History and Ideology
Tallinn University was established on 18 March 2005 as the result of a merger of several universities (among which the Tallinn Pedagogical University was the biggest) and research institutes in Tallinn as well as the Estonian Academic Library. Having merged with such well-established institutes as the International Institute of Social Sciences and the Estonian Institute of Humanities, its main strengths lie in the fields of humanities and social sciences, but it also has a strong and constantly growing component of natural and exact sciences, as well as a long tradition of teacher training and educational research.
The university consists of 19 academic institutes and 5 colleges. It has around 10,000 students as well as close to 500 faculty members and research fellows — on the whole being the fastest-growing university in the country. In 2010, over 10,000 applications were submitted by student candidates; there were over 30 applicants per state-funded place in the most popular programmes.
The university has committed itself to the strategic goal of becoming an international research university with a strong social conscience and a friendly, flexible and collegial environment for learning and personal growth, where considerable academic freedoms guaranteed to the students and the faculty are balanced by strict quality requirements.
One of the main aims of the university is large-scale internationalisation. With its academic degree programmes and a number of shorter programmes and courses offered in the English language, it is about to become the most international university in the Baltic area. Many academic positions are announced for international application and the university is prepared to host international visiting scholars on their sabbatical leaves or by other agreements.
Tallinn University currently maintains over 30 inter-university agreements with universities in Europe, U.S., Japan, China, Russia, and several other countries as well over 400 Erasmus exchange agreements with universities from all over the European Union. The university also organises summer and winter schools (Tallinn Summer School, Tallinn Winter School) and other short-term courses for foreigners.
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Famous quotes containing the words history and, history and/or ideology:
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“We must conclude that it is not only a particular political ideology that has failed, but the idea that men and women could ever define themselves in terms that exclude their spiritual needs.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)