- You, Naiman Bubeevich , headed Kokshetau University named after Shokan Ualikhanov since November 2010. Please tell us about your first impressions of the regional university where you were sent by the Ministry of Education and Science.
Personnel decides everything! First of all, I started by getting acquainted with the heads of departments, with the teaching staff of the university, and, I note, it is not my rules to invite heads of structural divisions into the office, I prefer to look in with my own eyes for a minute, see life ... I walked around all the buildings with alacrity, so to speak, studied infrastructural situation. I was glad that the team was organic, stable, and positively disposed to effective cooperation. One of the first orders issued by me as rector of the university was the order to appoint Aigul Doszhanovny Zhakupova as vice-rector for academic affairs! As an experienced leader, I rightly realized: at first I needed a demanding, responsible, competent and at the same time advanced and proactive deputy who could make decisions independently. Aigul Doszhanovna knew well and had time to learn the strict demanding style of work from her bright useful work as the main expert in philological sciences in the evaluation of candidate and doctoral dissertations of the Committee for Quality Control in Education. Aigul Zhakupova prepared the final competent conclusions for the Committee for Control in the Sphere of Education of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, necessary for the assignment of academic titles. And it ’s no less pleasant for me to know that all these years she has been successfully and worthy, under different heads of the largest university in northern Kazakhstan, coping with the enormous volume of the extremely complex work of the vice-rector.
- What for you, Naiman Bubeevich , first of all, became a priority in the new place?
I will not hide that I was depressed by the neglected appearance (both outside and inside) of literally all the educational buildings. Therefore, I took on the task of rebuilding the infrastructure of buildings with zeal and enthusiasm. Moreover, I am grateful to the team who unanimously supported my endeavors, because a lot was done in a very accelerated time frame. Only with the active participation and energetic support of the team could such positive changes occur in the shortest possible time. For example, in 2011 alone, about thirty new teaching laboratories were opened, and the entrance to the main building was completely reconstructed. They also took care to install a large inscription at the entrance to the high-rise building “UNIVERSITY”, which is now visible from afar. I was also surprised that the rector’s reception room was located on the first floor; on my initiative, it was moved to the second floor, the vice-rectors’ offices were modernly equipped, and the amphitheater-style assembly hall was modernized, accommodating two and a half hundred people. Understanding how important it is to preserve for posterity the history of the creation of the first university in the region, he ordered the creation and adequate equipment of a KSU museum.
Social problems, the arrangement of student dormitories, and student meals remained important to me. There is a dining room. An iron fence was installed along the building along Kuanysheva Street , and I often saw an unsightly picture: dogs were roaming around and cows were grazing... The landscaping of the territory and the aesthetic appearance of the educational institution remained relevant: they managed to put in order and complete the external cladding of the educational buildings. By the way, through my efforts, the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering acquired a new prestigious status of “Agricultural Technical Institute” at KSU, which was named after Smagul by the decision of the Academic Council Sadvakasova .
Only noble people are truly grateful: at their own expense they achieved the construction of a granite pedestal and installed a new commemorative bronze bust of a famous political figure (the previous one, built back in 1994, alas , was not pleasing to the eye). A direct descendant of Sadvakasov came from Moscow to the grand opening and warmly expressed his admiration for how in distant Kokshetau they preserve the memory of an outstanding figure, a representative of the truly Kazakh national intelligentsia, who defended the right of the Kazakh Republic to decide its destiny and history. After this event, the flow of grateful letters sent to the rector of the university from various parts of Kazakhstan and Russia did not dry up, with words of gratitude for perpetuating the memory of Smagul Sadvakasov .
- Naiman Bubeevich , what innovations did you manage to introduce when you were the head of a regional university?
I would like to note that for the first time, students, undergraduates and teachers were sent from KSU to study at distant foreign universities under the Presidential program “ Bolashak ”. And this is 25 people in 2011! True, a slightly smaller number were sent to study in the West in 2012!
It would not be an exaggeration to say “for the first time,” because before me, the university’s management had not particularly delved into the essence of this amazingly significant educational project; no one was particularly worried about the continuation of high-quality Western education for students and undergraduates, or about improving the qualifications of the teaching staff. And the submission of applications to the Ministry was practically not followed up to the end. I managed to establish monitoring of this important process, since before becoming rector I headed the Committee for Quality Control in Education at the Ministry of Education and Science for several years, I speak about this very responsibly and unambiguously. He carefully studied the selection of candidates for the “BOLASHAK” program, and, importantly, was confident in each of his recommended candidates, personally took all the documents to the capital to the Ministry of Education and Science, and followed the fate of each declared applicant to study at the leading universities of the world. We had to prepare personnel for our university!
During my time, the Department of International Cooperation was opened, and I entrusted it to a young talented girl, Candidate of Sciences, Associate Professor, fluent in English, Bella Aslanbekovna, to head it. Gazdieva . Now she heads the Akmola branch of the Academy of Civil Service under the President in Kokshetau. By the way, I would like to separately note Gazdieva’s personal merits and responsibility in preparing and arranging trips for our children to study abroad.
- Naiman Bubeevich , university is first and foremost science! Tell us about the research activities of the faculty of Valikhanov KSU.
From the height of my practical experience, I dare to say that the scientific research of the university began very intensively during the period of my leadership of the university, science really took off, teachers, students and undergraduates began to win scientific grants, scientists from various departments of the university truly perked up. With obvious benefit for themselves and for the university, they submitted scientific applications for participation in competitions and, of course, there were victories, foreign business trips, which I was incredibly happy about...
- Naiman Bubeevich , during the years of your management of the university, funny cases must have occurred, because when working with young people, you must constantly be in fighting shape and not relax. Could you recall the most memorable fragments from that time?
One day I got a call from The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan with a request to send senior students of the foreign faculty who would help serve the foreign delegation as translators for a week. We sent the most creative students to the MFA. However, the university envoys returned from the diplomatic services only after a month and a half - they were released to Kokshetau only after 45 days, so high-quality training of young translators turned out to be in demand. Our students were praised for their thorough knowledge of a foreign language and excellent preparation, in comparison with students of other universities of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Of course, they thanked the management of KSU for such an intellectual gift ... Another such episode... One day, an alarmed secretary came to me and reported: “A crowd of students has gathered in the reception room, and this delegation of young people wants to immediately come to my rector’s office!?!” I, too, was confused, I sinfully thought that something extraordinary had happened, God forbid it should bring me into trouble. Without hesitation, he ordered to be invited into the office. 25-30 students come in. Interrupting each other, they begin to noisily expound on something, but I am still in the dark about what brought the guys to me. Finally, one of them, apparently the most nimble and lively, on behalf of everyone solemnly addresses me with the words: “Thank you, Naiman Bubeevich , for your titanic efforts for us, but we were finally able to feel that we are studying at such a wonderful university as Shokan University Ualikhanov !!!" For me, this unexpected visit from a student activist became a reliable indicator of my professional worth, a sincere assessment of my efforts and work...
- Tell us briefly about yourself.
My small homeland is the south of Kazakhstan, a blessed land, the embodiment of earthly paradise for me. I was born on September 27, 1950 in the village of Kainarbulak Sairam district of South Kazakhstan region. My father, Kalabaev Bubey , a participant in the Great Patriotic War, went to the front at the beginning of the Finnish War in the late autumn of 1939, and before mobilization he worked as a school director. He fought throughout the war, steadfastly enduring the hardships and deprivations of a soldier’s harsh life. In the victorious year of 1945, I reached Berlin itself - from childhood I remember a memorable photograph that became a family heirloom - my still so young dad among the Red Army soldiers at the Brandenburg Gate. The generation of our fathers, who fought against fascism, the victors who liberated Europe, is still for us today a symbol of courage, bravery and military valor. It was our fathers, having survived the post-war hardships, who created a peaceful life in a modest, even meager existence, but nevertheless they always strived somewhere above and beyond earthly blessings. My father, a front-line soldier, did not have the chance to return to school; after the war, he was drafted into law enforcement, where he worked until retirement. Mom – Ziyalina Aiganys , having a teacher's education, which at that time was both rare and prestigious, devoted herself to her family, raising eight children, my three brothers and four sisters .
In 1973, I successfully completed my studies at a technical university in Moscow. The student period in my life is memorable for visiting performances of the capital's theaters; we, students who arrived in the golden-domed national republics, certainly wanted to see the sensational productions with our own eyes - so, it happened that, taking turns, we stood in line for hours at the ticket offices of the Bolshoi and Vakhtangov theaters that were famous in those days, Sovremennik, the Taganka Theater. We absorbed a special aura of spirituality, trying not to miss the most important thing in cultural events, what you feel with your heart and remember with your mind. He defended his candidate's dissertation in 1988, and then his doctorate. As in my youth, I love to read, my taste for literature is selective and demanding, I give preference to the classics.
Since childhood, I have been interested in the intellectual game of chess, later I became interested in billiards, like many representatives of my generation, I respect retro music, I play the classical guitar and saxophone. I was lucky enough to live forty years of my life in my beloved Alma-Ata, an amazingly poetic city at the foot of the great white mountains, calling a person to go to the heights and reach them. Only there can I feel at home.
- Naiman Bubeevich , as you know, you are the owner of many government and state awards, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Academician of the National Engineering Academy, Honored Worker of the Republic of Kazakhstan, what would you like, as a venerable scientist, a luminary of Kazakh science, to wish to the students of the university on the university’s anniversary 2022 th year?
Energy of the Spirit, creative self-realization, flexible scientific thinking, independent research for the benefit and benefit of society, the ability not to give up in a difficult life situation, to go against fate, not to be afraid of change, to remember that in this life it is not the one who is stronger who wins, but the one who who goes to the end. Until the bitter end.
