20.04.2005 Discussion Club “Pro et Contra”

September 2004 may be considered the club’s official date of birth, when the first club meeting was held dedicated to the topic of modern higher education in Russia. Since then once a fortnight students from various departments of PetrSU and their teachers gather together to discuss topical problems. One of the club’s aims is to encourage intellectual communication between students and teachers which is in fact – at least theoretically – the aim of the young people going to the University. This is not it however. For many people the club is an opportunity to train the skills of formulating their ideas, express them before the public and bring to one’s consciousness what one feels.
The idea of such communication is dictated by the time itself. The club pays great attention to bringing up an active civil position of its members. A lot of problems in public life sprout from the opacity of the power’s policy, absence of a clear course, predictable results, control and civil initiative. Besides, the vital problems being untold cause new problems. Whatever we speak about in the club, we do it with ultimate frankness, seeking the solution. It would be good to have more clubs of such sort.
You will not face “a bulk of strange indifference” here. The members discuss what concerns them with interest being prepared for that by socializing experience and university education. They are interested in meeting with outstanding people who do have what to convey to the youth. Thus another objective is partly met, that of the transition of culture experience to the younger generation. The air of intellectual talk also contributes to the development of those who are involved.
The club enables people to be what they would like to be. This is all right for a human always wants to become better. On the other hand, many agree that human is not something complete and finally formed, but is always in the making and self-search. Hence proceeds an informal and tolerant character of the discussions, when they are viewed as a workshop, a creative laboratory with a place for mistakes and failures.
An understanding of the measure of one’s ignorance on some problem remains after each discussion which is a good incentive for self-education and increasing one’s intellectual level. The communicating process encourages socialization of the youth, develops empathy, rhetoric skills and dialectic thinking.
In the end of every meeting every member must openly express his reflections and impressions of the discussion, according to the tradition which ascents to PetrSU Psychology club.
The club is open for everybody who have a taste for polemics and problems of modern world. Religious confessions representatives, those of civil organizations and bodies of power, journalists have been our guests. Welcome to the club! You may write us a letter and get the information about the planned activities.
Maxim Efimov,
Coordinator of the club.