East Meets West: The Travels of a Miami Professor

By Katherine Seiffert

Think Soviet Russia. Now think rural Ohio. What's their newest connection?  

No, it's not the remnant bomb shelters from the Cold War.   Not even the Havighurst Center.

The tie is neither a building nor a place.   The link is assistant professor Gulnaz Sharafutdinova.

Sharafutdinova was born in Tatarstan as an ethnic Tatar Muslim in a Russian Communist system that valorized exactly what she was not.   Now, she informs students about the other side of the Cold War through her Soviet and post-Soviet studies.

But how do you get from rural Soviet Russia to the cornfields of Oxford, Ohio?

Easy.   Here's your own personal roadmap to professorship stardom:

Excel in a system that teaches only what it wants you to learn.   Succeed at your state's university.   Work for the Department of Foreign Relations.   Decide to take six to nine months studying English in the United States.

Now here comes the hard part: throw away the plan.   Have six to nine months turn into more than six to nine years in a country completely foreign to you.   All that lies ahead is being admitted to a highly acclaimed doctoral program despite just having learned English.

Finally, make the hard decision to leave a life and family that was all you ever knew to take a shot at becoming a professor in one of the most difficult fields to get a job: political science.

Not exactly an easy task, but assistant professor Sharafutdinova did exactly that.

To better understand how Sharafutdinova got to this point, it is essential to understand the circumstances in the Soviet Union and Russia in her formative years.

Sharafutdinova was born in village of Chistopol in Tatarstan, one of the 98 federal states of Russia.   Her mother is a doctor and her father is an agricultural specialist, both important positions in Soviet Russia and in Tatarstan today.

"For my parents, the Soviet Union worked," asserted Sharafutdinova, giving way to a late 1990s nostalgia that swept the older generations of Russians.

The Soviet Union worked for them because of their professional positions and her father's strong ties to the Communist Party.   Russia's communism provided them the opportunity for higher education, enabling them to have a better life.

"There were periods of extreme social mobility that helped people," recalled Sharafutdinova, "but the price the people paid for it was just too high."

Even with the high price, it wasn't as if the population of Russia wanted the total collapse of the Soviet Union.   In a 1991 referendum, the question was simple and straightforward: Do you want the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union to be preserved?   Over 76 percent said yes.

But preservation became only a state of mind on March 17, 1991, when the Nine Plus One Agreement was signed, essentially dismantling the Soviet Union into a collection of sovereign states.

"They just woke up independent," said Sharafutdinova, with a little shrug of the shoulders.   "The Soviet flag was simply taken down, and that was the end of the Soviet Union."

Having just graduated high school in 1990, Sharafutdinova was in her first year of undergraduate study at Kazan State University when the union collapsed.   With the collapse of the union, a "new hope appeared in society linked to changes in the government."   That new hope allowed for Sharafutdinova to travel to the United States to study English with a Russian friend.

Sharafutdinova was in her third year of the five-year master's program at Kazan State University when she decided to study English at Florida International University.

 "It was just an opportunity that sort of fell in my lap," stated Sharafutdinova pointedly.   "I was hoping to spend six to nine months here."

After two years in the U.S., Sharafutdinova went back to Russia to finish her master's in 1995 and to spend a year as a senior officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Tatarstan.

Working in the government helped her make another important life decision: government or academia.   The hierarchical structure of her government experience didn't foster the creativity and freedom that academia presented and that she desired.

In the spring of 1996, Sharafutdinova began her doctoral studies in political science with a full fellowship to George Washington University and a position as a teaching assistant.    

"In some ways, I was always drawn to theories so the Ph.D. experience was very rewarding to me," said Sharafutdinova.

Her academic excellence as well as her interesting personal history made her a perfect match for Miami's international studies program, collaborating with the department of political science.

Though Miami serves as a great launching point for her academic interests with the unique Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies located only about 100 feet from her office, Sharafutdinova hopes to give back to the nation that helped make her who she is today.

"I have a certain dreamlike idea to come back to Kazan to create an educational institution on social sciences according to what I've learned here," said Sharafutdinova with a lingering passion in her voice.

For now, she continues to educate eager Miami students about Soviet and post-Soviet studies by integrating her personal history as an illustration of general ideas or theories concerning their class work.

Sophomore Ben Alexander said that her use of personal history "is extraordinarily helpful," citing the topic of the Communist system being an obvious time that her personal history was particularly beneficial.

While integrating personal experiences into teaching is not the outright policy for the department of political science or the international studies program, it is valuable to the quality of education.

Ed Petronzio, a political science graduate student for Sharafutdinova's Modern World Governments class, says it's more than just her use of personal experiences that makes the information so relatable.

According to Petronzio, the use of personal history is really important and interesting, but it's the communication between the students and Sharfutdinova that is most profound.

"The rapport.   The relationships.   She's open to the students' ideas," explained Petronzio.   "I think that's one of the most important things when being a professor."

Petronzio might be right.   Alexander sure thought so.   Many other students couldn't help but smile when Sharafutdinova helped with the class' small group discussions.

Whether it is Sharafutdinova's unique life experiences or her exceptional connection with her students, her class on political theories and history is transformed into an indispensable cultural exchange seldom expressed elsewhere.

"It drives the message home," Sharafutdinova explained about using her personal experiences in class.   "There is less distance between what your book says and what you relate to."

And perhaps even less distance between the professor and her students.

To read more of Katherine Seiffert's articles:

Beyond the Lens: Indian and Egyptian Media Unwound