History of the University

Chernivtsi National University was founded on October 4, 1875 by decree Franz Josef, Emperor of Austro-Hungary.

In the beginning there were colleges of theology, philosophy and law. K.Tomashchuk, a renowned scientist and public figure, became the first rector of the University. The scientists of European and world fame taught and conducted their research at the University: economist J.Schumpeter, lawyer G.Gross, historian R.Kaindl, Slavic scholars O.Kaluzhnatskyi and S. Smal’-Stots’kyi and composer and writer S.Vorobkevych, among others.

After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 and annexation of Northern Bukovina by the Romanian kingdom, until 1940 the university was one of the Romanian higher educational institutions.

In 1940, after the reunification of Northern Bukovina with Ukraine, the University was reorganized into a state higher educational institution with the instruction in Ukrainian. In 1989 Chernivtsi National University was named after Yuriy Fedkovych, the well-known writer of Bukovina, herald of Ukrainian national Renaissance.

Today in the university there are 16 colleges: physics, engineering, applied mathematics, chemistry, biology, philology, foreign languages, history, geography, economics, pedagogy, law, and philosophy and theology, 71 departments, 16 thousand students majoring in 67 areas. Academic and research work is provided by over 900 professors (100 DScs, associate professors, about 500 PhDs), and 6 Specialized Scientific Boards on candidate and doctoral dissertations defence. Basic areas of scientific research are theoretical and applied semiconductors material study; development of new materials technologies, micro-circuits and devices for optical, radio, and microelectronics, semiconducting instrument-making; static optics, holography; technologies of module teaching; ecology, geography; History of Ukraine, linguistics and literary studies. The University is known for its 5 scientific schools. The Science-research Bukovina Study Center is affiliated with the University, which maintains relations with other centers of Diaspora.

The University together with other institutions in Ukraine founded “Bible and Culture” research center which studies the fundamental problems of humanities and social sciences.

Chernivtsi National University has 14 buildings, the Botanical Gardens, Zoological and Earth Science/Topography Museums, Publishing House, and Library with over 2.5 million books. There is the Department of Military Studies.

The faculty and the students of the University participate in various exchange programs in the USA, Austria, Germany, Poland, Romania, China, Yugoslavia, and Israel and other countries of the world.

In October, 1999 Chernivtsi National University became the member of the International Universities Organization “Phi Beta Delta” (USA).

By the President’s Decree the title of “National University” was awarded to Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi State University on September 11, 2000.

Colleges

College of Applied Mathematics

The College offers 4-year (Bachelor degree) and 5-year (Specialist and Master degree) programs (full-time, part-time and external) in:

Mathematics
Mathematics (Statistics)
Applied Mathematics
Social Information Science

There are five departments:

Mathematical Analysis
Differential Equations
Algebra and Information Studies
Applied Mathematics
Mathematical Modeling

College of Arts and Crafts

The college was founded in 2004 on the basis of Vyzhnytsia Applied Arts School named after V. Shkribliak as non-affiliated subdivision of Chernivtsi National University named after Yurii Fedkovych.

The college trains students majoring in:

Arts and Crafts:
Artistic wood-carving
Artistic metal engraving (jeweler’s art)
Artistic forging
Artistic weaving
Decorative embroidery, clothes design
Fine arts and drawing
Wood-painting
The college comprises the departments of: Arts and crafts and Fine arts and drawing

College of Biology

The College trains specialists granting the following Bachelor’s (4 years) and Master’s (5 years) degrees of full-time and part-time studying in:

Agronomics
Biology
Geodesy, Cartography and System of Land Tenure
Ecology, Environmental Protection and Balanced Environmental
Management
Psychology

College of Chemistry

The College offers 4-year (Bachelor degree) and 5-year (Specialist and Master degree) programs (full-time, part-time and external) in:

Chemistry
Ecology, Environmental Protection and Balanced Environmental Management

College of Computer Science

The College offers 4-year (Bachelor degree) and 5-year (Specialist and Master degree) programs (full-time, part-time and external) in:

Information Science
Computer Engineering
Software Engineering

College of Economics

The College offers 4-year (Bachelor degree) and 5-year (Specialist and Master degree) programs (full-time, part-time and external) in:

Management
Marketing
Finance and Credit
International Economics
Accounting and Auditing
Industrial Economics
Economic Cybernetics

College of Education, Psychology and Social Work

The College offers 4-year (Bachelor degree) and 5-year (Specialist and Master degree) programs (full-time, part-time and external) in:

Pre-School Education
Music Art
Primary Education
Psychology
Social Pedagogy
Physical Education

College of Engineering

The College offers 4-year (Bachelor degree) and 5-year (Specialist and Master degree) programs (full-time, part-time and external) in:

Telecommunications
Electronic Optics
Technological Education (Professional Education and Information Technologies)
Vocational Education

College of Geography

Department of Physical Geography and Rational Nature Utilization
Department of Economic Geography and Ecological Management
Department of Geography and Cartography of Ukraine
Department of Hydro-Ecology, Water Supply and Water Drainage
Department of Geography and  Management of Tourism

College of History, Political Science and International Relations

The College offers 4-year (Bachelor degree) and 5-year (Specialist and Master degree) programs (full-time, part-time and external) in:

History
Political Science
International Relations (Country Studies)
International Relations (International Information)
State Administration

College of Law

The College offers 4-year (Bachelor degree) and 5-year (Specialist and Master degree) programs (full-time, part-time and external) in Jurisprudence

College of Modern European Languages

The College offers 4-year (Bachelor degree) and 5-year (Specialist and Master degree) programs (full-time, part-time and external) in Philology:

The English Language and Literature
The German Language and Literature
The French Language and Literature
English – Ukrainian Translation
German – Ukrainian Translation
French – Ukrainian Translation

College of Philology

Philology
Ukrainian Language and Literature
Ukrainian Language and Literature (for Schools with Romanian major)
Romanian Language and Literature
Russian Language and Literature
Philology (World Literature and Theory of Literature)
Translation (Ukrainian – Russian)
Journalism

College of Philosophy and Theology

The College offers 4-year (Bachelor degree) and 5-year (Specialist and Master degree) programs (full-time, part-time and external):

Philosophy
Philosophy (Religious Studies)
Theology
Sociology

Physics

Electronics and Electrotechnics
Micro- and Nanoelectronics
Applied Physics
Radio Engineering
Technical Information Protection Systems
Physics
Physics (Solid-State Physics)

University Library

The scientific library includes 11 departments: collection department, scientific processing department, department of native fund preservation, department of foreign fund preservation, department of rare and valuable books, book borrowing departments, reading halls, branch department, department of cultural work, department of information technologies and information-bibliographic department.

Interesting is the history of the library. Founded in 1852 as Krayova library it became the first public library in Bukovina and since 1875 (the year of Chernivtsi University foundation) it is the University library. Its total book stock (by 01.01.2005) includes 2.554 thousand copies. Among them: 1.215 thousand copies of scientific literature, 171 thousand of textbooks and manuals, 648 thousand of fiction. The fund of foreign books contains 376 thousand of works in German, Rumanian, English, Latin, Polish, Ancient Greek, French, Hebraic, Yiddish and other languages. At the department of foreign and valuable editions nearly 70 thousand copies are preserved: incunabula, platypuses, native and foreign oldprints, private collections of V. Simovych – professor of Lviv University, Ye. Kosak – Chernivtsi University professor, K. Raifenkugel – Chernivtsi University library director, Tomashchuk’s collection – the first Chernivtsi University president, archives of V. Simovych, Ye. Kosak, I. Karbulytskyi, I. Spivak and the others. The most valuable book dates back to the XIIIth century. It is written on parchment in Latin. This fund also contains books of Marie-Louise, the wife of Napoleon I, books of Franz-Josef I, university professors S. Smal-Stotsky, Ion Sbiera, etc.

The scientific library has alphabetic, systematic catalogues, catalogues for stuff use and alphabetic and systematic catalogues of foreign issues; bibliographical files – the main reference file, file of country study, file of university teachers, scholars, etc. the electronic catalogue started to develop.

The structural departments of the scientific library and its branches at the university departments are annually attended by 37 thousand readers. Currently the year book loan totals 500 thousand copies. The scientific library maintains book-exchange ties with university libraries of 24 countries of the world, in particular of Russian Federation, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Byelorussia, Rumania, Poland, Austria, USA, Britain, Canada, China, Thailand, etc., and numerous university libraries of Ukraine.

Information on Research Activity

Vice president for research manages the research work at the university through Research Department, the head of which is a vice-vice president.

Research Department is comprised of the following departments:

Scientific organizational dealing with the organization of scientific technical research funded from the state budget or commercially;
Department of metrology, standardization and patent has to do with the law enforcement and instructions in the field of the metrological supervision and meeting the standards, protection of copyrights in the process of carrying out scientific and technical research by the university sections;
Department of commercial application of intellectual property that has to seek for customers to purchase the results of the research, supervision over the copyright laws on the research and protection of university’s interests when the research is sold.

Vice-president for science manages the research activity of the university, coordinates Research Department work and other departments of the university, of the main Informational and Telecommunication Center, scientific library, Ruta Publishers, Research Center of Institute of Bukovynian Studies, Geophysical observatory, botanical garden, Faculties, Departments and other research laboratories.

The basic lines of scientific research projects are:

investigations of theoretical and applied semiconductors material study; elaboration of new technologies, materials, chips, and devices for optical and microelectronics, semi-conductor equipment;
statistical optics, holography; technology of module teaching;
ecology, geography; innovation techniques in business and education, problems of creative self-actualization;
history of Ukraine; problems of language and literature.

Nowadays scientific schools, which belong to these branches of science, are working productively at the university. The staff and faculty of more than 1000 workers conduct these research works, among whom 105 professors, and nearly 500 are Associate Professors. At the university there are 8 specialized scientific councils on the defence of Ph. D thesis and doctoral thesis.

Training of the scientists and scientists-pedagogues is supported chiefly by the post-graduate study department; a perspective plan of the training of the specialists of higher qualification has been made. Post-graduate specialities already exist in all the departments, an amount of the specialized scientific councils on defence of Ph. D thesis and doctoral thesis has increased. In 2006 almost 200 post-graduate students, 87 competitors for PH. D. thesis, 19 competitors for doctoral thesis studied at the post-graduate department. 9 doctoral (planned -7) and 43 Ph. D. theses (planned -30) were defended. The efficiency of the post-graduate department (that means a defense during the studies) greatly increased within the last years – in 2006 it reached 65%.

In 2006 129 research works were carried out, among them – 26 were funded by the Ministry of Education and Science, 2 projects were funded from the state budget, 6 funded by programs of the International Cooperation, 13 projects sponsored by agreements with the State Fund of the Fundamental Research, 12 funded commercially, 3 – by the international agreements and 70 – at the expense of the second half of the faculty w