Kyrgyzstan Delivers Unexpectedly Smooth and Fun Experience
To take advantage of a short gap between my visit to Kazakhstan and the start of Stanford’s academic year, I initially planned to add a few days of teaching in Turkey on the way home. When those arrangements fell through, my host in Kazakhstan suggested I visit their neighbor country Kyrgyzstan, and she introduced me to some acquaintances at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek. One criterion I have when confirming a teaching location (in addition to those mentioned at the end of the Kazakhstan blog) is that prospective hosts should be communicative and proactive, instilling confidence that some level of organization will be in place and I’ll have a receptive group of participants. Let’s just say I had a few concerns as planning commenced for my visit to Kyrgyzstan, but I was proven wrong in spades: Logistics at AUCA were flawless, and the students in the three-day Big Data short-course were delightful.
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, isn’t a place tourists tend to linger— they usually just pass through on their way to the high mountains, which comprise 90% of the country. With a couple of days off after my work-week in Kazakhstan, I visited Bishkek’s colorful Osh Bazaar and the city’s decidedly post-Soviet parks, squares, and monuments. Then I too headed to the mountains, where nearby Ala Archa National Park dished up an early season snowstorm that didn’t deter me from enjoying a full-day hike.
The American University of Central Asia (AUCA) has been around for more than 30 years; they’re still proud of the fact that Hillary Clinton came to the opening when she was first lady. Housed for most of their history in a former communist party building in the city center, they recently moved to a purpose-built one-building campus on the outskirts. When I pressed on why it’s called an “American” university, I didn’t get a clear answer, other than a partnership with Bard College (but that was long after they were founded), English-language instruction, and that the name provides a bit of cachet. Then on Wikipedia I found: “AUCA is the first higher education institution in Central Asia that functions according to the American model, with a credit-hour system, an American-style liberal arts curriculum, and a commitment to democratic values, freedom of expression and inquiry, and academic integrity and honesty.” Having just visited Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, I’m guessing NU might claim similar attributes, but AUCA is indeed much older.
I personally found AUCA to have an American flavor in a couple of ways. First, their new building is full of collaborative open spaces, to the extreme — even the faculty sit at rows of open desks, and the university president is in a cubicle. (Though mysteriously the heads of the library and IT have large private offices.) But more relevant to my experience is that many of the students had an inquisitive and individualistic nature, even a quirkiness, that I haven’t run into all that often during my travel-teaching. I found the students to be a real delight.
AUCA’s 1400 undergraduates hail from many countries in central Asia although the plurality are from Kyrgyzstan, and there are always a handful from around the globe on exchange programs. Tuition is steep (upward of $5000 per year, which is huge in a country like Kyrgyzstan), and although there is both need-based and merit-based financial aid, clearly many of the students come from wealthy families. Incidentally, I can immediately measure the wealth of a university population during my travel-teaching by the number of Mac laptops, which are dramatically more expensive than low-end Windows machines. In many locations the Mac count is near zero; here it was a noticeable fraction.
The class of 50+ was attentive and ready to tackle anything, even when the material was difficult for them. The university’s article about my visit has several nice photos capturing the participants hard at work. I had a small “fan club” at the front of the classroom who took every opportunity to engage me in wide-ranging conversation, one day convincing me to stay well beyond our 6:00 PM ending time to discuss some material that we otherwise wouldn’t get to. As the short-course came to a close, I felt fond enough of some individual students that I was genuinely sad to say goodbye; it doesn’t happen every time. (More often, individual students are asking if I can get them accepted to Stanford, which is understandable but not endearing.)
Providing a slight counterpoint, Kyrgyzstan was also one of the first times in my travel-teaching that I’ve encountered a faculty member who seemed a bit threatened by my presence. On my first day, a computer science professor let me know “I teach databases here, so you are my competition” and suggested “pssht, you can’t possibly cover machine learning in half a day.” (I can, and I do!) But he attended most of my sessions, asked a number of questions, and I hope was happy overall that I visited. In retrospect perhaps it’s surprising I haven’t experienced this dynamic more often.
As dean I’ve found that extended travels during the academic year can be a bit disruptive. But taking time out for my “instructional odyssey” at the beginning and end of the summer worked well this year, so stay tuned for June and September 2020; plans are in the works.
