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We Embark on a Long Voyage

Photo by Krzysztof Krzempek

The university campus has revived. On 1st October over 21,000 students commenced studies at the Gdansk University of Technology. Six and a half thousand of these are freshers. 'Gaudeamus igitur... (Therefore let us rejoice..),' sang the university choir to those gathered on October 1st.

'Your Magnificence, sail the seas and oceans of the world,' declared the old rector to new one who was now starting his term in office. Thus Dr Janusz Rachoń handed the rector's insignias of authority to his successor, Dr Henryk Krawczyk.

'I pledge that in making decisions I shall endeavour to be guided by wisdom, fairness, impartiality, tolerance and above all the truth, without which neither scientific research nor education have any right to exist,' announced the new rector during the oath taking ceremony.

Prof. Krawczyk will remain at the bridge of the Gdansk University of Technology ship for four years, for according to a new statute that is how long a rector's term in office should now last. And in four years' time the same rector may be re-elected.

On October 1st one thousand two hundred academic teachers began work. This year they will be instructing six and a half thousand new students, including almost five thousand future engineers. First year representatives were officially immatriculated, that is accepted into the student fraternity through the symbolic ritual of being touched on the left shoulder with the rector's staff. All this took place during the official inauguration of the academic year, held in the GUT Assembly Hall on October 1st.

'I congratulate you on making the best decision in your lives,' said GUT Students' Self-Government representative Bartosz Julkowski, addressing the newcomers. 'Today, however, all your previous achievements are only history. You have to start everything anew and you have chosen a difficult course, but fear not, you have been put in good hands.'

Next he also warned the students against spending all their time solely on studying.

In a lecture on the power of human communication the renowned psychologist and humanist Prof. Zbigniew Nęcki, who is also Director of the Economics and Management Institute at the Jagiellonian University, persuaded the engineering fraternity that our world is not constructed with hammers and screwdrivers alone but above all with the power of the word.

'It is the element, the chord, the force which creates society,' argued Prof. Nęcki. 'The sentences you construct shape the recipient's world, but they also have an immense destructive force, they can actually kill,' he warned.

Rector Henryk Krawczyk is very much aware of how important the role of good communication plays in the academic community. Taking the helm of this ship of many sails, including nine faculties and numerous supplementary departments, part of his agenda for the start of his term in office is to achieve understanding and agreement among this large group of people.

Last Wednesday the Gdansk University Assembly Hall filled with many excellent guests from the worlds of science, local administration and politics. Among them were the rectors of other universities in the Pomorze province, representatives of the Church in Gdansk, of the local government, the diplomatic corps and affiliated firms. The inauguration was also honoured with presence of Grażyna Prawelska-Skrzypek, the Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

As is the university's good custom, the academic year also began with the presenting of awards for achievements in science and education. Special awards, Gold Medals for Services to the Gdansk University of Technology, were given to two former rectors: Prof. Janusz Rachoń (2002-2008) and Prof. Edmund Wittbrodt (1990-1996). It was then that those assembled were also informed of an individual first class award that is to be granted to Prof. Rachoń for organisational achievements in the academic year 2007-2008. The presentation of this great distinction by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education is to officially take place in the Royal Castle in Warsaw on 8th October.