has been enriching as well as touching. "The Moldovans asked me to be the commencement speaker to the first class that will graduate under the new system in four years."

Send questions or comments to Brenda McDonald: bmcdonal@montana.edu. Or you can send letters to Brenda McDonald, MSU Communications Services, 416 Culbertson Hall, Bozeman, MT 59717.

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