Abstract:

Globalization mostly arrives in technological terms, like new tools for existing institutions that could change them for the better. However, some key entities, like education, reflecting the needs of human nature come to the forefront of perennial debates of irreplaceable activities. The very human image is on demand in every contestable decision that touches social and cultural abilities to the prestigious global or regional standards in developing the existing university traditions that bear a significant glamour of national specifics. However, the technological side beats all other aspects of educational activities as the obviously convertible component of modernity and perspectivity. Tools speak for themselves, while values are in the shadow of hustle and bustle of daily news. To evaluate the internationalization of university education also means to analyze the invariant humanitarian components that make the university function. Russian universities are now on crossroads with a number of oppositions, where the status of traditional or classical disciplines is highly contestable. There are innumerable conceptions and projects designed to reshape the image and the contents of university education in Russia. Nevertheless, humanities, supporting the cultural context of human life uniquely guarantee the portfolio of future innovative projections.

The off-beaten sociological diagnosis of ‘cultural lag’ is the least clear representation of university education mission.
(1) Every real education is essentially humanitarian.
(2) The competitiveness in the most narrowly-specialized research could be only guaranteed by a broader imagination supporting the specialist capability for decision-making with unexpected parameters.
(3) As the science is not a world of accumulated knowledge but a social institution of people doing science, the humanities only can help to support the cultural level of university communications that would stagnate inefficiently without them.

Thus, we have to find the solutions that will balance open-minded technological innovations with neo-traditional humanism of a classical university science. Our methodology consists in qualitative description and analysis of humanitarian trends in modern Russian university education.

Keywords:

Humanities, university education, social technologies of education, personal capabilities, global culture.