Faculty of Arts of the University of Niš 

ABOUT THE FACULTY

Organizational structure

The Faculty of Arts of the University of Niš has three departments

  • Departmen for Fina Arts
  • Departmen for Applied Arts
  • The Department for Music Art encompasses the teaching chairs for Theoretical Subjects, Professional and Art Subject, Solfege, Piano, Complementarz Piano, Chamber Music, Bowing Instruments, Wind Instruments, Guitar & Accordion, and Solo Singing.

The curricular and extra-curricular activities are implemented within four Faculty centers:

Educational activities

The Faculty of Arts of the University of Niš offers a variety of fully accredited study programmes implemented at the level of:

  • Bachelor’s degree (Music Theory and Pedagogy, Piano, Bowing Instruments, Wind Instruments, Solo Singing, Guitar, Accordion, Painting, Graphical Design)
  • Master’s degree (Music Theory and Pedagogy, Performing Arts, Painting, Graphical Design).

Artistic activities

Aside from the primary line of activity that the Faculty has been successfully pursuing for more than a decade as a uniquely profiled higher education institution in South-East Serbia, it also plays a very significant artistic role manifested in the form of year-round public concerts and exhibitions of the students and mmbers of the Faculty senior and junior teaching staff held in the Faculty Concert-Exhibition Hall and other concert and exhibition spaces in the city.

The Faculty maintains excellent relations with other cultural institutions in the city, such as the Niš Symphony Orchestra, Public Theatre, Cultural Center, Student Cultural Center, Gallery of Contemporary Fine Arts and Gallery Art55, thus contributing to the diversification and quality of the cultural and artistic life of the city. The members of the Faculty teachnig staff and its students successfully organized various artistic projects such as: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony performed at the Fortress Summer Stage within the celebrations commemorating the 1,700th Anniversary of the Edict of Milan (2013), staging of the operetta “The Bat” by Johann Strauss (2013) which was also performed in the National Theatre in Belgrade, and of Rossini’s opera “The Barber of Seville” (2015). Such ventures greatly contributed to the project of revival of the opera house in Niš. The Faculty was granted the highest city award – “January 11” in 2012 as a sign of recognition of its mission of spreading and affirming high artistic values. The students and members of the teachnig staff regularly take part in various national and international referral music and fine art competitions, where they have already won numerous prestigious awards and prizes. The Faculty policy to invite and host world-class artists as guest professors – such as Miša Dacić (Mersin University, Turkey, International Piano Academy, USA) – and permanent hosting of master courses and workshops, contribute to the Faculty’s growing reputation in the academic community. Among such names are the world renewed violinist Nemanja Radulović and prof. Dimitrije Bužarovski, Ph.D, who received honorary doctorates of the University of Niš following the proposals made by the Faculty of Arts.

International cooperation

International cooperation with the relaated European and worl iniversities constitutes a very significant aspect of the Faculty’s educational, artistic and research policies. The Faculty is a member of the European League of Institutes of Arts (ELIA), Association Européenne des Conservatoires, Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen (AEC), and the International Confederation of Accordionists. Also, the Faculty implemented a student exchangee programme with York Univerity from England (2013), the project Melodies of Tolerances with Kocaeli University and Art Nicomedia from Izmir, Turkey (2013), and exxhibitions with St. Cyril and St. Methodius University in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. The Faculty maintains excellent cooperation with the Faculty of Music of the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia.

Research and publishing

Accreditation granted for research work has a special significance for the Faculty. Accreditation of the Bachelor and Master levels of a new study programme for percussion instruments is currently underway. The Faculty plans for the near future include setting up of a department of dramatic art, as well as accreditation of specialist study programmes.

So far, the Faculty has organized two symposia within its “Balkan Art Forum” initiated with an idea to serve as a platform for scientific and artistic exchanges of eminent domestic and international theoreticians, pedagogists, artists and researchers: “Art and Culture Today” (2013) and “The Spirit of the Time and Problems of Interpretation (2014). The topic of the “Balkan Art Forum” 2015 is “Crisis in Art – Art in Crisis”. The members of the Faculty junior and senior teachnig staff are regular participants of numerous scentific and professional meetings in the country and abroad. A couple of research projects have so far been initiated within the Faculty Research Center for Arts in cooperation with the Research Center of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences and the University of Niš, namely Musical Heritage, Contemporary Creative Endeavours and Taste Education, and Traditional Aesthetic Culture. The Faculty Publishing Center has already compiled a respectable number of scientific and professional publications including several monographs, manuals, as well as the “Balkan Art Forum Proceedings 2013”. The audio editions include six CDs with the recordings of representative pieces from the world music literature interpreted by the Faculty students and members of the teaching staff. The Faculty publishes its art magazine “Aperto nuovo” and journal “Artefact”. Within the international scientific journal of the University of Niš “Facta Universitatis”, the Faculty of Arts launched its own edition – “Visual Arts and Music”

HISTORY

THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN NIŠ was established pursuant to the Decree of the Government of the Republic of Serbia no. 022-13603/2002 of 3rd October 2002 (”Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia” no. 64/2002). The Faculty started working on 3rdOctober 2002.

An excellent basis for setting up the Faculty of Arts in Niš as an independent degree-granting institution within the University of Niš was the establishment of the Departments of Visual Arts and Music in 2000 within the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Niš.

The Faculty was founded as a higher educational and artistic institution offering programs in Visual Arts, Applied Arts, and Music. At the beginning of its existence and work, the Faculty was faced with major spatial and material problems. According to the above mentioned founding decree, the Faculty was located in the building that was housing the College of Music.

The first and originally the only body of the newly founded Faculty was a seven-member temporary council whose task was to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for setting up the regular Faculty bodies and set the foundation for the future operation and development of the Faculty. Until the establishment of the regular Faculty bodies, all the issues falling under the competences of the faculty council, educational-artistic-scientific council and election council – as regulated by the University Law in effect at that particular period – were dealt with by the Temporary Council.

The members of the Temporary Council of the Faculty of Arts in Niš were:

  • Prof. Dr. Dragan Žunić, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš, President;
  • Goran Ćirić, Major of the city of Niš;
  • Prof. Dr. Igor Milovanović, Vice-Rector of the University of Niš;
  • Prof. Dr. Vladimir Nešić, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš;
  • Slobodan Dejanović, Director of the College of Music in Niš;
  • Suzana Kostić, MA, assistant professor of the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, and
  • Dragoslav Djokić, LL.M., Secretary-General of the University of Niš.

As regulated by the above mentioned founding decree of the Serbian Government, Djuro Radonjić, MA, associate professor of the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, was appointed Acting Dean of the Faculty, whereas Suzana Kostić, MA was elected Vice Dean for academic affairs of the Faculty.

In the same sequence of events the Faculty received a formal recognition of the Ministry of Education and sports regarding fulfillment of the personnel, spatial and technical requirements for the implementation of four-year undergraduate studies in the field of Music and five-year undergraduate studies in the areas of Applied and Visual Arts. Finally, on 22nd October 2002, the Temporary Council adopted the Faculty Statute and Annual Work Program, and successfully finalized the process of recruitment and appointment of the teaching staff.

In academic 2003/2004, the first generation of students at the Faculty of Arts in Niš was admitted.

The organs of the Faculty were constituted in December 2003, when the Temporary Council of the Faculty ceased to exist.

At the first elections in 2004, Prof. Dragoslav Aćimović, MA was elected Faculty Dean, and after the first two-year mandate was reelected twice (1st October 2006 – 30th September 2009, and 1st October 2009 – 30th September 2012).

Following the election procedures, in April 2012, Prof. Dr. Suzana Kostić, was elected Dean of the Faculty for the period 1stOctober 2012 – 30th September 2015.

In compliance with the 2005 Law on Higher Education, the Faculty Council adopted its new Statute on 2nd November 2006, and the Senate of the University of Niš passed a resolution on approval of the study programs offered by the Faculty at the level of Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. The Faculty received accreditation for all the study programs conducted at the Bachelor’s and Master’s level.

Over the first decade of its existence and work, the Faculty has intensively developed in all the segments that make up a modern higher education institution. However, it should be noted that the results of the development of the Faculty would have been even more significant had the overall “climate” for support of young and ambitious institutions of our kind been better, primarily in terms of the Faculty’s crucial problem – space, particularly in the light of the very strict standards required by the modern teaching methods in the field of art and the standards that the institution and the study programs must meet in order to be accredited.

Over the past years, the Faculty teaching staff has grown to 95, and its officers’ number to 23. About 476 students are studying currently at the study programs.

So far, 707 students have graduated from the Faculty, and 57 students successfully completed their master studies.