Each year on November 14th, sociologists in Russia celebrate their professional holiday.
The Department of Sociology of the SUSU Institute of Media, Social Sciences, and Humanities has been educating sociologists since 1998. More than 1500 graduates of the department are working successfully in various fields, including in sociology.
The early 1990s were a time of new challenges and problems for SUSU. The structure of the university underwent serious changes as well. The necessity to renew education and organize the constant monitoring of society (one of the important tasks which needed to be solved) became obvious.
In 1991, the Department of Sociology was organized within the Laboratory of Sociological Research. The team, under the guidance of Candidate of Sciences (Philosophy), Associate Professor E.V. Mironov, the first Head of the Department, was actively engaged in research, which became the department’s claim to fame. Their research interests were focused on the urgent problems of modern society: analyzing political processes in Chelyabinsk, the attitude of citizens to public authorities, electoral processes in Chelyabinsk and the Chelyabinsk Region, the audience of the mass media, and more.
The first group of students for the new specialty Sociology was accepted in 1998. Today, the department trains Bachelor’s and Master’s degree students in Sociology. Over the course of its existence, the department has trained more than 1500 sociologists.
The academic staff of the Department includes its alumni: N.V. Antonova, L.I. Belova, S.S. Bredikhin, E.M. Valeeva, S.V. Odiakov, E.G. Sosnovskikh, and I.R. Shakirova, who successfully defended their dissertations and received their titles of Candidates of Sciences.
In addition to research and teaching, graduates of the Department of Sociology are successfully proving themselves in the fields of marketing, advertising, and public relations, in the field of state and municipal administration, and in journalism and publishing.
Department graduate Ivan Polukarov founded the MarS centre for sociological and marketing research—the largest in the region.
Elena Kolbasova, department graduate, founded MYNEWFOOD, a company which sells natural products made from coconut, founded the brand MYNEWFOOD, and is also a producer and television host for the Pervyi vegetarianskii (First Vegetarian) television channel in Moscow.
Graduate Anastasia Talanova achieved success in the field of advertising as manager of TTG OOO advertising agency, Moscow.
Some graduates of the SUSU Department of Sociology succeeded in public service: Sergey Bredikhin, Director of the Centre for National Unity; Irina Shakirova, consultant for the Department of Expert Analytics of the Department of Public Relations of the Chelyabinsk Region Government; and Aleksey Kosarev, Director of the Centre for Youth Initiatives.
Today, under the guidance of the Head of the SUSU Department of Sociology, Candidate of Sciences (Sociology) Elena Salganova, international relations are being actively developed. In October 2020, the department joined the International Sociological Association (ISA, Madrid, Spain), which opens new possibilities to successfully integrate into the international sociological society.
The department actively conducts interdisciplinary sociological and marketing research. At this time, as part of the fulfilment of project-based education, the department is carrying out research entitled Migration and Migrants in the Reflection of Social Opinion in Chelyabinsk, jointly with the SUSU International Laboratory for Migration Studies and the Centre for National Unity of the Chelyabinsk City Administration.
The department includes the Sociology and Marketing Studies Teaching and Research Laboratory, which oversees the department’s research and development, participates in preparing grant applications, and holds master classes and training sessions on innovative methods and techniques of sociological and marketing research. In addition, the department includes the Sociological School of Technologies of Social Design, which works with students from schools, gymnasiums, and lyceums of the Chelyabinsk Region. Events are held within contests, such as Step into the Future, Sirius, and more.
Department contacts:
Address: Room 234 (Sociology major),
76 Lenin Prospekt (main building)
Telephone:
+7(351) 267-90-03 (Sociology major);
Tel./Fax: +7(351) 267-97-08.
E-mail: sociopolit[at]susu[dot]ru
Web-site: https://sites.susu.ru/sociopolit/