Chartered in 1896 and opened in 1900, Tomsk Polytechnic University was the first Russian university of the polytechnic type offering a wide range of engineering subjects east of the Ural mountains. It has served historically as the center of higher engineering education for Siberia and the Far East. Today it is a nationally ranked polytechnic university with about 17,000 students. The Cybernetic Center at TPU has been a leader since it founding in 1988 in the use of communication technologies and computers in engineering higher education. The Russian American Center (RAC) was established in 1992 as the focus for international management education in the university. A RAC student is required to major in a management field and acquire substantial English language proficiency.