Karaganda is hooting – a lecturer of the Department of Mathematics at Karaganda State University is fired. There seems to be nothing special in it, if not the reason, and being more precise, reasons, of the dismissal: demanding for a bribe and sexual solicitation toward students.

And now the most interesting fact about the story: the lecturer is a 49-year old woman, an associate professor, candidate of Physics and Mathematics. And the “object of her sexual solicitation” is a student of the third year of studying at the “Department of Mathimatics” (this is the way the poor student named his alma mater).

As long as I can recall, this is the first case of a public row connected with the dismissal of a lecturer. It does not mean before that there had been no bribing of teachers and lecturers – quite the contrary, ask any (or almost any) student, how much it costs “to start” this or that exam, and you will easily get all rates and prices. However, the “corporation laws” always tip the balance of any state laws, and the worst thing a college teacher, who was caught up, may face is to hear out reproaching words of his or her colleagues from the corporation and their wishes “not to be caught up again”. So the real reason of the dismissal, in the opinion of a many people in Karaganda, was the very “sexual solicitation”.

Noviy Vestnik paper describes what happened (in Russian):

The students of the third year of studying made the video record of the “discreditable situation” with the help of video camera installed in the cell phone. They had noticed long ago that Anna Mikhailovna was not indifferent to their fellow. She is a lonely woman, lives in a private house, that is why she asked some students to help her around the house – to store up coal and firewood for the winter. After the four “scouts” had come and done the work (by the way, according to the lecturer, they were paid for the work), Anna Novitckaya invited them to tea. At some instant the lecturer and her sweetheart left alone in the room…

Anna Mikhailovna even does not deny she had a soft spot for the student. And at some instant she was sure the affection was mutual. In any event, she paid no attention to the cell phone the students had left in the room. And that was recording the passionate love scene with indifference of a machine…

Then it was blackmailing: either Anna Mikhailovna lets the students pass the exams and gives them “A” at her exam, or they will make the video record public. The lecturer turned the ultimatum down at once, and filed a report on the students to the Dean’s office. But the students did the same, backing their complaint with the discrediting video record. The evidence of the prudent young people has turned out to be weightier than rather significant record of scientific work and explanations of the elderly lecturer. On November 29, the Board of the University issued an order to dismiss Associated Professor Novitckaya, and the students had successfully passed the exams…

There are two cases at courts in Karaganda now: to rehabilitate the lecturer at the University (the civil suit) and to protect her private life (the criminal suit). There is no decision passed on any of the cases. Therefore, it is too early to make any conclusions.

But could I ask several questions?
First: if the student says the lecturer was soliciting him, why did he go to her home on his own initiative?
Second: the managing Board of Karaganda University states the young man is a very promising student that has good results in other subjects. According to Novitckaya’s report, she asked the Board to send the student and his “confidant” down on the ground non-attendance of the classes “to the sum of more than 80 classes”. And I take trust on that as one should miss all classes in order to make so ridiculous mistakes in one’s own complaint – “Department of Mathimatics”, “diferential calculus”, “grup”, etc.
And the third, and the most sensitive one: in your opinion, how many lecturers-men would come through and remain working as teachers, if everyone guilty of sexual solicitations to young girls – their students – were fired? During 5 years of my studying at university I personally faced with the problem three times, saying nothing about my friends that had the same experience. And by the way, none of those “pedagogues with high moral standards” was fired.