DIF in Novi Sad: docents Mikic and Vukovic lose jobs

The Faculty of Sport and Physical Education at the University of Novi Sad, known by its acronym DIF, is losing two of its teaching staff. The faculty’s Electoral Council twice this year failed to reappoint docents Mladen Mikic and Jovan Vukovic, even though expert commissions established that both men met every legal requirement and that not a single objection had been raised against their reports. Mikic spoke publicly for the first time today, September 18, telling N1 about the outcome of the vote, while Dean Patrik Drid told Tanjug the same morning that politics must not be allowed back into the faculty.

The Electoral Council’s first session on Mikic’s reappointment was held on July 10, 2026. Ten of the council’s 28 members voted in favor, 18 abstained, and no one voted against. The commission’s report, which had recommended his reappointment, therefore failed to win the required majority. Mikic filed an appeal, but at a repeat session on September 10 the outcome was almost identical, and this time Vukovic also failed to be reappointed as docent.

Mikic has spent 11 years at the faculty, working as an assistant from 2015 before being elected docent in 2021. He taught Basketball, Theory, Methodology and Practice of Basketball, Scientific Research in Physical Education and Sport, and Scientific Models of Elite Sport. He says he was the only candidate in the competition for his own job.

“My contract was due to expire on October 6 this year. I held the title of docent, and in March a competition was announced for all titles, meaning it wasn’t specified which teaching title the competition was actually for,” Mikic explains the circumstances under which the competition was launched.

According to him, his contract expires on October 6. The newspaper Danas, however, reports that the deadline for both docents falls on October 5 and October 6, meaning Vukovic’s and Mikic’s employment does not end on the same day.

The commission appointed by the Electoral Council stated in its report that Mikic met every condition for reappointment as docent, with one exception: a textbook published during the current mandate period. Mikic says he co-authored a textbook, but it came out in 2019, before the mandate period in which the requirement had to be met.

“I published the textbook as co-author in 2019, and according to their interpretation I should have done so during this mandate period,” Mikic says, adding that in terms of scientific output and other criteria he has already met the conditions for promotion to associate professor.

Under the standard procedure, the report was open to public review for 30 days, and in that time not a single objection or suggestion arrived, neither from members of the academic community nor from ordinary citizens. Nor, Mikic says, was there any discussion of his work at the Electoral Council session itself before the vote.

“Based on the communication I’ve had throughout all these years at the faculty, I never had the impression that anyone had anything against me. I had no conflicts with anyone; in fact, in all the communications I’d had up to that point, I had no suspicion at all that the report would be rejected.”

Jovan Vukovic describes a similar experience. He has been at the faculty since 2014, teaching History and Theory of Sport and Physical Education. His report was likewise positive, and no objections were raised during the public review period either.

“The rejection of my appointment went by without a single word from my colleagues,” Vukovic tells Danas.

Dean Patrik Drid says the decision was not his to make, but the result of a vote by an absolute majority of the Electoral Council, a body made up of every professor at the faculty, and that his colleagues simply did not achieve the results needed for advancement.

“In all the time I’ve worked at this faculty, we’ve never had a situation where someone stood for docent twice,” Drid tells Insajder.

Slobodan univerzitet, an informal network of University of Novi Sad professors, has come out in defense of the two docents. It claims the case is a settling of scores with professors who supported students during the student blockades, timed ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 25. Drid rejects the claim, saying the decision was not made by any one person but by the Electoral Council through a public vote, by a two thirds majority.

On the same day he addressed the case of the two docents, Dean Drid also spoke to Tanjug about the student plenum’s demand to push back the start of the academic year at the University of Novi Sad to November 1 because of the parliamentary elections. He said deans must ensure that classes begin on October 1 and that faculties keep functioning without disruption.

“We must not, under any circumstances, allow politics back into the faculty again. The election calendar has nothing to do with the university. We have our own working schedule, our own calendar, and we need to stick to it instead of depending on when some election happens, local, provincial, presidential or parliamentary, because that has nothing to do with our work,” the dean told Tanjug.

The DIF case is unfolding alongside a wider debate over the start of the academic year at universities ahead of the elections, one also being decided these days at the University of Belgrade. Mikic is now waiting on a decision from the Faculty Council on his appeal, and says that if the council rejects it, he will take further steps to protect his rights. His contract, in his own words, already expires on October 6.