GITIS students decided to boycott classes

Students of the Theater Faculty of the Russian Institute of Theater Arts (GITIS) announced the cessation of attending lectures, seminars, tests and exams in protest against a decision on the merger of the theater and producer faculties of the university.

“We express our disagreement with the decision of the rector and the Academic Council (as a composition that was represented on 12/20/16) in this way: present in the territory of GITIS, we stop our participation in the educational process, which includes attending planned lectures, seminars, tests and exams,” TASS quotes the open letter of students.

“We will save this situation until the moment when our requirements are satisfied,” the initiators of the boycott write. They claim that they are “arranged only by the rector’s legally formalized decision on the merger of two faculties - theater and producer - with a repeated convocation of the Academic Council in full force, in the presence of the dean of the theater faculty N.S. Pivovarova. "

His Rector Grigory Zaslavsky announced the merger of the Producer and Theater Faculty of GITIS at a meeting of the Scientific Council on December 21, explaining this decision by the fact that “almost all Russian festivals are supervised by theatrical critics,” so people of this profession need knowledge and producing.

Students, graduates and teachers of GITIS turned to Zaslavsky, as well as the Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky and the chairman of the Union of Theater Workers of Russia, Alexander Kalyagin, pointing out a violation of the charter of the university when making a decision on the merger of faculties and demanding a repeated convocation of the academic council in the full composition and open discussion "with the participation of teachers and students interested in the fate of their faculties."

In turn, Zaslavsky stated that “the conflict will be opened from scratch,” since when uniting, “humiliation of any of the faculties”, not one of the professions, is not supposed. “This is not about the friendly or unfriendly absorption of one or the other. We are talking about the unification and appearance of a single coordinating center, ”the rector of GITIS explained, noting that the result of such a“ revolutionary unexpected connection ”should be“ improving the quality of education and those and others ”.

The Ministry of Culture supported the decision of Zaslavsky to unite the theater and producer faculties of GITIS, since “the rector is better than organizing the educational process,” said Vladimir Aristarchkhov, First Deputy Minister of Culture.