REPORTS ON THE WORK PERFORMED AND THE PROCESS OF ITS IMPLEMENTATION: THE SESSION OF THE ACADEMIC COUNCIL HAS BEEN HELD

The session started with the ceremony of awarding. As we have already informed, the 1st year student of Master’s program of YSU Institute of Pharmacy Kamo Yeghoyan won a gold medal in Triathlon Europe Championship. For upholding the honour of Armenia and the university Aram Simonyan awarded Kamo Yeghoyan with YSU honorary diploma.

The agenda of the session included confirmation of the decisions of the faculty academic councils on the competitive election of the head of the chair; the report of YSU Rector on the process of implementation of YSU strategic program of 2016-2020 (for the academic year of 2017-2018); notification on the results of the implementation of “Complex measures against corruption in 2017-2018 academic year” at YSU; the report on the process of implementation of the educational and scientific program of qualification increase of YSU faculty and the report on the activity of YSU Ijevan branch in the academic year of 2017-2018.

Referring to the first issue on the agenda the chairmen of the competition commissions of the academic council Naghash Martirosyan and Khachatur Nerkararyan presented the list of the applicants for the position of the head of YSU chair, which included representatives of 15 chairs. An accounting commission was formed and a closed, secret voting was announced.

Touching upon the second item on the agenda Aram Simonyan mentioned that during the three years, significant work had been performed, “The first chapter of the program relates to high-quality education: some provisions have been implemented, others are being performed”.

“The second part of the program refers to up-to-date research and innovations one of the problems of which is to make the standards of the 3rd grade higher education at the university correspond to Salzburg principles. To achieve it we have to implement the main part of the measures. However, we have to admit that the Ministry of Science and Education hasn’t set its attitudes referring this degree yet”, said YSU Rector.

According to Mr. Simonyan, there are still unsolved problems related to the program of development strategy. The 4th chapter of the strategy program refers to the quality of human resources within the frames of which we made structural changes, but taking into account the fact that the number of entrants has significantly decreased we are not able to provide proper salaries. Besides, the average age of the faculty is 51 years old which means that we must take more consistent steps to encourage young scholars and attract them to the university.

The 5th chapter of the program deals with high-quality infrastructures within the scope of which more favourable working conditions have been provided, however here we have some problems too. High-quality services are still our “Achilles heel”. This year the number of part-time students and various paid services decreased as well”, remarked Aram Simonyan.

YSU Rector claimed that the most important problems are to provide the number of entrants and financial stability. “I have said many times and would like to claim again that YSu administration, anticipating the scarcity of entrants and financial difficulties had taken steps the prevent more serious problems. I also want to stress that the number of entrants was even more than we had expected”.

Referring to the internationalization of the university Aram Simonyan noted that YSU cooperates with international universities and implements joint scientific and research programs.

Referring to the next item on the agenda, the Vice-Rector for Students, Alumni and Public Relations Ruben Markosyan spoke about the results of the measures undertaken during this academic year against corruption. He claimed that a number of action included in the program are actually in concordance with the RA anti-corruption strategy and aim at neutralization and reduction of corruption risks in the sphere of education.

“Among these activities are the organization of anti-corruption education and working out of ethics rules, prevention of plagiarism, improvement of HR management system, increasing of the transparency and accountability of the activity of universities. The activities provided by the program are performed and coordinated by the YSU commission for anti-corruption measures coordination formed by the order of the Rector of the university.

The head of the Postgraduate Additional Education Department Zhasmen Aghasyan made a report on the process of implementation of the educational and scientific program aimed at the qualification increase of YSU faculty and on the number of members of the teaching staff participated in the program.

Then the issue of lecturers’ knowledge of the English language was discussed and it was stressed that it is vital to know this international language to keep up with the modern achievements.

The last item on the agenda dealt with the report of YSU Ijevan branch activity in the academic year of 2017-2018, which was presented by the director of the branch Artak Tsutsulyan who presented the data and informed that the website of the branch is launched in three languages and the library webpage was opened as well.

At the end of the meeting the results of the secret voting were summarized. Accordingly, the Academic Council of YSU confirmed the election of the heads of the chairs made by the ACs of the faculties. YSU chief accountant Rafik Grigoryan informed on YSU budget implementation for the period of January-November of 2018 as well as the budget expectations in 2019.

Among the current issues YSU Academic Council also made a decision on applying to the RA MES for the guarantee for publication and confirmation the scientific work entitled “Bioenergetics” authored by Armen Trchounyan as an academic manual.