The professor said goodbye to the post because of the post – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

Director of the Institute of Economics and Business of Ulyanovsk State University (UlSU), Professor Evgeny Bely left his post due to the reaction of the leadership to his Telegram channel “Science and Universities”. According to the professor, USU rector Boris Kostishko suggested that he either not write about the federal ministry in the channel, or quit. The rector himself told Kommersant that he liked Mr. Bely’s channel until he posted a “fake link” to unverified information about an employee of the federal Ministry of Education and Science. According to the head of the university, the professor admitted his mistake, but following the conversation, he chose the path of a blogger. At the same time, the ministry claims that they have no claims against Yevgeny Bely and his Telegram channel.

Doctor of Technical Sciences Evgeny Bely resigned as director of the Institute of Economics and Business of Ulyanovsk State University due to claims against his Telegram channel Science and Universities. About this he himself informed on Tuesday in the channel.

According to Mr. Bely, about a month ago, USU rector Boris Kostishko called him in and said that “the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation allegedly does not like both individual posts and the Science and Universities channel itself,” since “the author’s point of view on the debatable problems of higher education is far from does not always coincide with the official position of the ministry.”

At a meeting with the rector, says Yevgeny Bely, Three options have been proposed:

• close the channel
• keep the channel, “but about the Ministry of Education and Science, its initiatives and personalities as if it were a dead person – good or nothing”;
• or quit the university.

Mr. Bely said that he did not intend to close the channel, and “to remain silent about the ministry is not to respect oneself.” As a result, he wrote a letter of resignation “on his own”, which “was signed almost instantly.”

Evgeny Bely worked at USU for 26 years, of which 22 years he headed the Institute of Economics and Business – almost from its very foundation. He has been running the Science and Universities Telegram channel (almost 23,000 subscribers) for two years now. “From a conversation with the ministers, I realized that they carefully read the channel, like many rectors,” Mr. Bely said. “I try to make the channel not so much an author’s channel as a discussion platform.” He emphasizes that the channel is not anonymous and that he “regularly reported everywhere” who its author was. “But I never reported my connection with the university and the institute, so that some claims would not be transferred to them,” Mr. Bely noted.

In an interview with Kommersant, he mentioned that he “monetized” the channel – “I receive advertising, I pay taxes as a self-employed person.”

According to him, the dissatisfaction of the federal ministry was caused by a post dated October 7, dedicated to the dismissal of Deputy Minister Elena Druzhinina. According to Mr. Bely, in the post he made a link to the Scientific hard labor Telegram channel, which, in turn, reposted a recording of another channel, which reported unconfirmed information about the alleged family ties of Mrs. Druzhinina and her financial activities. “It turned out that that channel regularly criticized Minister Valery Falkov, causing discontent. And if those channels are anonymous, then it was easy to find me,” the professor said. “And then the rector was summoned to Moscow because of this post, where they recommended to tame the author of the channel.” Mr. Bely added that later he “was called from the department of the ministry and said that they had no complaints about the channel.” He believes that after the dismissal he will be more free in his actions. He also intends to work as an invited expert.

USU Rector Boris Kostishko, in an interview with Kommersant, called Yevgeny Bely “a good leader, a qualified and intelligent person.” “But he began to turn into a blogger, and bloggers get their subscribers on scandals,” Mr. Kostishko said. “When he created this channel, the channel became more important for him than the university. He told me so himself, he makes good money there, the sums are quite decent.

The rector noted that he himself “had been subscribed to this channel for a long time and read with interest,” not even knowing that he was being hosted by a university colleague.

According to him, “everything would have been fine” if Mr. Bely had not posted that post about the dismissal of a ministry employee. Mr. Kostishko confirmed that the ministry “showed him this post with fake links to the channel, where frank nasty things” and asked him to pay attention to the activities of the employee. “The post itself is nothing if it weren’t for a link to one fake channel. And if you link all this together, you get a hint of some kind of corruption schemes,” Boris Kostishko explained. “He questioned the honor and dignity of the head of our institution.”

The rector claims that he called the professor “and said that it is impossible to write such things while inside our system.” According to him, Mr. Bely admitted a mistake. “I suggested that he not make such mistakes again. Either stop, or, if the channel is more important, do it on free bread. I expected that he would agree with me and there would be no more posts that denigrate both ministerial and non-ministerial ones. But he, it turns out, chose free bread. It’s a pity. And the channel is also a pity, because it is really interesting. Before, there was no scandalous and unconfirmed news there,” Boris Kostishko said. He added that “no one forced the director to resign, and he could not be fired, because he was through the competition until 2024.”

UlGU President Yuri Polyanskov told Kommersant that he did not know the details of the situation, but he intended to personally meet with Evgeny Bely to find out. “I am very sorry that he left his post, because he is a very strong specialist, a scientist, a good organizer, who was at the origins of the institute and enjoys quite a lot of authority among Russian specialists in his field,” said the President of UlSU.

At Kommersant’s request, the Russian Ministry of Education and Science replied that they “have no complaints about E.M. Bely and his content in the Science and Universities Telegram channel.”

Sergey Titov, Ulyanovsk