Engagement in the life of the University

The Rector met Iaroslav Zhukovets, a third-year bachelor’s student in Sociology, Chairman of the Student Council of St Petersburg University (Chairman of the Student Council of the Faculty of Sociology); Aleksandr Iarov, a fourth-year bachelor’s student in Law, Deputy Chairman of the Student Council of St Petersburg University (Chairman of the Student Council of the Faculty of Law); and Ivan Didenko, a second-year master’s student in Political Science, Executive Secretary of the Student Council of St Petersburg University (Chairman of the Student Council of the Faculty of Political Science). These members of the Presidium of the Student Council were elected on 24 October 2024.

Although the Student Council and students do not have the rights to govern the University, but students have extensive rights that help them actively participate in the life of the University community, said Nikolay Kropachev. Not all universities grant such rights to students. St Petersburg University has been consistently implementing a programme to enrich student engagement in discussing and solving a wide range of issues in the University’s life. The University is strong in its multidisciplinary nature and practice-oriented approach to educational and scientific activities, said the Rector. The Rector recommended members of the Student Council to regularly read the Minutes of the Rector’s meetings and the section "A fresh start" on the St Petersburg University website to gain a deeper understanding of what the University life is and how the University is moving forward.

Answering students’ questions, the Rector talked about the examples as to how the University deals with various problems and how we should approach them. The first example was the following: during the construction of the University’s facilities in Peterhof in 1975 to 1986, buildings, external power supply, heat supply, water supply, sanitation networks, and the road network were included in the balance sheet of Leningrad State University /St Petersburg University. This was a decision of the University administration. Over 50 years, the University has spent hundreds of millions of roubles from extra-budgetary funds to maintain this entire engineering infrastructure, which is on the balance sheet of the University. Since 2010, attempts have been made to transfer the engineering infrastructure to the balance sheet of special enterprises and organisations of St Petersburg. Only in October 2019, the first, but still small results of actually nine years of work were finally obtained. An order was issued by the Property Relations Committee of St Petersburg on assigning external power supply networks to the State Budgetary Institution "Lensvet". St Petersburg University transferred the infrastructure to the State Budgetary Institution "Lensvet". 

The second example is that students asked who to contact if the area around the University building in Peterhof is not cleared of snow and ice, and road surface distress affect road capacity and traffic flow. The Rector replied that members of the Student Council can help resolve this issue in a comprehensive manner: collect information about where and what road defects are found, what places, in their opinion, require repair and in what order the work should be carried out, rank them by importance and urgency. Each issue has its global side and it is resolved in one way; and each issue has its local side and it is resolved in another way, said Nikolay Kropachev. Each time it is necessary to determine the scale of the problem and act accordingly.

The members of the Presidium of the Student Council of St Petersburg University discussed with the Rector other issues, including: preparation and publication of the "Vestnik of the Student Scientific Society"; repair of the University building on Kadetskaia Line; regulation of prices in the University canteens and buffets; use of premises in the student campus and opening of sports facilities; construction of a second checkpoint in the student campus towards "Lenta"; an opportunity for students on a government-funded basis and fee-paying basis to travel to the University recreation centres and development of selection criteria by the Student Council; students’ proposal to conduct audio ‑and video recording during meeting with officials; and issuance of orders and observance of students’ rights (taking into account the meaning and letter of the law) to name just a few.

At the end of the meeting, the Rector invited the members of the Student Council to work at the University after graduating from St Petersburg University and receiving a diploma from the oldest university in the country.