Basic information

Faculty of Arts supports and develops tuition at all academic levels, starting from bachelor’s level studies, through master’s level up to postgraduate studies where graduates obtain the Ph.D. title. The faculty also offers chosen programmes in a combined (part-time) form, and the possibility to participate in degree programmes of life-long education.

Fundamental principles of the faculty include freedom of choice and design of studies, an individual, personalised approach towards students and the accompanying development of their individual qualities. The faculty broadly supports student activities and emphasizes involving students in professional and cultural projects. FF UP creates space for open discussion and stimulates creative thinking.

The years that followed the two mile¬stones of 1968 and 1989 were crucial. The early years were a time of the founding and creation of individual departments: Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, Art, History of Art and Aesthetics, History, and Philological departments such as the Czech language department, western language departments and Slavonic Studies. The 1960s brought a period of liberalisation of the Communist regime, which also meant certain positive developments at the university and the faculty. These, however, ended af¬ter 1968. Many professors were expelled from the faculty, were forbidden to publish, or had to stop teaching. Thus, the period between the 1970s and 1980s was one of the worst in the history of the faculty.
The biggest change was brought by November 1989, when many of the professors came back to the faculty. Also, new depart¬ments were founded after 1990: Politics and European Studies, Journalism, Classical Philology, Asian Studies, Netherlandistics, and several others. This resulted in a wide range of fields that can be studied at the Bachelor, Master, or Ph.D. levels.
The faculty is self-governing. Every third year, the academic body of professors and students elects the academic senate, which in turn elects the dean of the faculty for a four year term.
The Faculty of Arts, with its twenty-one departments, almost 6 000 students and more than 250 teachers is the biggest of the eight facul¬ties of Palacký University.