PROFESSOR EYES SOVIET CHANGES; UNIVERSITY STUDIES POSSIBLE EXCHANGE PROGRAM

A delegation from Southeast Missouri State University saw first-hand the desire for democracy in one Soviet republic, only weeks before hard-liners staged an unsuccessful coup.

The Southeast delegation consisted of Martin Jones, dean of the College of Liberal Arts; Jean Benton of the College of Education; and William Kimme of Washington, Mo., a former president of the Board of Regents. The wives of Jones and Kimme also made the trip.

The delegation was in the Soviet Union from July 27 to Aug. 3, discussing the possibility of setting up faculty and student exchanges between Southeast and universities and colleges in Byelorussia, a republic in the Soviet Union.

Jones and his wife subsequently vacationed in Germany. They returned to Cape Girardeau Tuesday.

Jones said Wednesday that the delegation detected no signs of an imminent coup during its visit to the Soviet Union.

But he said the Byelorussians they talked with seemed eager for a continued move toward democracy.

"The general impression that we had was that the Byelorussians were very eager to democratize and move toward a market economy," he said.

Boris Yeltsin, the reform-minded president of the Russian republic, is popular with Byelorussians. Jones said Yeltsin is "very much a hero there."

But, he added, the Soviet people seemed to have "mixed feelings" about Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Jones said his "strongest impression" was that people felt there was a "lack of decisiveness" on the part of Gorbachev in taking a stand, either for the political liberals or the hard-liners in the government.

The Byelorussians clearly favor Yeltsin's political approach, the college dean said.

"At the same time, I think they realized that without Gorbachev, the possibility of a democratic and popularly elected leader would not have occurred," said Jones.

"There is also a very strong appreciation for Gorbachev's creation of an era of perestroika and glasnost, because several people told me that prior to three years ago, they would not have talked about their political views to anyone except their most intimate friends," said Jones.

He said the people he talked with believe that the move to establish a more democratic society will continue. "They have a feeling that there has been so much progress made, now that they have a chance to express their political views, that the situation cannot go back to pre-perestroika."

Nationalist sentiments are strong not only in the neighboring Baltic states, but in Byelorussia as well, Jones said.

Byelorussia has already instituted a number of changes in their educational system, including requiring students to study the Byelorussian language, Jones said.

"For the past several years, they have begun emphasizing more content and less political dogma, focusing more on what the students need to know rather than indoctrination in Marxist-Leninist ideology," he said.

While in the Soviet Union, the Southeast delegation visited a collective farm and were given a tour of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania.

Lithuanians have been vocal about wanting independence from Moscow.

Jones said he saw no overt signs of that sentiment. But he said, "We all felt that Vilnius was a much more open city. People seemed more outgoing and less reserved."

On the Aug. 1 trip to Vilnius, the escorted delegation crossed the border into Lithuania at a point where just the day before several customs officials of the republic had been attacked and killed.

Jones said that when the delegation crossed into Lithuania, there were no signs of the previous day's violence except for flowers that had been placed on the ground.

The Soviet Union's economic woes were visible, Jones said, and the stores they visited had few goods.

A pair of shoes cost one college professor in Minsk, the capital of Byelorussia, $2,000 rubles, or five times her monthly salary. The professor lives with a family of four in a two-room apartment, Jones said.

Jones said the Southeast delegation held talks in Minsk with officials of the Ministry of Education of Byelorussia.

The Southeast delegation also held direct talks with representatives of three institutes or colleges in the republic. One college focuses on economics, another on teacher education and the third on foreign languages.

Byelorussian education officials made it clear they want to learn from the Americans. "They would like to have an opportunity for their faculty to learn how to teach about a market economy," Jones said.

"They are interested in people learning how to run small businesses and larger businesses more effectively."

He said they want to develop a more western system of education: "They are open to the possibility of both teacher as well as student exchanges."

One problem in setting up such exchanges is that the Soviet currency is not considered hard currency by international standards, which makes transactions difficult, Jones said.