On 22 December, the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology celebrated its anniversary in the auditorium of the main building of Voronezh State University. Graduates, lecturers, students, colleagues, and partners came to congratulate their favourite faculty.
“People of different generations who are present in this hall today can be divided into three categories. Some of them remember the birth of the faculty: These are the youth of the 1960s and 1970s. Others have devoted all their lives to the faculty, with the exception of sleep and adolescence. Also, there are young teachers who have just joined our team. And I hope that they will remain with the faculty,” said Olga Boriskina, Dean of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology.
Professor Bronislav Tabachnikov, Voronezh Honoured Worker of Higher Education of the Russian Federation, gave a speech in the honour of the jubilee faculty. He spoke about the origins of the faculty. Bronislav Tabachnikov said that the faculty started to develop in the 1960s, the period of a cultural and industrial boom in Voronezh and the country as a whole. The faculty had to train personnel for international delegations which visited the city and to teach foreign languages at all structural units of VSU. The professor talked about the unique educational, methodological, and scientific life of the faculty staff.
The art historian concluded his speech with a short poem based on a poem by Rasul Gamzatov “Mystery”.
VSU Rector Dmitry Endovitsky, expressed his gratitude to the representatives of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology. He emphasised the importance of the difficult decision taken by Professor Boris Mikhantiev, VSU Rector at that time, to spit off 4 departments of foreign languages from the Faculty of Philology. They became the foundation of the emerging Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology.
“Now, this is the largest faculty at VSU. It is still very popular: applicants from all over the country come to Voronezh to enrol on a course at the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology. The admission score at the faculty is very high, and the competition is very tough for both state-funded and fee-paying places. The Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology is actually a creative laboratory, a unique unit of our university,” said Dmitry Endovitsky.
The rector presented the faculty with a gift, a 100 thousand rouble grant foundation to reward young researchers and faculty members under 39 years old. This action is aimed at increasing the prestige of research activities by teaching staff and retaining personnel of this age category.
The Dean of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology spoke about the peculiarities of the faculty’s work. Today, the faculty has 18 employees with a DSc degree, 90 employees with a PhD degree, and 18 young lecturers under 30 years of age. The number of students at the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology is 1,580 students. The structural unit has a centre of experts in Unified State Examination and Basic State Examination in foreign languages. Also, the faculty works with gifted children of the region, takes part in an innovative project aimed at creating a computer-linguistic platform of a new generation. The Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology is planning to build a new university building on the embankment, to launch new educational programmes and courses, to create new sites of practice training, and to conduct new research.
Outstanding representatives of the faculty were distinguished by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. Professor Alexey Kretov, veteran of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, Head of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, was awarded with a badge of honour. Janna Shakhidzhanyan, an academic affairs specialist and an employee of the Dean’s office at the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology, received an honorary certificate of the Ministry. These prizes and certificates from the rector of VSU were awarded to the faculty teachers by Oleg Kozaderov, Vice-Rector for Research, Innovations, and Digitising at VSU. Also, a number of lecturers received certificates of honour from the Government of the Voronezh Region.
At the end of the festive meeting, deans of other faculties and heads of other structural divisions congratulated the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology: Sergey Medvedev, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Mathematics, Informatics, and Mechanics, Viktor Semionov, Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry, Zhanna Gracheva, Dean of the Faculty of Philology, Maria Burlutskaya, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, Semion Kurolap, Dean of the Faculty of Geography, Geoecology, and Tourism, and Alexander Krylovetsky, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Sciences.
