University is a mission of service to society

The current rector, in order to enter Moscow State University, worked for two years as a miner in Gorlovka, and his grandson went to Fiztekh.

Press conference of the President of the Russian Union of Rectors, Rector of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov Viktor Sadovnichy was dedicated to the 2022 admissions campaign.

On August 9, orders were published on enrolling applicants in universities. Sadovnichiy was glad that after the break the journalists gathered for a face-to-face meeting. The rector plans to start the academic year in full-time mode.

A great joy for the rector is the completion of the admissions campaign. This year, more students came to Moscow University than in previous years. For two or three years, the number of places at Moscow State University has increased by three hundred, these are biology, genetics, and oriental studies. The enrollment has increased in all universities. Despite the decline in school output, Moscow State University managed to maintain and even increase enrollment. The average competition for Moscow State University has risen to 10.46 people per seat.

According to the data presented, there were 14,679 applicants in 2022. The plan for admission to the budget for full-time education, undergraduate and specialist studies, amounted to 3931. In total, 41111 applications were submitted remotely. Everyone had to be tested.

Moscow University is one of the few that conducts additional entrance examinations (DWI) in all subjects. Upon admission, the results of the Unified State Examination and victories at the Olympiads are taken into account, but the DWI is also held.

DWI is related to the subject chosen by the applicant. The person may be in a distant village. There are video cameras and there are proctors, three people per applicant, who watch from and to. Further already check in MSU. These are thousands of professors and teachers who have been at work all summer and took exams.

There was an interesting case: a boy from a distant place wrote DWI, raised his hand and asked permission to go out to drink water. And when he left, a girl, his sister, crawls out from under the table, she looked around and dived under the table again. Of course, he withdraws from the competition, but it’s funny that his sister helped.

There are many categories of applicants at Moscow State University, they are determined by the government. Children of fallen soldiers. Students are citizens of the Russian Federation expelled from other countries. Guys from the LNR and the DNR. Fulfilled all quotas of Moscow State University. About ten thousand foreign students study at Moscow State University, including two thousand students in branches. Eight branches in different countries are successfully working, preparing the elite for these countries. This year, three thousand applications from fifty countries of the world have been submitted. It is planned to accept 2200 people for the first course. Most from East and Central Asia.

Moscow State University organizes hundreds of educational programs for foreigners, some of which have a competition of six people per place. The Institute of the Russian Language and Culture teaches the language for a year, and then they enter. This year, 1,200 applications were submitted to the IRI, twice as many as last year. These are contract students, the payment deadline is September, more than half have already been paid. There is a problem from European countries. Maybe they want to come from the USA, but they can’t.

Sadovnichiy called the number of rectors’ forums held over 20 years – 75 – an amazing figure. Five thousand rectors took part. Rectors’ forums are the basis and authority of our education. This is the force that helps us to accept foreign students.

Sadovnichiy told how long they argued whether university rankings were needed. He criticized foreign ratings, they have a large component of the assessment of experts who know better the education of their countries. Therefore, Sadovnichiy plucked up courage and several years ago expressed the idea of ​​​​creating his own rating. It was called “Three missions of universities” – education, science and service to society.

As a result, foreign ratings excluded us, and our rating became the strongest, most authoritative and recognized. We have over a hundred countries. Moscow State University has prepared the sixth edition of university rankings, it will be presented at a press conference on August 30.

Sadovnichiy is grateful to journalists for a booklet of 30 interviews for 30 years of work as a rector. In all interviews, he disagreed with the direct copying of the Bologna system. The rectors of Western universities were against it. But in 1998 the ministers of education and finance signed the Bologna system and it became law. Then Russia joined. Sadovnichy believed that we should move forward, but not copy. The Bologna system did not contribute to the development of fundamental education. He offered a six-year specialty, in some cases a five-year one. Postgraduate studies should be scientific, not educational. Well, to allow graduates of the specialty to enter the magistracy, and not to prohibit, as it is now.

Sadovnichy’s proposals were expressed and adopted at large parliamentary hearings in the Duma.

Our advantage is that the people have a mentality, and they try to delve very deeply and think, think. This mentality is very connected with fundamental education, it is required for the soul. This tradition should be developed, Sadovnichiy believes. We are on the right track. This is the rector’s response to the Bologna system.

Nowadays, online courses play a very important role. The public wants to hear more about the achievements of science. Moreover, real scientists, what will happen to the climate, about exoplanets, what is genetics, what medicines will appear.

As an additional education, two institutes were retained at Moscow State University. These are the French University College and the Russian-German Institute. They work as structures of Moscow State University. There are seven hundred additional education programs in total.

At this point, Sadovnichiy noted that he is not a supporter of distance education in general. This was forced due to the situation. But additional courses are quite acceptable remote. The main thing is to be able to tell. Basic education should teach you to think, here you need to watch with all your eyes.

Separately, Sadovnichiy spoke about the so-called valley, which is still under construction and is already actively developing. This year the Lomonosov corps will be commissioned; it is being built by the Moscow government. In 2025 the valley will be built. There are already results, medicines and satellites are being made.

Sadovnichy is proud of his projects. The Assembly Hall was restored for one and a half thousand seats. This is the best auditorium. Another project of a school for gifted children. Moscow State University is building a new palace, preparing for the 270th anniversary.

Sadovnichiy concluded his forty-minute monologue by saying that if it were not for Moscow State University, the country would be different. Rector Sadovnichy is our man. He does not consider it possible to impose restrictions on admission. In Soviet times, we clung to the university when the admission numbers were small. The future rector, a member of the Komsomol, left for Gorlovka, worked as a miner for two years, and only then was he able to enter Moscow State University.

Public speeches to journalists by the chief rector of the country and the world, Viktor Sadovnichy, are always meaningful. He turned out to be a unique version of the media person who answers the question. He has an amazing sense of the natural and, in my opinion, he literally, on a whim, chooses the best promising solutions. Only rector Sadovnichiy understands my questions and treats their irrelevant essence carefully. In general, he answers questions in a meaningful way, and the meaning is especially pronounced in cases where the answer to a banal question requires breakthrough creativity.

For example, when the subsided liberal media came to the press conference of the current rector, they demanded a response from him regarding the admission of students to events marked with Navalny’s name. Sadovnichiy, in response, reminded the ignoramuses how one of his predecessors as rector, Prince Trubetskoy, during the student unrest of 1910, stood at the door and did not let the students out – “Guys, study!”

There were quite a few such people with a powerful sense of the natural among the mathematicians of Moscow University. It is a rarity that Sadovnichiy has been leading a university leadership course for thirty years. The non-partisan rector Ivan Petrovsky was less fortunate, although he managed to seriously raise the level of the university. In particular, he created the Department of Biophysics of Lev Blumenfeld, whose lectures I listened to for four semesters.

The gardener is not one of those with whom you can quickly agree on a short leg, his intellect is inexhaustible like the life of the Earth. Some of the questions raised at the press conference seem obvious, but we must not forget that the position of rector of Moscow State University in terms of political weight and the number of people walking around often turns out to be at the level of the head of government. He cannot afford wording that allows interpretation and inadequate resonance.

The issue of patents through the Vorobyovy Gory valley was highlighted by Sadovnichiy in such a way that Moscow State University was the largest patent holder in Soviet times and, in general, remains so even now, the rector constantly signs the registration fee. A lot of money is needed to ensure the protection and operation of Russian patents abroad. In practice, this means that Russian intellectual property will never be recognized abroad under any laws, otherwise they will simply never pay us off. Let them pay without fraud for our material energy resources.

As for intangible assets, it is desirable to move in two directions: not to recognize the intellectual property of countries that do not recognize Russian intellectual property, and to create a register of stolen intellectual property. More precisely, robbed, because everything was done openly, including through patents and Nobel Prizes. In the first place should be Web of Science, taken out of VINITI by the creator of ISI, Eugene Garfield.

This fascinating story would not be of particular interest due to its extremely widely replicated banality of intellectual robbery, including in genetics and selection, if bondage scientometrics were not imposed on the basis of what was taken out of Russia. I repeat, everything was done quite openly, Garfield had been at VINITI for many years, and they gladly gave him all the secrets of Soviet scientific indexing.

In my opinion, the question of the exhaustibility of the description of life on Earth seems much more attractive. Oddly enough, it stems from the previous one in connection with the inability of scientists to see the essential under their noses.

Registration of new species is indeed an inexhaustible process. This requires type criteria and cluster analysis by type used for university rankings. This, however, is about something else. According to an employee of the Department of Mycology and Algology of the Biological Faculty, Galina Belyakova, life on Earth has so far been described only to a small extent. Such forms of life are possible that we do not see due to the inertness of thinking and blurred vision. Perhaps our cohabitants on the planet will be new kingdoms or even domains and higher. So far, we don’t even understand how Dinophytae with a giant genome are arranged, causing red tides. The key issue of the press conference was a double shot at the inability of the Faculty of Journalism to provide staff for popular science journalism and the need for lecturing by professionals from science.

Lev MOSKOVKIN.

Photo edu.ru