041 RUSSIAN STUDENTS TO STUDY MUSIC MANAGEMENT AT MTSU

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 16, 2007
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

RUSSIAN STUDENTS TO STUDY MUSIC MANAGEMENT AT MTSU
Fall Semester to Further Partnerships with Russian Colleges and Universities

(MURFREESBORO) – MTSU’s budding relationships with Russian institutions of higher learning will come into full flower Aug. 21 with the arrival of five graduate students and two faculty members from State University of Management in Moscow.
The Russian students will enhance their pursuit of master’s degrees in music management under the auspices of the Department of Recording Industry. Next summer, several MTSU students will reciprocate by going to Moscow and St. Petersburg to study.
“We are looking forward to having the Russian students in our classes and to visiting Russia with American students next August,” says Dr. Chris Haseleu, recording industry chair and chief negotiator of the agreement.
“We hope it is just the beginning of large-scale cooperation with Russian schools,” says Dr. Andrei Korobkov, associate professor of political science and another member of the MTSU delegation that visited Russia.
Another step in the partnership process will be an interdisciplinary urban studies conference hosted by MTSU’s College of Business under the leadership of Dr. Jim Burton, another member of the delegation to Russia. The conference will bring several accomplished Russian scholars to the campus in November.
The individual partnership approach could prove to be a cost savings for students, Korobkov says.
“This is a way to very significantly cut expenditures for foreign trips for our study abroad students,” Korobkov says. “It will be visibly cheaper than going through the consortia our university is a part of.”
Some 12 agreements have been signed with institutions in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad. Korobkov says he hopes the international partnerships will spread to other disciplines. He says Russians have expressed special curiosity about nursing, social work, music management, sports management and concrete industry management.
“These are areas that are very interesting to our Russian counterparts, and so we expect that in February 2008 the vice president of Russian Social University will come here to hold additional negotiations,” Korobkov says.

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Officials at Russian Social University, which has campuses all over Moscow and Russia and in some ex-Soviet states, have shown tremendous interest in nursing, social work and gerontology, Korobkov notes.
In fact, Korobkov encourages faculty and administrators in other departments to follow the recording industry department’s lead in establishing reciprocal relationships.
“The administration can sign treaties that create an organizational framework, but without the initiative of particular faculty members, it is impossible to find what is interesting,” Korobkov says.
The recording industry program holds unique promise for Russians because their music business has experienced considerable growing pains in the transition from Communism to the post-Soviet era.
“In general, the commercialization of culture is something new for Russians, and they do not really have adequate infrastructure, especially in terms of qualified personnel,” Korobkov says.
In fact, Korobkov observes, immediately after the collapse of the Soviet regime, the music business was infiltrated frequently by somewhat disreputable people, prompting Russian academics to strive to improve professionalism.
“The absence initially of adequate market infrastructure resulted in the criminalization of many state and private business structures,” Korobkov says, adding that the situation is changing quickly now.
Leading the Russian delegation is Katya Vinnikova, executive director of Moscow University of Management’s music management program. Vinnikova will stay only a few days, while the Russian students will stay for the entire fall semester. A future visit by Sinisha Lazarevich, one of Moscow’s leading music producers, is in the works.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For color jpegs of MTSU officials in Russia, contact Gina Logue in the Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.