Southern Federal University

Southern Federal University, abbreviated as SFedU and formerly known as Rostov State University (1957–2006), is a public university in Rostov Oblast, Russia with campuses in Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog. In 2023 US News & World Report ranked it # 1,647 in the world.
History
Southern Federal University is the largest research and educational establishment of Rostov Oblast. The university began to operate in Rostov-on-Don in 1915 as an affiliate part of Imperial University of Warsaw whose Russian staff had been evacuated from Poland with the onset of World War I. Later, with the collapse of Russian Empire, the university was named Donskoy University after the region of Don by the decree of Russian Provisional Government on May 5, 1917. When founded in 1915, Donskoy University was the first higher education institution in Rostov-on-Don and had four academic departments: history & philosophy, medicine, physics & mathematics, and law. In 1917–1920, during Russian Civil War, Rostov-on-Don was under the control of the anti-Soviet coalition forces of Russian White movement including Kaledin's Don Army. Many of the staff who found refuge at Donskoy University at that time had a strong anti-Soviet stance and students were being drafted to White Army. During the turmoil years of the Civil War the official name of the university was Bogaevsky Donskoy University named after Mitrofan Bogaevsky, assistant to Ataman Alexey Kaledin. Following the takeover of Rostov-on-Don by Red Army in January 1920, the authority over Donskoy University passed to the Soviet government. That same year the Soviets purged the university off any seemed disloyal and pro-White movement staff members.
Marina Alexandrovna Borovskaya, president of the university, was suspended by the European University Association (EUA) following support for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Union of Rectors (RUR) in March 2022, for being "diametrically opposed to the European values that they committed to when joining EUA”.
Academics
University centers and degree-granting institutions
Main campus of SFedU (former Rostov State University)
Institute of Economics and International Relations
Pedagogical Institute (former Rostov State Pedagogical University)
Taganrog Institute of Technology (abbreviated as TIT, former Taganrog State University of Radioengineering)
Institute of Architecture & Arts (former Rostov State Academy of Architecture & Arts)
The Smart Materials Research Center
Rankings
In 2023 US News & World Report ranked it # 1,647 in the world. In 2017, Times Higher Education ranked the university within the 801-1000 band globally.
Degree mill
The volunteer community network Dissernet has discovered multiple cases of PhD level degrees being awarded by the university for heavily plagiarized theses.
Alumni and faculty
Alumni
Alexander Ankvab, President of Abkhazia
Alexander Bovin, journalist, political scientist and diplomat
Aleksander Burba, chemist, founder of metallurgy of germanium
Alexander Fedorov, media educator, film critic, editor of Media Education Journal
Zinaida Ermol’eva, microbiologist and biochemist who developed first Soviet-made antibiotics, recipient of numerous Soviet awards
Sergey Shakhray, deputy Prime Minister of Russia
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writer Nobel prize winner
Valery Tarsis, writer.
Tony Vilgotsky, writer
Faculty
Dmitry Morduhai-Boltovskoi, mathematician
Dmitri Ivanovsky, botanist, founder of virology
Ivan Alekseyevich Kornilov, Soviet general
Vladimir Semyonovich Semyonov, Soviet diplomat
Sabina Spielrein, psychoanalyst
Iosif Vorovich, mathematician
Yuri Zhdanov, chemist, rector of the University of Rostov (1957—1988)
See also
List of modern universities in Europe (1801–1945)
References
External links
Official site of Southern Federal University
Official site of "Piezopribor" - R&D center affiliated with SFedU
Official site of Institute of Economics and International Relations
Official site of Taganrog Institute of Technology
Federal universities of Russia