Riga - Meeting Prof. Šavriņa

I had a 10:00 a.m. meeting with Prof. Baiba Šavriņa, liaison between CILS and the Faculty of Economics and Management.  Both she and her assistant, Aiga Čikste, who did most of the work setting up my schedule, were away last week on a business trip.  For our first face-to-face meeting, I anticipated a scrutiny of my course, a review of the syllabus, of the draft exam, with suggestions for improvements -- anything but a collegial chat, which is exactly what we had for an hour and a half in her cluttered, homey office.

Prof. Šavriņa is fifty, plus or minus, with dyed reddish-blonde, shoulder-length wavy hair and an open, pleasant face.  Over coffee prepared in her personal French press, we compared notes on our respective countries’ problems and methods of teaching.  She had just returned from a week-long conference and is taking off on Wednesday for another in Paris.  She won’t return until after I leave.

The professor is enthusiastic about the CILS program; I think that it perhaps enhances the university's reputation that it attracts U.S. lawyers to give seminars.  From her, I learned that Latvian students are too demanding of their rights and insufficiently dedicated to their responsibilities, that schools don’t devote enough resources to gifted kids (like her son) and that the Latvian birth rate has declined so precipitously that by 2015 there won’t be any university-aged students.  Her son is 24 years old and “good with computers”; she laments his refusal to pursue a doctorate – from what she described, he just doesn’t want to follow in mommy’s footsteps.  And he’s probably enjoying life at home—no bills, his laundry gets done.  We spoke of dogs and horses; she has a Newfoundland-Labrador mix.  Latvia is making use of equine therapy for handicapped children; some wealthy people are raising horses for use in movies.

Prof. Šavriņa sees Latvia’s situation very differently from Slava.  For her, Russia is no friend to Latvia; Russia resents Latvia and has always envied its Western links; Russia is trying to draw the Baltics back into Russia’s orbit.  Further, Russia is unreliable to do business with; Moscow can shut down entry of exports and a Latvian exporter would have no recourse to collect damages.  She related with fresh indignation an incident in which the Latvian ambassador got splattered with red liquid during a press conference in Russia.  (This happened in 2008.)  What does she think of the future of the euro?  Prof. Šavriņa says things are too much in flux to predict.  Latvia is supposed to join the euro zone in 2014; it remains to be seen what will happen.  She is asked to discuss this issue frequently on TV and in the press.  Too bad we won’t meet again; there were loads of questions I would have liked to ask.

I left the building and headed back to the hotel in a steady, chill rain.  I had hoped to walk around some more but….  Treated myself to an overpriced lunch at the hotel, but it did “hit the spot.”  Spent the rest of the before-class time in room, handling work via email, drafting more of final exam and reading.

Class went OK today; it was motions and trials, which are not exactly the most fascinating things for non-lawyers.  A few of the students like to spin wild scenarios, like ones to justify why a witness’s marital history should be relevant in a personal injury case.  I let them bounce the ideas around; it keeps the class from getting passive.