On Friday, November 26, St. Petersburg Mining University held a meeting of the Academic Council. It began with a moment of silence in memory of the miners and rescuers killed in a methane explosion at the Listvyazhnaya mine in Kuzbass.
As Vladimir Litvinenko, the rector of the university noted, the cause of the tragedy is a reckless attitude to the system of staffing of high-tech industries, which includes the entire mining sector.
“Unfortunately, we have to state that this situation is systemic. Throughout the entire vertical of state regulation, the main operations - process management, control, working out technological documentation, workplace management - are related to the human factor. Of course, the culprits will be found, and the causes of what happened will be identified. But it is important to understand that only people who are highly qualified in the area to which the production relates can effectively manage an industrial enterprise. Only a professional is capable of evaluating day-to-day the possible consequences of all decisions made and understands the responsibility for them. On October 6, during the meeting with Vladimir Putin on power development, the governor of the Kemerovo region Sergey Tsivilyov emphasized that today the main problem of the coal industry is its personnel shortage. There is a 40% shortage of professional mining engineers at regional enterprises,” Vladimir Litvinenko emphasized.
The second topic of the meeting was the question of the form and principles of the university’s student community, which arose in connection with the creation of the international movement “Student Voice" on the initiative of students of mining University. Let us remind that its members advocate the diplomatic resolution of international conflicts and reduce the level of escalation of political tension around the world.
“Today the student community in many countries is not politicized, but its opinion on many issues is taken into account by officials and diplomats. The effectiveness of any association is determined by the level of its self-organization. That is why within universities modern student associations should function in the form of public-professional associations, which are subject to the powers of trade unions, rather than in the form of hobby clubs. We have more than 20 such units: geologists, musicians, athletes, and so on. But we are missing the main components of university life - science and education. As of Monday, that principle will be changed. A student council presidium will be formed from the seniors of the groups. Each faculty will delegate two people to it. In the future, the presidium members will have to elect their leader, who, together with a specially invited coordinator from among our young graduates, will become the head of the association. Such a structure will allow students to be more mobile and actively involved in the life of the university, to effectively defend their interests and maintain a competitive environment,” said Vladimir Litvinenko.
This week the rector held a meeting with first- and second-year group monitors, and next week he plans to have a similar meeting with representatives of senior grades. Then a general meeting of all headmen will be announced.
First vice-rector Natalya Pashkevich and vice-rector for operation and development of the property complex Anatoly Suslov also made their reports.
