Education security

Students allege political purge at Russia’s oldest university

When it opened to great pomp and circumstance as Russia’s first liberal arts school in 1996, St. Petersburg State University’s Smolny College was hailed by many as a radical departure from Soviet teaching. A joint project between Russia’s oldest university and New York’s Bard College, its focus on critical thinking and academic exchange was meant to bring Russian education into a new era.

DREY