Olga Yakovleva, Head of the NSU Marketing Department, talked about the event,
The target audience for this event is graduates. That is why it is called "Back to NSU". All world-class universities maintains contact with their graduates and assumes it will be interesting for them to return to the university after they have received a diploma and listen to a lecture. Our alumni are interested in doing this so we first tried the event three years ago and it was a success.
Over the two days, University teachers conducted 14 full classes in various subjects ranging from logic and Arabic philosophy to evolutionary biology and mineralogy.
Lyudmila Budneva, Senior Lecturer at the NSU Humanities Institute, shared her impressions of her unusual lecture,
My lecture was devoted to the worldview of a man in the Baroque period and the art of this period. Particular attention was paid to the modern perception of this cultural phenomenon, because, in my opinion, baroque is very relevant today. This lecture was a real adventure for me, because you never know how long a person attending will stay. I hope that these types of events will be held regularly at NSU because I would also like to attend lectures given by my colleagues who are not philologists.
In the evening, the second part of the action took place in a more informal and spiritual atmosphere. Called the “Second Field”, it was planned as a series of outdoor lectures. Unfortunately, due to bad weather, the event was moved inside, but this did not inhibit the intended atmosphere. People of all ages attended this lecture series, some came with their friends or classmates, others attended with their family.
During the evening, five Geology experts talked about the growth of crystals, presented results of work by geophysicists and geologists on the islands of the Lena Delta, tried to solve the riddles of geodynamics and climate change, and reported on the most important events in the evolution of life on Earth from the moment of its inception until the appearance of man.
Vasily Marusin, Senior Lecturer at the Department of General and Regional Geology Section at the NSU Geology and Geophysics Department, described this aspect of the event and his presentation,
Personally, I like the format for the "Second Field" even though this year it had to be held inside because of bad weather (this often happens in geology). The atmosphere created by the organizers allowed participants to sit with maximum comfort, and relax as they gave their presentations. The audience experiences the same degree of comfort. I think this format of “partial immersion" is the most effective for the popularization of scientific knowledge.
As for my lecture, it was, to a lesser extent than my colleagues, focused on geology. I talked about the extremely popular topic of global climate change and its relationship to people. I tried to convey to the audience how important it is now, when we are surrounded by an incredibly dense information field, to apply critical thinking to all vociferous pronouncements. I did this by analyzing some sources that were based on varying degrees of scientific knowledge. I stressed how important it is when you hear the latest alarming announcement about an imminent catastrophe of almost universal scale, to assess critically what has been said, to look for primary sources of information, and to study alternative points of view. I tried to convey that there are no simple answers to difficult questions. Only when a person engages with information in this way, will the ideas in his head reflect the real state of things to the maximum extent possible.