History of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Maribor
It is often difficult to pinpoint the beginning of a higher education institution. Its roots are usually deeper than the beginning of the institution’s operation. The story of the Faculty of Arts in Maribor is no different.
It is not entirely inaccurate to state that the High Theological School in Maribor, founded by Anton Martin Slomšek in 1859 when the diocesan seat was transferred from St. Andraž to Maribor, is the Faculty’s predecessor. Here, they nevertheless began researching philosophy, church and art history, and also devoted themselves to Slovenian literature, especially in the context of Lipica, the theological newsletter.
One of the most outstanding students and then professors at the High Theological School was undoubtedly the theologian, historian, and philosopher Dr Franc Kovačič (1867‒1939). While teaching philosophy, he was rightly considered as the father of the Slovenian scientific Maribor. He represented the driving force behind the foundation of the Historical Society for Slovenian Styria. The Society immediately began publishing a humanistic scientific journal, and Kovačič’s initiatives and the needs of the Society later gave rise to a study library, archives, and a museum. He can, therefore, be considered as an important source of inspiration in terms of humanistic studies in the city along the Drava River.
Naturally, the institutional beginning of these studies had to wait. It is connected to the foundation of the Pedagogical Academy in 1961. Some of the studies that are taught at the Faculty of Arts today were launched within its framework. In 1975, the Pedagogical Academy became one of the founding members of the University of Maribor. In the 1970s, it was given its own building, in which the Faculty of Arts is still situated today. Eleven years later, in 1986, it finally became the Faculty of Education that we know today. Undergraduate study programmes were soon joined by postgraduate ones, and the first doctoral dissertation was defended in 1994 in the Department of History. The standard two-subject programmes were simultaneously joined by single-subject programmes.
The Faculty of Education brought the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and teacher training all together under one roof. In Maribor; however, there was also a burning desire for independence amongst the Humanistic Faculty. This wish was granted in the 2006/2007 Academic Year, when the large Faculty of Education was divided into three smaller Faculties: the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and the Faculty of Arts.
Originally, the Faculty of Arts included 10 departments (the Department of English and American Studies, the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Geography, the Department of German Studies, the Department of Hungarian Language and Literature, the Department of Pedagogy, the Department of Translation Studies, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, the Department of Sociology and the Department of History). Later, the Department of Psychology and the Department of Art History were added. In the 2008/2009 Academic Year, the Faculty admitted first-year students to the undergraduate Bologna Degree Programmes for the first time. These courses were joined a little later by postgraduate programmes. Most departments now also offer doctoral programmes.