Selecting candidates for being Head of the EuropeanHumanitiesUniversity, the only Belarusian university in exile, is in its full swing but due to the lack of open information about candidates any data are to be gleaned.
Belsat.eu has found out that David Pollick, one of the leading contenders, was mentioned in Forbes columns. It turns out that a U.S. college went bankrupt under Mr Pollick’s rule…
Referring to information privacy the EHU management refuses to reveal the candidates’ names to mass media. According to Belsat’s own sources, the following persons are aspiring to the position of Rector:
David Pollick, Acting Rector of the EHU
Darius Udris, Vice Rector for development and communication
Tatsiana Shchyttsova, EHU professor, editor of university journal ‘Topos’
Aliaksandr Milinkevich, former candidate for presidency in Belarus (2006)
Ales Krautsevich, historian, ex-Vice Rector at HrodnaUniversity (Belarus)
Edward Roslof, Fulbright Program director in Russia
Šarūnas Liekis, historian and political scientist (Lithuania)
Selection process
The procedure is overseen by a special selecting committee of the university’s Governing Board. There are representatives of Sweden, the USA, Great Britain, Belgium, Estonia, Denmark and Belarus (only 1 person) in the Board. On December 16-17 the selection committee, professors, managers and students are meeting the candidates. Then the committee is to give its recommendations to EHU General Assembly of Co-Founders.
What about self-governing?
Self-governing bodies are not playing any role in the process of selection, experts say. Pavel Tserashkovich, a former Chair to EHU Senate [EHU self-governing body – Belsat], says that it has no influence on making strategis decisions after EHU Statute has been amended last.
“Earlier the Senate had the right to participate in considering the candidates. Speaking formally, now university boards at [state-run] Belarusian higher educational institutions have much more rights than EHU Senate does,” he said.
Vox Populi
The students negotiated holding open forums between students and candidates and secured them. According to Dzianis Kuchynski, President for EHU student community, a 30-minute meeting with each candidate is scheduled. The most popular candidate among the students will be named to the selection committee. Its members promise to take the students’ opinion into account.
Tuition fees paid by EHU students accounts for 25% of the university’s budget. “Formally the students are also its stockholders, but in fact, we have nothing at the moment. We want our vote to become a decisive one, this is our main ambition. But now it is nothing but advisory,” he said.
Who is Mr. Pollick?
Journalists really have a lot of questions to ask. Three contenders belsat.eu reached decided against being interviewed. David Pollick, EHU Provost and Acting Rector, was one of them.
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A year ago a new position of Provost (first Vice rector) appeared at the University. It is typical for U.S. educational institutions, but it was not provided by the EHU Statute. The duties of Provost are not specified in any official document.
Professor Tserashkovich met with Mr Pollick when the latter was just starting his work at the EHU: “It was clear that Mr Pollick had trouble picturing both the situation at the university and the place of the EHU in the educational space and civil society of Belarus. Something could have changed for these months but university staff say that Pollick has not distinguished himself yet.”
Prof. G. David Pollick became Acting Rector of EHU in October 2014. Before that, he served as EHU’s Provost and Chief Operating Officer, EHU official website says. He served as President of four American institutions of higher learning: the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, LebanonValleyCollege, Birmingham-SouthernCollege, and the State University of New York College at Cortland, where he was Acting President and Provost/Vice-President for academic affairs. He was Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University in Washington.
But his being President was apparently not flawless. In 2004 he came to Birmingham-SouthernCollege. His plans for the college included increasing enrollment to 1,800 students and making BSC a center for discourse on human dignity. In early 2010 Pollick announced the discovery of a years-long problem with budgeting for student financial aid, which inflated revenue projections and required massive budget cuts, including the elimination of five majors and 27 faculty positions.
He resigned that August leaving the college in a deep financial crisis, al.com reports.
The school’s deficit rose to $11.5 million by 2006, $18.8 million in 2007 and $22.1 million in 2008. Meanwhile, Pollick’s total pay rose between 2004 and 2008, up to $495,461, John Archibald from al.com states.
After his departure from Birmingham-Southern, Pollick made headlines when The Chronicle of Higher Education reported he was the nation’s third highest-paid private college president in 2010 with an income of $2.31 million.
According to The New York Times, Pollick’s annual salary reaches $150,000 salary ($12.5 monthly). It is about 3 times that of Acting Rector of Vilnius University. But the EHU rebuted the information saying that ‘Provost’s salary conforms with that of Provost or Vice President at a foreign university’.
Lithuania’s officer for academic ethics and procedure has still not considered the legality of employing David Pollick.
The General Assembly of Co-Founders is to select a new Rector by March, 1.
Founded in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, in 1992, soon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the European Humanities University was one of the few private, nonprofit liberal-arts institutions in the country.
But in 2004, Belarusian officials shut it down after it stood up against attempts to undermine its academic freedom. In response, a small team of faculty members and administrators set up a “university in exile” across the border in neighboring Lithuania.
Nastassia Jaumen
