The Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences (formerly Smolny College) of

Saint Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

() is the first Department in Russia (

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

) to be founded upon the principles of

liberal education A liberal education is a system or course of education suitable for the cultivation of a free () human being. It is based on the medieval concept of the liberal arts or, more commonly now, the liberalism of the Age of Enlightenment. It has been d ...

History

The Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences emerged from Smolny College (officially the Arts and Humanities Program), which was created in 1994 by Saint Petersburg State University in close collaboration with

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...

(U.S.). Bard College's interest in curricular innovation and the reform of international education coincided with the interests of a group of creatively-minded scholars from Saint Petersburg State University. In the fall of 1997 the Smolny Center announced a program of open courses to be attended by students from SPSU and other St. Petersburg universities. There are approximately 700 students enrolled in the Faculty. Up until 2021 Students who completed the four-year course received a B.A. in liberal arts both from Bard College and from Saint Petersburg State University. In 2021, Bard College was declared to be "a threat to the fundamentals of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation" by the office of the Prosecutor-General of Russia. Saint Petersburg State University administrators subsequently announced their plan to terminate Smolny's long-term relationship with Bard College. In October 2022, Saint Petersburg State University decided to discontinue educational program "Liberal Arts and Sciences", and from 2023 admissions onward has opened a new program in "Arts and Humanities" without any key feature of liberal arts approach. This has been perceived by the media as the beginning of the end of the department. The university has refuted these claims. Many faculty members have left the university, and some of them initiated Smolny Beyond Borders Project.

References

External links

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Smolny Beyond Borders Project
Educational institutions established in 1999 1999 establishments in Russia Bard College Liberal arts colleges Saint Petersburg State University {{Russia-university-stub