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| Jeff Miller |
University of Delaware economics professor Jeff Miller wasn't unfamiliar with Eastern Europe; he had spent some time in Moscow in 1984 and a lot of time teaching in Bulgaria. But, Siberia was something else – more remote, more mysterious and more removed from the economic transformation that had taken hold in Eastern Europe and the more western ex-Soviet Union nations.
Since examining that metamorphosis is the focus of Miller's research, he said he was intrigued when approached by Manijeh Sabi, a professor of economics at Russell Sage College in New York, to teach in Siberia this summer. In fact, he jumped at the chance.
Miller and Sabi met in 1998 in Kazakhstan when the two taught at the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research.
After she received a grant from the Soros' Open Society Foundation to develop a three-week summer school program that would teach Siberian economics teachers how to use the web to enhance instruction, she contacted Miller and asked him to teach the section on economies in transition.
"'Web-Based Instruction for Teaching Economics' was designed to help these instructors make their courses more interactive," Miller said.
The summer school was held at the oldest university in Siberia, Tomsk State University. The city of Tomsk houses five universities and has a population of more than 500,000 people.
Miller's job was to provide the 25 instructors taking the course with an overview of how Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union nations, China and Vietnam–a billion and a half people–are making the transition from communism to capitalism, using techniques that make the course less static. He used a translator most of the time.
"Students and teachers in Siberia are used to strictly lecture courses," he said. So much so, that when he asked his students questions, they were taken aback. But, after they got used to it, Miller said, they seemed to enjoy participating and were "really enthusiastic and anxious to learn. You're teaching teachers and there was a lot of professional esteem," he said.
An important element of the three-part course was the project students were to complete by the end of the program. They were asked to select two local countries, such as Russia and Lithuania, and compare each country's progress toward reform. The comparisons became their final projects.
The first week was an introduction to basic economic concepts as taught in the U.S., focusing on the use of the web. The second week centered on international trade, during which the students negotiated an international trade agreement between the countries they had selected for their major project.
Miller taught the third week on economies in transition, incorporating a debate on privatization of a communist nation's resources and ending with a project that highlighted the positives and negatives of central planning.
He said they were so enthusiastic about what they were learning that it was difficult to get them out of their labs at the end of the day, and classroom discussions were fast and furious.
"I couldn't understand anything they were saying because the translator couldn't translate fast enough.
"The presentations at the end were very sophisticated," Miller said, explaining that the educators clearly knew a lot more about capitalism than they did 18 years ago, and they were especially interested in U.S. thoughts about what was happening in their countries.
Since all the materials are on the web, it will be possible for course participants to continue the dialogue and expand on the information they learned during the three weeks.
"The people were very nice," Miller said, "and more and more are speaking English." He had lunch and dinner with his students every day.
 Miller and his wife, Virginia, stayed at the Hotel Sputnik in a suite complete with a refrigerator. When the Millers had time to explore Tomsk, they discovered the Siberian countryside and were impressed with how green and wooded it is. He said he was surprised that the area was so lush because the winter's can get down to 40 degrees below zero.
Tomsk, founded in the 15th century, still has much of its original architecture and its "old world" flavor. Miller and his wife said they were captivated, and most of the photos they took in the city were of those beautifully ornate wooden buildings sprinkled between unembellished 20th-century construction. "Western culture hasn't infiltrated Siberia as much as other places in Russia; many of the old buildings that were there before communism are still standing," he said.
After the course, the Millers spent 10 days in Tomsk and then boarded the Trans/Siberian Main Railway to travel farther east to Irkutsk and Lake Bakail, the world's largest freshwater lake.
"When we went on this trip, we expected it to be interesting, but we never expected it to be fun," Miller said.
Feb. 14, 2002
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