Russian State Humanitarian University of FSBEI HE RSUH

Rectors of the Russian State Humanitarian University

• 1991-2003 - Yuri Afanasyev
• 2003 - Leonid Nevzlin
• 2006-2016 - Efim Iosifovich Pivovar

History

2024

Election of the Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko as the chairman of the supervisory board of RGGU

In October 2024, the Supervisory Council of the Russian State Humanitarian University (RSUU) unanimously elected Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko as its chairman. Read more here.

Sberbank and Russian State Humanitarian University opened a sports ground for students and teachers of the university

In October 2024, the opening of the workout site, reconstructed with the support of Sberbank, took place on the territory of the Russian State University of the Humanities, and the first competitions were held in an updated space.

The formal part was followed by a sports festival: students of the Russian State Humanitarian University prepared a small demonstration performance, including a demonstration of possible sports exercises on a new site using updated horizontal bars and simulators.

Dismissal of the rector for poor performance of the university

Rector of the Russian State Humanitarian University (RSUU) Alexander Bezborodov left his post on June 21, 2024 of his own free will. According to RBC, the reason for the resignation was the worsening indicators of the university and scandals related to its activities. In recent months, the leadership of the Russian State Humanitarian University has faced criticism from students and teachers, which also influenced the decision. Read more here.

2022: Agreement with Crosstech Solutions Group to train qualified personnel

On March 22, 2022, the company Crosstech Solutions Group announced the launch of a partnership program Russian state with a liberal arts university. More. here

2013

Dismissal of three vice-chancellors

Soon after the proposals for reform were sent to the Ministry of Education and Science, three vice-rectors resigned from the Russian State Humanitarian University at once:

• Dmitry Buck, who oversaw the scientific work (in January he headed the Literary Museum - and this was the reason for his departure from the university),
• Andrei Nikolaev, Vice-Rector for Financial and Economic Activities, and
• Valery Minaev, the first vice-rector for academic affairs, who did not take part in the work of the group.

In May 2013, the Russian State Humanitarian University has neither a vice-rector for finance, nor a vice-rector for science, but there are two vice-rectors for academic work - as Pivovar explained, one is engaged in state students, and the other is engaged in students of paid departments. Financial and economic activities are divided between two vice-rectors, and the rector himself is now in charge of science.

can be considered the consequences of the commission's work, then these are its only consequences. There were no others, which is strange for me, since it was an official event headed by the rector and authorized by the ministry, "says Neklyudov, stressing that there was no public criticism of the proposals developed by the working group - neither on the website of the Russian State Humanitarian University, nor at the meeting of the Academic Council. "From my point of view, here the Russian State Humanitarian University missed a very good chance," the professor concludes

Maxim Krongauz in March 2013 in an interview with "Poster" spoke more definitely and pessimistic.

Optimization Commission, which I participated in, developed a program that will not be implemented, and the two vice-rectors who worked in its composition have already left their places. It became apparent that the inefficiency of the ministry was higher than that of the university. And a more ineffective structure cannot optimize a less ineffective one, "he told^[1]

Establishment of the Supervisory Board

Soon, a new Supervisory Board was created in the Russian State Humanitarian University, which included:

• Head of the Federal Archive Agency Andrei Artizov,
• academician Yuri Pivovarov,
• Director of the Pushkin Museum Irina Antonova,
• Director of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Chubaryan,
• FIRO Director Alexander Asmolov,
• Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valery Tishkov,
• Vice-Mayor of Moscow Leonid Pechatnikov,
• rector of the general church graduate school and doctoral studies named after Saints Cyril and Methodius Metropolitan Illarion,
• Rector of MGIMO Anatoly Torkunov,
• Natalia Solzhenitsyna and others.

According to the source of "Ленты.ру" in the Russian State Humanitarian University, this council, together with the rector, is developing a new mission of the Russian State Humanitarian University. Neklyudov, however, believes that creating a mission is not at all what such a Supervisory Board should do (apparently, given that most of its members do not work at the university).

The brewer at a meeting of the Academic Council on March 29, 2013, shortly after the creation of the Supervisory Council, said that the new body will "coordinate the activities and analysis of the university's efforts to optimize the scientific, educational and management process at the Russian State Humanitarian University." The rector also mentioned the program document at this meeting, this time under the name "Mission of the Russian State Humanitarian University Today and Tomorrow" (this document "should become a quintessential development of our university for the near future," and the very name of the university, according to Pivovar, "always reflected its essence: every word in our name is filled with deep meaning and every word should work"). The document, promised by Pivovar, will be published for discussion by the Academic Council and university staff "in the near future."

Lack of funding

The shortcomings of Russian education policy - namely, the "illegality" of science within the university - also apply to all universities that do not have a special status (like, for example, the Higher School of Economics). From the very beginning, the Russian State Humanitarian University tried to unite science and teaching, but this was not formalized in any way, notes Nikolai Grinzer.

The rates of university employees consist of hours of study load, while, as a rule, only classroom hours are taken into account in it: neither preparation for lectures, nor checking household chores, nor, moreover, writing articles and monographs in most universities is taken into account in any way. The Russian State Humanitarian University, like the Higher School of Economics, pays allowances for publications, but in 2013 their volume, like the amount of funding for scientific grants, decreased significantly - partly due to the ministry's reduction in targeted funding for the university's strategic development program.

In a number of universities, however, they allocate 40 hours per article and 400 hours per monograph - time not enough to write a decent job. At the same time, the ministry - and therefore the leadership of the university - requires both articles published in peer-reviewed journals, including foreign ones, and defenses of dissertations, and other forms of "controlled" scientific work. At the Russian State Humanitarian University, according to the rector Pivovar and the head of the Educational Department of the Russian State Humanitarian University of Liubov Solyankina, the training load is 700 hours a year for most departments, 500 for educational scientific centers and 550 for departments of ancient and eastern languages. This load, introduced by the order of 2013, say the employees of the Russian State Humanitarian University, significantly exceeds the previously provided and practically does not leave time for full-fledged scientific work, which with a high degree of probability will lead to a decrease in the quality of teaching.

But even if the load remains more gentle, it will still not allow to take into account - and even more so to pay additionally - scientific work, which, according to the original plan, should have been no less significant at the Russian State Humanitarian University than teaching work.

university had the opportunity to pay extra [employees] from extrabudgetary funds, this was somehow compensated. As soon as these opportunities, apparently, ended, a harsh truth became visible, "comments Sergey Neklyudov

Consolidation of groups

In 2013, simultaneously with the dismissal of part-time employees due to lack of money, there was a tendency to enlarge groups - one cannot open a bachelor's profile by less than 12 people, which is completely meaningless for rare specialties: ancient and oriental languages, Slavic studies, the latest Russian literature, religious studies, theoretical linguistics and many others, which are famous for the Russian State Humanitarian University. Together with the "temporary dismissal" of part-time workers and a possible increase in the load, "optimization" turns into a formal reduction, enlargement, and as a result, averaging and reducing the quality of education, explains the "Ленте.ру" university employee.

2012: University "with signs of inefficiency"

In 2012, according to the results of monitoring by the Ministry of Education and Science, the Russian State Humanitarian University failed to reach (.pdf) the threshold value for four out of five indicators:

• the volume of scientific activity amounted to 32.5 thousand rubles per employee in exchange for the necessary 95 thousand,
• percentage of foreign graduates - 2.3 instead of 3,
• income per employee - 856.6 thousand rubles in return for 1500 thousand,
• and an area of ​ ​ 8 square meters per student in return for 13.

Only the average USE score of applicants who eventually chose the Russian State Humanitarian University exceeded at least 63 points and amounted to 69 points.

As a result, the university was among the universities in need of optimization, and should show by the next monitoring that it is capable of it.

However, shortly after the publication of the monitoring results, the rector of the Russian State Humanitarian University Efim Pivovar said at a meeting of the University's Academic Council that the 2011 indicators were used in monitoring, and in 2012 everything was much better at the university:

• and the average exam score is 75.65 points,
• and scientific work - 99.2 thousand rubles,
• and expatriates-foreigners - 2.7 percent,
• and the income of the university - 1520.4 thousand rubles,
• and the area per student is 10.5 square meters.

Based on these data, only in two out of five parameters of the Russian State Humanitarian University does not reach the minimum established by the Ministry of Education and Science - and universities with such indicators do not have "signs of inefficiency." At the same time, the Pivovar report provides data for both 2011 and 2012 - and even data for 2011 do not coincide with those given in the official papers of the Ministry of Education and Science.

The news that the Russian State Humanitarian University was recognized as a university "with signs of inefficiency" turned out to be unexpected for the entire scientific community - not only in Russia, but also in the world. In defense of one of the main humanitarian universities of the country, graduates and partners of the university from various countries spoke out: Austria, Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, the USA, Japan and others. However, the criteria used in monitoring the Ministry of Education and Science do not take into account the reputation of the university in the eyes of the scientific community. Instead, officials consider the volume of scientific activity (expressed in thousands of rubles, and not in publications), the percentage of foreign graduates, the average area of ​ ​ premises per student, the average exam score of incoming applicants and the income of the university.

Academic Council and Working Group on Overcoming the Crisis

On November 29, 2012, almost a month after the publication of the monitoring results, a meeting of the Scientific Council was held at the Russian State Humanitarian University on the current situation. The rector of the university, Efim Iosifovich Pivovar, said that the leadership of the university intends to optimize its work in order to henceforth rid the Russian State Humanitarian University of the epithet "ineffective." The development of proposals, according to Pivovar, should have been dealt with by special commissions. In particular, Pivovar told the Scientific Council about the creation of the "Working Group for Optimizing the Work of the University" (the corresponding order of the rector dates back to November 22). As one of the members of the working group, Professor Sergey Neklyudov, told "Ленте.ру," it was headed by Pivovar himself.

Vice-rectors Dmitry Buck and Andrei Nikolaev became deputy heads of the optimization working group, and the members of the group, in addition to Neklyudov, were the director of the Institute of Linguistics Maxim Krongauz and the dean of the Institute of Philology and History Pavel Shkarenkov. On the part of the Ministry of Education, Deputy Minister Igor Fedyukin collaborated with the working group, and Isak Frumin (Institute of Education of the Higher School of Economics), Artem Shadrin (Ministry of Economic Development), Vladimir Zuev (Higher School of Economics), Sergey Guriev (NES) and Andrei Volkov (Skolkovo School of Management) participated in the group. In addition, Deputy Director of the Institute of Oriental Cultures and Antiquity Nikolai Grinzer, Dean of the Faculty of Art History and Director of the Museum Center Irina Bakanova, Director of the Vygotsky Institute of Psychology Elena Kravtsova and other employees of the Russian State Humanitarian University participated in the meetings on optimizing the university.

In a couple of months of intensive activity, the working group developed both the general mission of the university and the "roadmap" - concrete proposals on how to reform the Russian State Humanitarian University. Both the Ministry of Education and Science and external experts decided that "the strongest fragment of the university is its purely humanitarian academic, scientific research component and the pedagogical part associated with it," and the members of the working group agreed with this. The proposals were sent to the Ministry of Education and Science by the 20th of January, although not in the form of officially executed papers. The program prepared by the working group received oral approval from the department, a source at the university told Ленте.ру.

One of the main proposals of the working group was the division of the university into two clusters: the academic research part, which would include scientific centers, institutes and faculties with significant scientific programs, and the second part, covering practical specialties.

serious ambitions were laid in the mission: the appeal, on the one hand, to the country, the intention to be the central humanitarian university of Russia - given the reputation of the Russian State Humanitarian University, which is still remaining, this is apparently not hopeless - and, on the other hand, a turn towards Moscow: the opening of lecture platforms in the city center, which would have great cultural significance for Moscow," says Neklyudov. There were hopes to receive funding for this program both from the Ministry of Education and Science and from the city.

In addition, the working group proposed to establish partnerships with leading world centers, which would increase the academic mobility of students, form, together with the RAS and international partners, several fundamental programs and projects in the humanitarian direction, deploy a bachelor's educational program like Liberal Arts, create international and copyright masters, reorganize the management and funding system at the university (including developing a wage system that would stimulate a combination of teaching and research activities) and developing a "city university campus" in the center of Moscow. Significant scientific and educational results, according to the authors of these proposals, could be expected within 3-5 years.

A source of "Ленты.ру" at the university adds that the program offered a certain vector of development of the Russian State Humanitarian University, which was largely different from the previous one and therefore, apparently, unacceptable for the current leadership of the university. Soon after the transfer of the program to the Ministry of Education and Science, at the very beginning of February, "Big City," citing two sources - in the department and in the Russian State Humanitarian University - wrote about the imminent resignation of Pivovar as a decided case.

"He began to turn for help to the direct founder, and to various high-ranking officials, and informal curators of the university. This ultimately led to conflict. In any case, his work in recent years has been recognized as ineffective, he has lost confidence and popularity in his team, "the newspaper argued

However, Pivovar, as a source at the university told Ленте.ру, involved "fairly high structures" and remained at his post, and disavowed the proposals of the working group in oral speeches. As a result, the rector "closed almost all control to himself personally," says the source of "Ленты.ру."

Six working groups and FSO

No data on the work of the group, which included Neklyudov, was published. However, on December 25, 2012, a document entitled "On the program for optimizing the activities of the Russian State Humanitarian University" appeared on the website of the Russian State Humanitarian University (the rector is listed as its author). It says that six (!) Working groups created by the university have developed a reform project. Who exactly was part of these working groups and how they relate to the working group, which included Neklyudov (and the name of which, in general, does not imply the presence of five more exactly the same groups), "Ленте.ру" could not be found out. Neklyudov, for example, does not know anything about their existence, but notes that the content of the draft reform does not contradict the proposals developed with his participation.

The document posted on the site assumes the assignment of the status of a "leading domestic scientific and educational center" to the Russian State Humanitarian University, for which the university needs to fulfill a number of tasks - to become one of the international leaders in research and applied development, create a community of humanitarian researchers around the university, expand international cooperation and not only. To achieve these goals, in turn, the authors of the reform proposed to bring socio-economic training programs in line with the humanitarian profile of the university in order to achieve a balance between "branded" and "commercial" specialties, allow employees to choose an educational or scientific profile and create supervisory boards to attract additional funds.

Nothing is known about the fate of these proposals, as well as about the fate of the proposals given to the rector and the Ministry of Education and Science by the group, which included Neklyudov.

But it is known that simultaneously with the development of the program, the leadership of the Russian State Humanitarian University began to conclude various agreements with structures close to the Russian authorities. In January-February, the university's website was full of messages about various forms of such cooperation, contracts and thanks to the Russian State Humanitarian University. The university managed:

• create a joint program with the Federal Security Service called "Kremlin-9,"
• conclude a strategic cooperation agreement with Rosmolodezh and
• receive gratitude from Metropolitan Illarion of Volokolamsk.

Having developed proposals and sent them to the rector and the ministry, the members of the working group did not receive any response, and the program itself has not yet been implemented. "What happened later, I don't understand," says Neklyudov.

Money ran out

The lack of money and the ability to normally take into account the research activities of employees prevented the Russian State Humanitarian University throughout its existence, but before the publication of the results of monitoring universities, no one even tried to carry out systemic changes at the university. At the same time, financial difficulties were added to the problems uncovered by monitoring: in the fall of 2012, it suddenly turned out that the university had run out of money.

"I, like the vast majority of the university staff, do not know how it happened, because at the meetings of the Academic Council we usually received rather encouraging reports on our financial affairs, and then suddenly it turned out that money was catastrophically small," says Neklyudov.

Because of this, the university had to temporarily dismiss part-time workers - specialists in a particular field who read one or two specialized courses per semester, which plays an important role in bachelor's and master's programs. They were promised a new one-year contract - if there is a load - in September 2013, but until September the situation at the Russian State Humanitarian University may change several more times, and educational workers are forced to plan their next academic year in the summer. It is impossible to transfer the load of part-time employees to full-time employees - simply because one person cannot understand equally well, for example, in modern philosophy and Maya folklore.

Philosophy at the Russian State Humanitarian University almost lost budget places in the bachelor's degree at all: first, the Ministry of Education and Science, referring to the "inefficiency" of the university and the low USE score, allocated 15 places in the master's degree - and zero in the bachelor's degree. The termination of budget enrollment in the bachelor's degree would mean the gradual death of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Russian State Humanitarian University (funding for a university in Russia directly depends on the number of students: the fewer they are, the less money the university receives), but in the end the ministry changed its decision and allocated 10 places for bachelors, reducing the number of masters to five.

The crisis of humanitarian education in Russia

Humanities all these years, in principle, are not in honor of officials: Livanov's only deputy with a purely humanitarian education, historian Igor Fedyukin, resigned, and his now former colleague Alexander Klimov, responsible for higher education policy, sincerely believes that humanitarians should be made "engines in the development of the economy," developing primarily such promising areas as television and humanitarian engineering (which is meant by the latter, Klimov does not specify). Under the previous minister, Andrei Fursenko, however, the humanities were also out of work, which "Ленте.ру" at one time was told in detail by the literary critic and translator, professor of the philological faculty of Moscow State University Georgy Kosikov.

2006: Efim Pivovar - Rector of the Russian State Humanitarian University

In 2006, Efim Iosifovich Pivovar was appointed rector of the Russian State Humanitarian University.

2003: Yukos attempt to support the university

It was not possible to combine science and teaching to the proper extent due to lack of funding and inconsistent policies states in the field of university. formations

At this time, almost all Russian state higher education institutions suffer from a lack of funding - except, perhaps, federal and national research universities (but these two categories did not exist until 2006).

In the early 2000s, the Russian State Humanitarian University tried to overcome financial difficulties with the help of the Yukos oil production company. One of the company's leaders, Leonid Nevzlin, even managed to take the post of rector of the Russian State Humanitarian University in 2003, ousting Afanasyev to the honorary, but not leading post of president. However, a criminal case was opened against Yukos and its head Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the same year, and the experiment involving big business in university science and education had to be hastily curtailed.

"The idea that the Russian State Humanitarian University was once Khodorkovsky's stronghold (although this is completely wrong, because he simply did not have time to do anything there), in the eyes of the high authorities, oddly enough, still exists," a university employee told Ленте.ру in 2013.

1991: Establishment of a university based on MGIAI

The Russian State Humanitarian University was created in 1991 on the basis of the Moscow State Historical and Archival Institute (MGIAI). During the first ten-plus years, its rector was Yuri Afanasyev, who had previously worked as rector of the Moscow State Institute of Fine Arts for five years.

Among the first in the new university were created:

• Institute of Oriental Cultures (later - Oriental Cultures and Antiquity, IVKA),
• Institute for Higher Humanities Studies (IVGI) and
• Institute of Philology and History.

It was assumed that science both teaching and teaching will be combined in the new university, and many employees of the Academy of Sciences came to the Russian State Humanitarian University. However, in IVGI, which later received the name of one of the most important scientists in the history of the institute - a philologist, a specialist in the poetics of myth and fairy tale Eleazar Meletinsky, science developed to a greater extent, and teaching on istfil.

According to Nikolai Grinzer, Deputy Director of IVKA, an organic combination of academic science and a high level of teaching was achieved at his institute, where the experience of parallel and comparative research of classical cultures of the East and West was accumulated. Significant scientific schools exist on the same istfil, at the Institute of Linguistics, at the Faculty of Philosophy and in some other divisions of the university.

Meletinsky is not the only world-famous scientist who worked at the Russian State Humanitarian University in the first years after its creation. The university also worked:

• philologist-classic and verse scholar Mikhail Gasparov,
• cultural historian and philosopher Sergei Averintsev,
• historian, specialist in pre-Petrine Russia Sigurd Schmidt,
• culturologist and philosopher George Knabe,
• critic and literary critic Galina Belaya,
• philologist, specialist in literature of Ancient India Pavel Grinzer,
• linguist Sergey Starostin,
• philologist and one of the founders of Russian structuralism Vladimir Toporov and others.

Then more practical and commercial specialties appeared at the Russian State Humanitarian University, for example, the Institute of Economics, Management and Law with its branch of international relations, which in 2012 was at the center of a corruption scandal.

Notes