Rector's Letter to Academic Community on Occasion of University Day

Dear Academic Teachers, Students and PhD Students, Administrative and Technical Staff Members!

It was 27 years ago that the 12th Polish university, the University of Opole, was formed from the merger of the Higher school of Pedagogy and the branch of the Catholic University of Lublin. Now we are carrying in ourselves a sense of pride and satisfaction from our achievements and those of our predecessors. Respect for the past, but also awareness of the upcoming challenges, allows us to look to the future with optimism.

Every year on 10 March, the anniversary of the adoption by the Sejm of the Republic of Poland of the act establishing a university in Opole, I reminisced about the gradual getting used to the idea of a university in Opole, about the initially very timid ideas from the 1950s and 1970s, and about fervent discussions among the young intelligentsia of Opole in the 1980s.  Proud of belonging to the university community, we would meet at a ceremonial meeting of the UO Senate - usually in the Blue Hall of Collegium Maius - university authorities, academic teachers, students and PhD students, administrative staff, and friends of our University.  Our celebrations were also an opportunity to confer the highest academic dignity - the title of Doctor Honoris Causa - on a person of particular merit for science, literature or culture. The granite tablet at the entrance to Collegium Maius displays the names of 47 of our honorary doctors; the list opens with Professor Bogdan Suchodolski, an eminent philosopher, educator and historian of science and culture, and closes with Professor Lech Borowiec, a biologist of worldwide renown.

Two days after the last year's celebration, I suspended classes. It seemed then that it was only a short time, that the pandemic would soon pass and we would return to normal work. We still organised the inauguration of the new academic year in a hybrid formula.  That hope soon evaporated.  Distance learning is still with us today. We are strongly affected by the epidemic and the restrictions that help to fight it. Lecture halls and laboratories have become empty, scientific life has to a large extent taken the form of individual quests for ways of solving problems, scientific conferences have been held in cyberspace, and with no direct contact student life has become practically non-existent.

It is already the third semester that classes are held remotely. However, even the best-organised distance learning process cannot replace the transfer of knowledge in a lecture hall, direct contacts, including the master-disciple relationship.  The latest ministerial regulation announces that such a model of teaching is to be maintained until September 30th, at the same time giving rectors the possibility to use the powers provided by the autonomy of the university.

We are trying to gradually restore the traditional form of education. We will start with the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Health Sciences, where academic staff and students have already been vaccinated.  The inoculation of other academic staff is in progress, and the deans of the faculties will be able to make individual decisions on the method of organising classes in the final years of studies. Teaching must take place with due regard for the safety of students and teachers.

This year's University Day is a symbol of all those restrictions and sacrifices that accompany us in our everyday lives - without the ceremonial meeting of the Senate, without gatherings, live concerts, and under the sanitary regime. It is only on March 10, at noon, on the University Hill, that we will ceremonially unveil the bust of our Friend, generous Benefactor and Honorary Senator of the University of Opole - Karol Cebula.  I hope that this time we will succeed in organising the ceremony - the one planned for January had to be cancelled due to restrictions related to the surge in infections.

On this special day for our University, I would like to thank you for managing to organise academic life together during these difficult months, and for being able to overcome difficulties and adapt to the new working conditions quickly, although not without problems.  I know that this difficult time, even if it lasts for a few more months, will one day come to an end, and that it will make us even more determined to fulfil our plans and our ideas for the University.  After all, the bad times will pass, and we will be able to say with satisfaction that we have managed, that we have passed another important test of our maturity. I wish you health, perseverance and pride in your own achievements and those of our University.

Prof. Marek Masnyk