Academic council activity as the basis for university autonomy: historical aspect

Abstract

The article describes functions and authorities of academic councils of Ukrainian universities as the basis of their autonomy in historical aspect. The purpose of the paper is to study academic council activity evolution in Ukrainian Universities of the XIX-th century through singling out and characterization its stages from the modern standpoint to strengthen university autonomy, develop the quality of university management and prevent mistakes and shortcomings of the previous period. The applied methods were: general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, comparison, systematization, and generalization) and methods of historical research (chronological, logical-historical, historical-typological, and retrospective). The most important findings have become distinguishing and characterizing four stages of activity of academic councils in Ukrainian universities within the studied period: I stage (1804 - 1835), II stage (1835 - 1863), III stage (1863 - 1884), IV stage (1884 - 1906). Characterization of the stages of academic council functions and authority development from the modern position has demonstrated that in order to develop the quality of university management as well as educational service quality universities need real university autonomy, which should be strong enough to prevent mistakes and shortcomings of the previous periods.