University

The University of Niš was incorporated as an independent degree-granting institution on June 15, 1965. Its establishment rounded off an important, in many ways pioneering, period in the more recent history of the town which started in 1960 when the first undergraduate programs commenced in Niš under the academic patronage of the University of Belgrade. They were institutionalized as the faculties of Law & Economics, Medicine, and Engineering, constituting a core from which a more and more complex and richer physiognomy of the University would systematically develop, following the demands of times and life itself.
The University started its independent life with 234 full-time teaching staff and 6.800 students.
The increase of the student population, the development of new disciplines and the rising needs of the immediate and broader industrial and social environment brought about a reorganization of the existing faculties and foundation of new ones.

"...As a literary man I would like to say a few words about the importance of literature, and generally, of art, in the life of any nation and individual, including your own. I wish you … not to labor under an old Philistine delusion that the so-called practical man should be bent on "subsistence", that is on things that are considered, allegedly, the only real, turning its back on art and fine artistry as luxury or waste of time, as something accessory, superfluous and surreal. No one should ever believe that. Art is, quite the contrary, the very quintessence of all forms of our real life, helping us to comprehend life more easily and live it more effectively, to make it at least more bearable to ourselves and to others. It is an indispensable element in the growth of the human spirit, in the development of the higher forms of social life, and it would be unwise and dangerous to deprive ourselves of its help. This applies to any place and any time. And the man belonging to our present society needs it more than it was the case with the previous generations, as the goals of the new life urge him to be a more harmonious and more universal personality, rather than a biased and narrow-minded professional. And it is exactly this harmony between the reason and the imagination, this balance between the goals and the responsibility of practical life on one hand and the width and serenity of the spirit on the other that should give our man a distinctive feature and ability to fully develop all his creative powers..."