A meeting of the Academic Council has been held in Bldg. X of Saratov University. The agenda included educational issues in the new academic year, including participation in the strategic academic leadership programme, the university renewal, and others.
The meeting began with a minute’s silence. The members of the Academic Council honoured the memory of the colleagues who passed away this summer: Dean of the Faculty of Nonlinear Processes Yurii Levin, Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Language Teaching Methods Raisa Nazarova, and Chair of the Department of Electronics, Vibrations, and Waves, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a former rector of Saratov University Dmitrii Trubetskov.
Vice-Rector for Research Work Aleksei Koronovskii delivered a report on the strategic academic leadership programme prepared together with Head of Priority Projects and Programmes Elena Yelina. He said that the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation had announced the restart of a number of programmes, including the national research university programme, in which SSU had successfully worked for 10 years. This cycle has ended, and now a new strategic academic leadership programme is launched, which will be implemented until 2030. Universities will participate in the competition to get one of the two statuses – either National Research University or National Flagship University. Their performance will be assessed, according to 30 indicators. The SSU staff has been preparing to take part in it.
Rector Aleksei Chumachenko reported how the studies would be organized in the first months of the new academic year. The speaker outlined the new rules for drawing up the curriculum, pointed out why full-time and online learning would be combined, and explained why the students from different courses would be dispersed during the academic day and the academic week.
Relying on the recommendations of Rospotrebnadzor, Vice-Rector for Secondary Professional Education and Social Work Olga Nesterova informed the audience that anti-epidemic measures had already been taken and would be taken in the future by the administration of the university, the faculties, and the institutes. She said that all university students would be provided with personal protective equipment and commented on entrance thermometry and constant anti-epidemic cleaning of the university buildings. Every staff member of the university – its administration, the deans of the faculties, the directors of the institutes, the professors, and others – must prevent an outbreak of coronavirus inside the university.
Vice-Rector for Administrative Work and Human Resources Management Anderi Stalmakhov also talked about it.
SSU Rector Aleksei Chumachenko made a report titled On the Implementation of the Modernisation Programme of the SSU Property. Thus, there have been repaired the Chardym Sports and Recreation Camp, and SSU Bldgs. I, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XVIII. In particular, the central heating has been modernised, the windows have been changed, the facade has been renovated, and the WCs have been repaired. Bldg. 8 has been repaired more than the other buildings: the stained-glass windows on the staircases have been changed. Besides, it is planned to update the lifting equipment, the ventilation, etc. there.
At the end of the meeting, after secret balloting the Academic Council decided to submit a number of teaching staff members to academic title nomination.
