Recollections

The ASU history inseparably linked with the development of Siberia, including the Altai and the city of Barnaul. In 50-60 years Barnaul turned into a students’ city. The pre-war Teachers’ Institute was renamed Pedagogical. It was joined by Polytechnical and Agricaltural Institutes (the former evacuated Zaporozhsky Machine Building and Leningrad Agricultural Institute), today known as the I.I.Polzunov Altay Technical University and the Altai State Agrarian University. In 1954 the Medical University was founded. In the 1960’s and 70’s, a comprehensive program of development of the Altai was worked out, which required the presence of highly qualified specialists and, above all, of a broad university education. The need for specialists who are prepared mainly by universities, was increasingly felt by industrial, agricultural enterprises, government structures, institutions of education, medicine, science, etc. For example, only 18% of economists had higher education.

By the beginning of the 70-ies there were 32 scientific institutions in Altai with 3,2 thousand researchers, including 18 doctors and 593 candidates of science. Unlike many areas of Siberia there was no academic institution in the region. In these circumstances, the only coordination centre for science in the Altai region could become a classic university.

In 1972 the Soviet Union suffered from a crop failure, but the Altai had a record harvest of grain that helped to attract the attention of the state government and receive approval for the establishment of the classic university. August, 26 General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev visited Barnaul. During his visit, the first secretary of the Regional Committee of the CPSU, Alexander Georgiev decided the issue of opening the Altai State University: Alexander Georgiev was well aware that the region lacked the existing set of institutions — agricultural, medical, educational and polytechnic institutes. In 1973, ASU was opened.

May 29, 1973 Vasily Ivanovich Neverov was appointed rector of the university. Work on organizing of a new educational institution began. Among many urgent issues the most important was the staff of the University in general, and faculty in particular.
First of all, the management of a new university had begun to recruit leading professionals to head the opening of departments, laboratories and other departments, and to ensure qualified teaching. The departments had to become not simply as groups of teachers, but as teaching and research units, united by the scientific interests.
Tomsk and Novosibirsk State Universities provided the assistance with teaching staff.

The only to some extent solid unit entering ASU was Barnaul affiliate of law faculty of Tomsk State University, which had a full set of courses of evening and correspondence departments.
There were 9 departments:

  • history (the first head — d.ist.n. AP Baradaukin);
  • Russian Language and Literature (k.fil.n., Associate Professor IA Vorob’eva);
  • Foreign Languages (Professor E. E. Katsenshteyn);
  • Pedagogy and Economics (d.ped.n., Professor P. Kostenko);
  • Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure (Ph.D., Professor E. Tikhonov);
  • Civil Law and Procedure (Ph.D., Associate Professor G. Mishchenko);
  • theory of law (Ph.D., associate professor AK Havel);
  • Marxism-Leninism (k.ist.n., Associate Professor VI unbelievers);
  • Physical Education (Master of Sport DY Zvyagin).

July 21, the local newspaper «Altaiskaya Pravda» printed the announcement about the first intake of students at ASU. Aug. 1 the entrance exams began. The competition was great — 7 people in place. October 1, 1973 Altai State University began its life.

Over time, the Altai school was formed. Unlike the Novosibirsk school which is considered purely scientific, it is less academic, but more emphasized on practical training of specialists ready to work, to deal with regional issuies.

The general research objectives were as follows: active involvement in scientific work of the faculty and expanding the number of researchers; increasing relevance, practical significance and effectiveness of academic works; the concentration of scientific capabilities to perform work within the main scientific directions of the University; the orientation of research topics to address the challenges facing the national economy of the RSFSR, and primarily the Altai region.

In the 70-80-ies. they initiated the material and technical base for scientific research. General university services were established (data center, RIO, libraries, botanic garden, service STI, field workshops) economic agreements were made.
In the short run the departments created a network of educational labs and classrooms, equipped with instrumentation, in some cases the latest.

There were already 54 school laboratories and 10 studies in 1979.

One of the most important areas was the creation inter-department and inter-faculty research laboratories. Initially, some of them were formed as a non-statutory and acted on a voluntary basis.
The assistance in post-graduate education was provided by the Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Leningrad univercities, and also the Moscow University.

University administration and some departments sought the organization of their own graduate study. It was opened in 1982 under the order of the USSR Ministry of Higher Education in the field of «Organic Chemistry», «History of the USSR», «Dialectical and historical materialism», «Land Hydrology and Water Resources», «Theory and History of Pedagogy».

Of great importance for improving teaching and academic qualifications was the practice of academic trips to other institutions of higher education for advanced training. Invaluable for fast-growing, but a provincial university of the 70-80-ies were long-term (up to five months) academic trips to the best universities and research institutions, including Moscow, Leningrad, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Kiev and other universities. University faculty had the opportunity to listen to the lectures of prominent native scholars, work in the best libraries, the central archives, get acquainted with theaters, museums, sights of the largest cultural centers in the country, communicate with their colleagues who came from various universities. It was a powerful resource for scientific and educational potential of the University.

By 1984 the University was executing 46 integrated task programs by common efforts of several departments.

For the Altai region was of particular importance the formation of physical materials science at the university because of large quantity of the region machine-building enterprises. Therefore, there was rapid development of scientific and educational fields of solid state physics. 

Print version Modified 1.07.2011