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 3^rd October 2002 (”Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia” no. 64/2002). The Faculty started working on 3^rd October 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 22^nd 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 (1^st October 2006 – 30^th September 2009, and 1^st October 2009 – 30^th September 2012).

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

In compliance with the 2005 Law on Higher Education, the Faculty Council adopted its new Statute on 2^nd 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.

• A WORD BY THE DEAN ON THE OCCASION OF THE TEN YEARS OF THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN NIŠ