Testimonials

We have selected a number of comments from teaching fellows and supervisors which demonstrate the wide-ranging impact that their teaching has had on themselves and on the institutions where they taught.

Overcoming Financial Limitations

Ádám Szentpéteri
CEU Graduate Fellow, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary
"Thanks to the Fellowship funding I was able to cancel some, otherwise necessary, income generating projects, and devote more time to teaching and academic research."

Pavel Vacek
Cornell Ph.D, CERGE-EI Fellow, Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague
"The CERGE-EI Fellowship provided me with additional income to enable me to return to the Czech Republic and teach at the Charles University in Prague. Without financial support of my position, this new course of International Finance would not be offered."

Teimuraz Gogsadze
ISET Teaching Fellow, Tbilisi Grigol Feradze Teaching University, Tbilisi, Georgia
"Despite my strong desire of teaching, I would not have done so without the financial support, otherwise the time I needed for the additional 'job' would not have been spent efficiently. The Fellowship compensated the time cost I had to give up from my main job working time and gave me opportunity to teach. The financial support was crucial."

Fellows: Raising Quality of Economics Courses and Instruction

Nelli Gasparian
ISET graduate fellow, Russian-Armenian Slavonic University, Yerevan, Armenia
"Granting this teaching opportunity provides me with a chance to teach students with modern methods, which is a strong basis for preparing good specialists in the field of economics. This will be a very good investment for the local Universities and for the whole Republic in general."

Anna Bogomolova
CERGE-EI Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow, Novosibirsk University, Novosibirsk, Russia
"Teachers that provide students with contemporary knowledge in macroeconomics, with a special stress on modeling, are still rare in Russia and are highly valued here. The Fellowship has given me a chance to be one of such teachers.

Maka Chitanava
ISET Teaching Fellow, Tibilisi State University, Georgia
“The Teaching Fellowship gave me an opportunity to share my experience and knowledge of modern economics with my students. I am combining different teaching methods to make the process more interesting and enjoyable.”

Fellows:Institutional Reform

Maya Grigola
ISET Teaching Fellow, Department of Business and Economics, Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
"This grant does not benefit only me but my current and future students as well. It undoubtedly furthers my professional teaching and provides positive contributions to improve the teaching culture in Georgia."

Varadan Baghdasaryan
ISET Teaching Fellow, Russian Armenian University
"The long-term benefit is that now the management of the University is thinking to change the way math courses are delivered at the university, putting more attention on the actual skills of the students and their abilities to solve problems, rather than prove unrelated theorems by heart."

Katarína Svítková
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Vice President for International Affairs, Anglo-American College in Prague, Czech Republic
"Thanks to my education from CERGE-EI and also the fellowship, I can help the university to reach the best educational
standards."

Comments from Fellows' Supervisors

Ondřej Skripnik
Director of Institute of Bachelor Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague
"In the Czech Republic it is not easy for a state university to find and retain a person who is well educated in economics and able to teach economic theory on the undergraduate level... Our students will most probably be employed in non-economic or non-business sphere, a sphere where the knowledge of economics is abysmal. I consider it to be very important to convey the basics of economic knowledge to this group of people since they are the current and future voters in the Czech Republic, and economic education will help them to make better voting choices and will lead this country to better future."

Professors Gocha Tutberidze | Jochen Zimmermann
Deputy Dean for Teaching, Tbilisi State University | Advisor to the Record for Quality Assurance and Teaching Innovation, Tbilisi State University/Dean of the Business School at the University of Bremen in Germany, respectively
"The fellows have all done an outstanding job…. Their input helps greatly in modernising the teaching as their expertise allows us to firmly establish and use modern textbooks …. Overall, reforms without their input would be unsustainable. The fellows are crucial to the reforms and thus have a much larger impact than the students that they teach: the innovations in micro- and macroeconomics affect all 750 students in one beginner’s cohort." (Ed. Note: The five Teaching Fellows from ISET at Ivane Javakhishvili University in Tblisi in 2008-09 had a total of 261 students in their classes – a not insignificant number – but their supervisors saw their influence affect over 700 students.)"

Prof. Nodar Khadury
Head of Macroeconomics, Tblisi State University
"The cooperation with the Teaching Fellows program…is definitely an important gain for my University. Sophiko and Zviad have brought new spirit to the department…they have brought modern skills and attitude to the students of our institution. Thanks to them we can educate our best students with modern text books and teaching material….Thanks to the [fellowships] we managed to attract English-speaking [teachers], which otherwise would have been very difficult….Let me take this opportunity to express my gratitude towards the donors and assure that the resources are spent in a very effective way that ultimately brings positive results."

Prof. Jamlet Janajghava
Dean of the Economics and Business Faculty, Tblisi State University
"I am happy to see the new attitude toward economics that she has established among the students. Ms. Chitanava is teaching first year students and the difficulty is that the students at this level face the science of economics for the first time. So it has crucial importance to explain to them what economics really is. I can tell with no doubt that she has coped with this challenge successfully….I am very grateful for the Teaching Fellowship Program. The Program is significantly raising the standards of education in economics and will facilitate our students to become more competitive on the international level. Once more I would like to thank you for your support to make our teaching better."

Prof. Sergey M. Kadochnikov
Dean of the Department of Economics, Ural State University, Ekaterinberg, Russia
"The course ‘Applied Econometrics for International Economics’ was especially relevant in the context of the courses taught at the department. [Olga’s] participation in the teaching process allowed her students to attain a higher level of research.[Dorota’s] particular strength is the ability to involve students into active work; readiness to provide consultations any time students face questions, both on-line and in person, and encouragement for students pursuing their research. I am strongly interested in inviting all three Teaching Fellows to teach again."

Martin Gregor
Director, Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University
"I would like to express thanks to the CERGE-EI Foundation for supporting two of our faculty members, Prof. Janda and Dr. Vacek. The support has largely helped to reshape our curricula so that the courses supported now reflect the most recent trends in economics. Prof. Janda significantly contributes to the quality of teaching at the Institute of Economic Studies. His classes are conducted in English and based on internationally recognized textbooks. The classes contribute to the quality of our program which prepares students for competitive positions in the commercial sector, government institution, and for admission to the top-ranking PhD programs in Europe and America."

Minas Arakelyan
First Provost, Odessa National Law Academy
"We encouraged the development of the new course in English for students in law, which would touch the issues of global economic developments….The scientific community and students of the University mentioned the high level of [the Teaching Fellow’s] proficiency and knowledge of the subject and appreciated her contributing to the raising of educational standards"