The first event in the renovated assembly hall of St. Petersburg Mining University was the rector's meeting with student group monitors. In fact, the hall was the first example of what the head of the university expects from the student government.
“I would like it not to be empty, to be used by you all the time, from morning till night. I wish that the initiative would come from the students and not from the rectorate,” urged Vladimir Litvinenko.
By the way, the answer to the question that followed immediately after the speech from the hall, whether it was possible to organize an art exhibition here, was affirmative. It happened a little later, though, because students were not just gathered to talk about the use of the university’s property.
Extracurricular work is usually interpreted as organizing leisure activities, and student self-government as a tool for solving everyday problems. The rector suggested looking at it in a slightly different way.
“You are the leaders of your groups. Or at least you should become one, because, of course, first the monitors are chosen based on questionnaire data. But this is a very important part of your professional development. Not just as specialists, but as future leaders. We need people in mining who can take responsibility, organize, lead,” stressed Vladimir Litvinenko
The audience was somewhat perplexed by the suggestion of one of the monitors to “organize an escort for the freshmen from senior courses to introduce them to the university.” However, this practice already exists, which was confirmed by almost all attendees with raised hands.
As it turned out, indeed not all students are familiar with the opportunities that Mining University is ready to provide them. Thus, one of the complaints of young people was about the lack of foreign internships. Now their number has, in fact, decreased, but this is more of a question for the World Health Organization. In general, Mining University's foreign connections are almost the best in Russia, and even today, despite the difficult sanitary and epidemiological situation, they work. More than 20 miners, for example, are now studying in Austria, Germany, and Finland under double or triple degree programs.
Since the questions continued even after two hours, it was decided to make meetings with university administrators regular. They will be held on Thursdays, starting next week. In addition, there will be a mailbox next to the Rector’s Office, where you can leave suggestions for the university administration.
All of this should change the status of student government from observation of university processes to direct participation in them. As with the use of the hall, students are expected to take the initiative. And also a responsible attitude, because there is no governance without it.
In 20 years, today’s students will be running both the industry and the country. And what it will be like, according to the rector, depends only on them. The dependents do not form public ideas, they are born by the environment of interested and active people. For 250 years the mining engineers have been the “elite of Russia” in a good sense of this word. So raising leaders is a mission for the university no less important than training professional personnel.
The meeting approved the candidates for the seniors, who will be included in the Council of students. A presentation with the lists can be viewed here.
You can see all the photos from the event here