Math prof.’s meth charges elicit mixed reactions from colleagues, students

Before Irina Kristy was a lecturer at Boston University and Suffolk University, the Russia native was a human rights activist, wife and mother.

Kristy, who was charged with distribution of methamphetamine, conspiracy to violate the drug law and drug violation in a school zone, has been put in the spotlight since the allegations first arose in November.

According to a Somerville Police Department report from Nov. 14, Kristy’s son, Grigory Genkin, 29, was arrested for an alleged drug lab that he was operating in Kristy’s Somerville home. Kristy was then called “complicit” in the operation, according to a Nov. 17 Daily Free Press article.

While some members of the public see the 74-year-old professor as a meth dealer, Kristy’s colleagues and students have both positive and negative stories about Kristy, as well as insight into her life before the charges.

On Ratemyprofessor.com, Kristy, who was first hired at BU in 1987, has an overall score of 1.9 – with comments ranging from “Although her accent makes understanding lectures difficult, she is a nice woman and a decent professor” to “This professor is the WORST.”

When The DFP first published an article on the investigation, many readers had immediate responses as to whether Kristy should continue teaching.

A person identified as “Marth Surx” posted in a comment, “Teachers are supposed to be role models of more than what a good pair of glasses and a lot of free time can teach you. They are supposed to portray how a life of academia and scholarship can pay dividends for both your career and character. Not how it can teach you to get high.”

Another person, who identified as “Former student #2,” posted in a comment, “She was very sweet and really wanted to help her students understand the class material. A terrific professor; I hope she does not get fired for this.”

While these were only two of the 17 comments on The DFP article, some students and faculty members who interacted with Kristy shared similar mixed sentiments when interviewed.

Tatiana Yankelevich, an associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, said she has known Kristy since the late 1960s when her family became part of a human rights movement in the Soviet Union.

“The demonstrations on Pushkin Square on the day of Soviet Constitution called for the respect and observance of the Constitution, and the participants, including Irina Kristy, suffered various consequences, the least of which would be the loss their jobs,” Yankelevich said in an email statement to The DFP. “It might sound innocuous, but in a country where the political regime is the sole employer, this may turn into a death sentence. It took rare courage and integrity to stand up for law and respect for human rights at that time and place.”

Among these consequences, Yankelevich said, were surveillance by Soviet law enforcement and house arrest.

“The rank and file of these agencies kept round-the-clock watch at the door of their apartment,” she said in the email.

Kristy’s husband, Sergei Genkin, was accompanied by a KGB agent from his doorstep to work and he was the only member of the family who was allowed to leave the house, Yankelevich said.

“The entire family was deprived of normal contact with the outside world,” she said in the statement. “The degree of stress that this one family was under is hard to imagine or describe. Soon after the house arrest, Sergei Genkin fell gravely ill with multiple sclerosis that ended his life at the age of 65. It would have been unconscionable to continue to exist in those conditions. As a result, Irina Kristy’s family was forced to choose the only remaining option – emigration, to protect their lives, wellbeing and integrity.”

When Kristy moved to the United States at age 50, Yankelevich said the professor  “had a far from easy life of a new immigrant” – she spoke little English and had a 3-year-old son.

Yankelevich said the public perception of Kristy following the meth lab incident was both cruel and unfair.

“There is cruel and twisted irony that Irina Kristy is once again subjected to injustice and prejudice in the country where there is supposedly no place for them, and one of whose essential premises is presumption of innocence,” Yankelevich said. “She is slandered and made laughing stock of by the students of an institution where free inquiry and search for truth should be paramount. Yet the tone of the many comments on line, students including, to various press publications is that of ignorance and prejudice, not to mention the level of intellectual discourse that is below any criticism.”

BU math professor Tasso Kaper, who is chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, said in an email statement to The DFP that Kristy is “presently on administrative leave from her position as a lecturer in Mathematics at the University.”

However, Kaper refused to comment further on the current situation or Kristy’s time at BU.

According to Paul Ezust, a professor of mathematics and computer science at Suffolk, who hired Kristy in 1985, the school’s administrators removed Kristy from her classes “with only a few days remaining in the semester.”

“After interviewing her I gladly hired her,” Ezust said in an email statement to The DFP. “Her teaching was consistently excellent and her students enjoyed her classes. I came to know her as a dedicated teacher who genuinely cared for all of her students. She was generous with her time and energy but she also had high standards which her students respected and strove to meet.”

Ezust said that Kristy, the breadwinner for her family, has been teaching “at least twice the normal full-time load between Suffolk and BU” for the past couple of decades.

“Over the years, Irina earned the respect and admiration of all of her colleagues in my department,” he said in the statement. “She is a profoundly honest individual. I am told that she is also a deeply religious person. The very idea that she could be guilty of the charges that have been raised against her is utterly absurd.”

Ezust said that while he doesn’t know what was found in Kristy’s son’s apartment, he believes that Kristy “had no knowledge of whatever it was that he was doing.”

“He [Kristy’s son] was a troubled youth whose education was incomplete. When he moved into her house as a young adult, I’m sure that she was relieved to be able to provide a home for him and I’m certain that she respected his privacy and would never dream of invading it,” Ezust said in a statement. “She leaves her house around 6 a.m. and doesn’t return until 10 p.m. on most days.”

Likewise, Ezust said he is “deeply ashamed of the Suffolk administration” for placing her on leave so close to the semester’s end.

“Not only does that cowardly action ignore the American principle that one is innocent until proven guilty, it also shows a callous disregard for Irina’s students,” he said.

Kate Scott, a College of Communication sophomore, took Applied Mathematics, a course with about 80 students, with Kristy in Fall of 2010.

“She did have a very strong accent and it was difficult to understand what she was saying,” Scott said in an interview.  “And sometimes she would be all over the place, like very unorganized in her lessons. But she was always open to questions when she was lecturing and we would explain something more than once if students didn’t get it the first time.”

Scott said while Kristy was not a “fantastic professor,” she was shocked when she heard of the arrest.

“She seemed to be a nice woman so I definitely wouldn’t think something like that would have happened,” Scott said.

A College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, who asked to remain anonymous, took Kristy’s Applied Mathematics course this fall.

“People say she had a thick accent but I thought she was a decent teacher,” the student said in an interview. “She had all the qualities of a good teacher – she was always on time, started class right away and was open for help if it was needed . . . She didn’t call people out by name but she recognized when people weren’t in class.”

Starting Nov. 14, the student said Kristy started coming to class later and later until last Tuesday when she wasn’t in class at all and students had a substitute.

Aside from the buzz generated by faculty and students, the story has also been picked up by several mainstream media networks, some likening it to popular TV series “Breaking Bad.”

“The real-life case echoes the plot line of AMC’s ‘Breaking Bad,’ in which Bryan Cranston stars as Walter White, a high school chemistry and father of two who learns he has inoperable lung cancer and begins cooking crystal meth with a former student (Aaron Paul) in an effort to secure his family’s financial future,” according to a Dec. 4 post on the Hollywood Reporter website.

“We give her a big fat F…for EFFED UP!” said blogger Perez Hilton in a post on Dec. 5.

Despite outside commentary, those who are close to Kristy remain confident of her innocence.

“I call on the student and faculty body to give this woman of courage and integrity benefit of the doubt and to uphold one of most essential premises of democracy – presumption of innocence,” Yankelevich said. “Professor Irina Kristy deserves this.”

Kristy was unavailable for an interview at the time the article was published. She was contacted by The DFP earlier in the semester and again this week by telephone.

Kristy’s trial is scheduled for Dec. 21 at Somerville District Court.