THE HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS

1945. The Department of Mathematics at the Faculty of Science in Split, as the home faculty, receives its institutional foundation in the heritage of the Higher Pedagogic School, the first public higher education institution in Dalmatia, and its study programmes in mathematics. The Rules of Procedure at the Higher Pedagogic School envisaged at first studies to take place within 8 groups of study courses. The third group was mathematics and physics, while drafting and mathematics in the eighth group. Studies lasted two years in all groups. The first Council of Professors at the Higher Pedagogic School numbered 13 members, relating to two groups within which mathematics was studies, and also in the Council were Antun Hruš and Ivan Supek.

1951/52 academic year. The Higher Pedagogic School commenced with work as a three-year programme. The three-year study programme in mathematics, continuing as a double-specialisation, took place over a ten-year period. Besides Antun Hruš, also involved in organising the programme were Stjepan Mintaković, Miroslav Nikolić and Ivo Jukica.

1961/62 academic year. According to Art. 65 of the Act on Higher Pedagogic Academies (Official Gazette, Zagreb, 32/60), the Higher Pedagogic School in Split, just like the one in Zagreb, was transformed into a two-year Pedagogic Academy. In that form, it began operating in the 1961/62 academic year with (17) departments as the basic organisational units. The Department of Mathematics was run as a two-year study programme in mathematics within the study groups ‘Class Course – Mathematics’ and ‘Mathematics – Physics’. The professors at the Department of Mathematics were Miroslav Nikolić and Ivo Jukica. Nikolić in addition to classical academic courses, dedicated his attention to teaching mathematics, whereas Jukić was a geometrician.

1978/79 academic year. The Pedagogic Academy was merged with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zadar and since then, mathematics was studies in the four-year study programme Mathematics-Physics. In running the study programme, in addition to mathematics teachers from Split university, a number of other Zagreb professors were also involved such as Sibe Mardešić, Pavle Papić, Žarko Dadić and Zoran Pusić. Gradually and in planned manner, assistant personnel were employed from newly graduated excellent students in mathematics from the Zagreb Faculty of Science.

1983. The Split part of the Zadar Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences was orientated towards the natural sciences, becoming its independent OUR, i.e., an institution by name: University of Split, Zadar Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, OUR Faculty of Science and education study programmes in Split. In terms of its organisation, mathematicians belong to the Department of Mathematics which operates under the Department of Mathematics and Physics.

1985/86 academic year. The new study programme Mathematics – Computer Science was initiated. This new mathematics study programme was education orientated, with graduates acquiring the title of mathematics and computer science teacher. Computer science teaching personnel gradually become involved in the study programme.

1987The Department of Mathematics and Computer Sciences is established. The core of this Department is the teaching personnel from the Department of Mathematics, whereas the Department of Physics becomes the independent Department of Physics. The two departments continue to jointly organise the study programme Mathematics – Physics, whereas the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science becomes the main entity running the study programme Mathematics – Computer Science.

1988. The Split OOUR separates from the Zadar Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences into an independent faculty. The institution becomes: University of Split, Faculty of Science and Education in Split. The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science continues to operate under the same name, while both mathematics study programmes remain under the same name.

1998/99 academic year. The single-specialisation study programme Mathematics is initiated, also as a specialisation in education. The organiser of the study programme is the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.

1999 The Department of Mathematics was founded. The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science was transformed into the Department of Mathematics and Department of Computer Science. Since then, these two departments were the co-organisers of the study programme Mathematics –Computer Science, whereas the Department of Mathematics autonomously organised the study programme Mathematics.

2004The Department, in collaboration with the Croatian Mathematics Society organised the Third Croatian Mathematics Congress. Twelve years later, the Department agreed to organise the Seventh Croatian Mathematics Congress which will be held in 2020 in Split.

2005/2006 academic year. Given the adjustments to university study programmes to comply with the Bologna process, existing four-year study programmes were transformed into three-year undergraduate study programmes Mathematics, Mathematics and Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics, i.e., three two-year graduate study programmes. Initiating the graduate study programme Mathematics led to achieving the long-term goal of organising non-education-orientated “engineering” mathematics study programmes. Specifically, two such graduate study programmes were established, i.e., in computer science and pure mathematics, as separate specialisations in the graduate study programme Mathematics. In addition to these, as continuity of the long tradition, the study programme Mathematics in Education, as a specialisation of the graduate study programme Mathematics, so too Mathematics and Computer Science as well as Mathematics and Physics as a separate graduate study programme. The home department within which the Department of Mathematics functioned changed its name upon separating education into autonomous faculties, becoming the Faculty of Science and Kinesiology in Split. The Department of Mathematics remained under the same name.

2007 The Department was merged into the Joint University Postgraduate Doctoral Study Programme Mathematics from all four Croatian Universities and their teaching personnel actively participated in proposing advanced courses and running the doctoral dissertation by mathematics doctoral students.

2008 Upon the founding of the Split Faculty of Science and based on the statute, the Department received its current name: Department of Mathematics. The Department remained the unit organiser or co-organiser for all three undergraduate study programmes, and the three graduate study programmes Mathematics – specialisation in computer science, pure mathematics, education; Mathematics and Computer Science – specialisation in Education; Mathematics and Physics – specialisation in Education.

2015  The Department of Mathematics moved to a new building. After 70 years of operating under various names in terms of various higher education institutions at the same address: Teslina 12, the Department of Mathematics moved into a new building located at Ruđer Bošković 33 on the university campus. The grandiose and modern building is intended for three faculties. The Department of Mathematics was the first of all organisational units to relocate all three faculties, and on 14 December 2015, commenced teaching students in the mathematics study programmes.
Even though only the third floor of the new building, in which the Department of Mathematics is located, had fully moved in, with assisted organisation and expeditive action from members of the Department it was functioning, while the remainder of the building was empty, on 16 December the chancellor Šime Anđelinović accompanied by the then dean of the Faculty of Science, Ante Bilušić and the chair of the Department of Mathematics, Nikola Koceić-Bilan came to welcome first-year students of the undergraduate study programme Mathematics, those students who began classes in the new building. This marked the start of a new era for the Department of Mathematics and the Split Faculty of Science, the organisation units of which moved from Teslina Street to the new address in the coming months.

2017 On the Feast of St Dominius on 7 May, the patron saint of the City of Split, the Department of Mathematics initiated the first two (scientific and academic-methodical) mathematics journal under the title of Acta Matematica.

2018 The Department had 26 members, and it is noteworthy to mention that 15 of them had completed one of the mathematics study programmes at the home faculty. Based on the areas of scientific interest of its members, the Department covers all of the most important branches of mathematics.

2018/2019 academic year. Introduced into the existing undergraduate study programme Mathematics are three specialisations which students chose in their second year, specifically: mathematics, computer science, and applied mathematics. Accordingly, the actual name of the study programme is changed to the Undergraduate University Study Programme Mathematics – specialisation Mathematics, Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. This study was devised as a type of “engineering study programme” for mathematics from which student would be able to continue their studies at the graduate level, primarily, in any of the engineering specialisations for mathematics, not just at the Faculty of Science in Split, but also elsewhere in Croatia and abroad. As opposed to engineering mathematics in the undergraduate study programme, in the 2018/2019 academic year, the double-specialisation undergraduate study programme Mathematics and Computer Science adopts more of an education character and has its name changed to the Undergraduate University Study Programme Mathematics and Computer Science – specialisation in Education. Its natural continuation to the graduate level is the education-orientation study programme Mathematics, Information or Mathematics and Informatics. This change means that the Department of Mathematics is making an obvious distinction between education-orientated and engineering-orientated specialisations early in the undergraduate level with the hope of creating in the future a greater number of graduate mathematics teachers which, despite the depopulation of Croatia, are increasingly lacking in numbers, especially in the region of Dalmatia.