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Date:         Mon, 14 Dec 1992 15:40:43 CET
From:         Jiri Zlatuska <zlatuska@VARDA.ICS.MUNI.CS>
Subject:      Re: Trnava university - Student's declaration

On Sun, 6 Dec 1992 15:20:26 MET, "Jan Szelepcsenyi"
<janszel@POSEN.MFF.UNIBA.CS> wrote:

> Sorry for going back to a probably forgotten story because of a
> longer lasting ceasfire between the Academic Senate of the TU
> and the government.

The above is unfortunately quite far from the truth, although
obviously that is the kind of impression the government would
like to send abroad. This is a Saturday, 13 Dec, newspaper
article (from `Mlada Fronta Dnes' by Karol Wolf):

  Trnava: A New Ambush Set for the University

  Neither students not the University representatives could guess
  during their fund-raising St Nicolas Day party that two days
  before that the Educational Minister Matus Kucera had already
  proposed a new law to the government which changes and amends
  the law of the Slovak National Council establishing Trnava
  University. The new law proposal assumes to postpone teaching
  till September 1, 1994, at the earliest.

  The students themselves would face two possibilities: They
  could either report to the dean of a faculty with the same
  subject of study within 15 days after the law was enacted, and
  ask for admittance for the Spring term, or they would have to
  wait two years. The current sort of bizarre situation (the
  parliament refused to cancel the university, but did not
  terminate the blocking of it's bank account) is therefore being
  formed into it's eventual shape. The problem is that the
  Parliament's decision not to cancel the University is only
  being interpreted as a compromise; while the continuing
  blocking of the bank account by the Ministry as an absolute must
  by the minister to keep his trump card for future negotiations.
  Due to the acute shortage of funds it is assumed to be easier
  for the minister to prove that problems at TU persist, despite
  the National Assembly of the Slovak Republic had shown off its
  good will by ``having had given a chance'' to the University.
  And problems at TU indeed do exist. The University employees
  aren't being payed their salaries, student accommodation is only
  possible thanks to patience of the owner of the building where
  they live, and meal serving is similarly affected. For the time
  being, those expenses which are absolutely necessary are payed
  from the funds of Trnava University Foundation, to which people
  have already contributed some half a million koruna. The
  students decided to refuse any possible entitlement for study
  fellowship allowances or social stipends. They are decided not
  to leave the school under any circumstances. Not a single one
  of them will use the ``offer'' of the minister to register at
  another university. If the government decides to go ahead and
  to propose the bill to the Parliament and the law is perhaps
  being passed, the minister is going to face 240 claims in law
  at the court of law brought against him by TU students.

>                     Going through the previous postings I have found
> one undisputed point in this case. It would be interesting to
> learn the opinion of our newsgroup readers about this topic.


> On Fri, 13 Nov 1992 21:06:30 -0500, "Jan George Frajkor"
> <gfrajkor@ccs.carleton.ca> wrote:
>
> > MIDEUR-L@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu writes:
> >
> >    Re  Trnava university
> >
>
> (some stuff deleted)
>
> > >
> > > 1. Does Mr. Hajduk fulfill all requirements to be at the position
> > >    of rector?
> >
> >
> >      As of yesterday, yes.  He was granted the appropriate Docent rank
> > by Charles University in Prague.  The rather rigid rules of rectoring
> > state that only those who have docent status can run for rector.  He
> > did not have that, but claimed equivalent credentials.  That was the
> > formally legalistic basis of the dispute.  Now that he has it, the
> > causus belli has been removed.  Why didn't somebody think of this
> > before?
>
> I am not quite sure if the casus belli has been really removed.
> The circumstance that Mr Hajduk didn't have the docent status
> was not a formal one. The main problem was that he didn't have
> any experience in university lecturing. Mr Hajduk had never been
> engaged as a lecturer in any academic program before.

This is very misleading argument, and false indeed. The essential
point in connection with the dispute is that of academic freedom,
autonomy of universities (granted by the law), and the lack of
any legitimacy in the interference of the government
administrators into what is guaranteed to be exclusive realm of
the inner mechanisms of the university (granted by the law,
again).
The law does not state any requirement of `university lecturing'
for the position of rector. The law only assumes that the president
appoints a nominee with a docent or professor degree who had been
elected by the university Senate. Note that even the president
does not *select* the person; in fact the president has to obey
a decision (a democratic one, because resulting from ballot taken
by the Senate, and internal to the academic community) of the
university. Clearly, it is up to the university Senate whom to
choose, and what personal qualifications it finds relevant.
Two points are worth stressing here: (1) As with a result of any
democratic procedure, the Senate's may be `wrong', but then it is
up to the Senate to find this out, and to propose to the
president to call off the rector -- by no means this is any
business of the Minister of Education, the Minister of Culture,
nor anybody from any political party, or simply anybody outside
of that particular university. The message of those who protest
against the coercion by the government is simple: `it is none of
your business, what you're doing abuses academic freedom,
period'. (2) At present, Mr Hajduk does meet the formal
requirements for being a rector, and the Senate voted to have him
as the rector. What else may possibly be relevant?

Moreover, the claims about Mr Hajduk's alleged unfitness for
rectorship made by Jan Szelepcsenyi sound very dubious to me:
University `lecturing' is just a narrow slice of academic
activities. It is true that within the Academy of Science there
were no regular classes for undergraduates. On the other hand,
anybody with `DrSc' scientific degree was 100% sure engaged in
working with junior scientists working towards their 'CSc'
degree, and this engagement is the same as work with
post-graduate/doctoral students at, e.g., American universities.
I can't see any reason why in-class `lecturing' for
undergraduates should be considered as THE academic experience
required for a rector. (On the other hand, Mr Hajduk's experience
from having had been scientific secretary of Slovak Academy of
Science definitely enhances his fitness for 90 per cent of
rector's activities...)

>
> The circumstance that the Charles University granted Mr Hajduk
> his docent status was really surprising for me. The
> representatives of the CHU explained it in media as a reward for
> Mr Hajduk's scientific results.
>
> Nobody in Slovakia did express any doubt in Mr Hajduk's
> scientific competency. But to run a university without
> appropriate pedagogical experience is something - let us say -
> unusual, isn't it?
                                                    ^^^^^^^^^^
                                                    It depends on
whom this `us' refers to. It is a problem of the TU Senate members
who decided to elect Mr Hajduk as THEIR nominee for TU rector. It
is NOT a problem of anybody in the government.
The fact that Mr Hajduk actually DOES HAVE pedagogical experience
although not just teaching undergraduate classes is not at all
relevant here with respect to the `TU vs government'-nature of
the problem. Nonetheless it perhaps explains why TU Senate
members voted for Mr Hajduk and why they feel he ain't unfit for
university service.

>
> In accordance with the law that is the legal basis for higher
> education in CSFR, the academic status "docent" (it is similar
> to the status associated professor in the U.S.) is both an

No: there is a profound difference. In CSFR, `docent' and
`professor' are a particular person's adornments to his or her
name (in the spirit of Austrian/Central European tradition). Once
somebody is granted such a title, it becomes a part of their name
without any relevance to the job the person is actually engaged
in (e.g. it would be used on bank checks, personal materials of
any nature, etc.). In fact, the person may no longer be fit for
academic work, they may suffer brain damage, but they would still
be entitled to their `docent' or `professor' part of their name.
Also one may be `docent' or `professor' working at a university
at a position which is lower that that: there's no automatic link
between professional position and this funny kind of title.
In the US, Associate/Full Professor are professional titles which
do relate to the merit, but do not mean much outside of the
academia.

> scientific and an pedagogical degree. I can't imagine, what were
> the criteria followed by the comission of the CHU, granting the

As I explained above, `pedagogical activity' doesn't boil down to
just `teaching undergraduate classes'. I find it sad that even
people from academic environment cannot understand this.

> academic degrees. The only explanation is, that the Czechs used
> this opportunity to show all the world, that they are
> guarranting the academic freedom when the Slovaks are not able
> to do so.

Come on! This is really too much.

>
> With the reputation, CHU has, it is easy to make an "operation"
> like this one.

Gee -- but `the reputation CHU has' was obviously earned by
actually NOT doing this sort of things, wasn't it? `Reputation'
subsumes consistency: it takes long to earn it but short to
loose.

>
> Till now we haven't pay any attention to this fact.
>
>
> >
> > > 2. Why it is considered to be a political problem?
> >
> >       Because in Europe everything tends to be political.  But if you
> > mean who lined up on whose side, I understand (and I would appreciate
> > corrections from those in Slovakia who know better) that the
> > about-to-be-defeated regime in Slovakia engaged in a flurry of
> > activity just before the June elections to ensure their supporters key
> > jobs in important places, allegedly to offset Communist influence in
> > the structures, but probably just pork-barrelling.  they learn our
> > western political habits fast.  Thus friends of the Federalist/
> > Chartists/ rightwingish factions were sold some valuable state
> > properties or were given jobs with long-term security.  Hajduk, who is
> > known as a CZechophile, was considered to be one of these.  There are
> > those in the new government who object to his Czech-izing potential at
> > such a major university.  Plus, they think most of the staff of the
> > new university are 'opportunists', which means beneficiaries of the
> > largesse of their former friends.
> >
>
> George, may I add to your detailed explanation some more
> background information?
>
> Before getting the position of the rector of TU Mr Hajduk had
> been the Scientific Secretary of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
> In the time of the communists regime the SAS achieved its best
> results in natural and technical sciences. After the velvet
> revolution it was clear, that a change of priorities is
> unavoidable.  Everybody was expecting that more grants will be
> provided for social sciences and humanities. Mr Hajduk didn't
> manage this shift of priorities.

NOT TRUE: In fact, the main emphasis of TU is on social sciences
and humanities -- and this is obviously the reason the government
pays so much attention to it. (Quite a few of the specializations
taught at TU haven't been taught at Czechoslovak universities
under the communists at all, and TU had to back them up by
undisputed authorities from the universities from the West.) Had
Mr Hajduk been presiding a university specialized on `natural and
technical sciences', I bet the present government wouldn't be
interested in it at all.

>
> Everybody, who follows the discussion of the ongoing social
> problems in the dailies and periodicals, can see this. You may
> read reports from journalists, politicians or social oriented
> writers, but you can seldom find a well founded article of a
> sociologist, social psychologist etc. The historicians are very
> active, but they are not able to ellaborate on the huge amount
> of topics waiting for serious historical research. On the other
> side many historicians were in the past closely connected to the
> ruling structures of the previous regime.  A "refreshment" of
> the staff by young scientists and researchers is more then
> actual.

I do not get Jan Szelepcsenyi's point here: Does he mean Mr
Hajduk is responsible for the problems outlined in the above
paragraph? Does he mean that had Mr Hajduk `managed this shift of
priorities' during `after the velvet revolution', a number of
professionally excellent `sociologists, social psychologists,
etc.' would have completed their (re-?)training so that the
`dailies and periodicals' would by now abound by `well-founded
articles'?
May work in soap operas, not in life. :-)

>
> The TU has to be engaged in training of students above all in
> humanities, politology, social sciences, social administration
> etc. Everybody knows the results of Mr Hajduk in his previous
> position. Don't be astonished, when a lot of people ask if he is
> the right and competent person to run the university.
>
> I know, that this question has to be solved only by the academic
> senate of the TU.

YES, this is exactly it.

>                    But how qualified can be the decision of an
> academic senate, when only a small part of lecturers are full-
> time engaged (i.e. with tenure track)?!

You know, one could go on like this: How qualified any decision
may be, when adopted by casting a ballot where everybody (even
those whom me, you, or anybody consider a fool!) is allowed to
vote? And even worse: How qualifies a decision of academic senate
can possibly be when even STUDENTS are allowed to take part (by
the law, the senate consists of both faculty and students, and
the student members are not considered to be of any lower rank)?

I wouldn't be worried by this too much: If the decisions are
unqualified, than perhaps the university would loose it's
reputation sooner or later, and then the Accreditation Committee
would decide that the university looses the right to grant
diplomas to its graduates. Such a scenario doesn't violate
academic freedom, and there's no need for illegitimate actions of
the government in it. So far, the Accreditation Committee has
actually upheld Trnava University in this respect, so perhaps the
faculty at TU are not that stupid that couldn't be trusted when
it comes to voting in the Senate.

>                                          Could anybody of you
> imagine in the U.S.  or U.K. an academic senate of a university
> where only 4 to 5 teachers have a full-time contract?!

This is tendentious and unfair: First of all, there's no equivalent
of the `academic senate' from the Czechoslovak law regulating
universities, given the structure of the senate, its purpose and
level of competence, and the way how mandate of its members is
formed (popular voting by all members of academic community,
which is often interpreted as just all the employees of the
university). Neither American nor British universities have
anything resembling that. There, `senates' or whatever they are
called are more assemblies of tenure-track full professors, to
which the closest equivalent at Czechoslovak universities would
be the `scientific councils' (appointed by the rector, approving
`docent' and `professor' degrees, scientific degrees, and things
*loosely* equivalent to tenures).
Second, TU only started this Fall. Four to five full time faculty
seems quite appropriate, when taking into consideration the
variety of course subjects which have to be taught
simultaneously, but only to Freshmen. Any other option would mean
decreasing the quality of teaching (no, I don't believe one could
hire couple of polyhistors teaching full-time such a wide range of
classes). Apparently, one can only expect the number of
full-contracts approaching the target number of faculty positions
after 3 or 4 years. (Hiring everybody at the beginning, with
quite a few waiting couple of years till their teaching load
approaches 100 per cent would be waste of money. --  Imagine Mr
Kucera or Mr Slobodnik were given argument like that! :-) )

>
> In 1991 I was charged to prepare the draft of the statute of our
> University of Fine Arts in Bratislava.  A great part of our
> teaching staff of our university is only part-time engaged.
> Lecturer on fine arts disciplines are usually active artists,
> performers, full-time engaged in different cultural
> institutions. I proposed to follow a rule, that part-time
> lecturers couldn't be elected as a member of the academic
> senate.  This rule was accepted by ALL the staff.

I would't be proud of this: The senates and the university
election rules were being prepared within less than 12 months
after the fall on communism in Czechoslovakia. By that time vast
majority of the faculty were actually the same people whom the
communists were able to tolerate (or prefer) within the
politicized picture of universities the regime had. Hiring
part-time faculties, etc., was one of the ways and means how to
bring about change into the rather rigid structure. What you say
above merely means your colleagues were inert to changes, and
resistant to competition from (possibly open-minded) people from
outside of their well-established and well-conserved inner
university circles.

Please, don't understand me wrong: I do NOT indicate the proportion
of those are the weed and who are the grain (Matthew 13.24-30).
I merely claim that there is natural effort for self-preservation
in existing institutions while newly established ones may be in
MUCH better situation just because they don't have to fight the
forces of inertia. (I'm speaking about the institution as a
whole.) --- I guess one more argument FOR Trnava university?

>                                                    Everybody
> knows, that an employee is able to identify himself only with
> one institution.

Too strong a statement?!

>                   This difference is reflected also in the laws
> concerning the relation between employee and his full-time or
> part-time employer.

Just an aside: I still don't understand why people think that the
status of ``being an employee of a university'' equals to ``being
a member of the academic community of a university''. I find the
distinction between those two (based on the very meaning of
`universitas scholarium', and the spiritual contents of the very
mission of universities in our world) as much more important and
essential that distinction based on what proportion of his or her
``full working hours'' he or she is employed at a particular
university?

Actually, would anybody of you guys West of Czechoslovakia find
it sane to think of someone's competence with respect to universities
and academia, measured in terms of to what proportion of 42.5
working hours per week your contract is stated for? (Yes, it IS
quite regular even now to have fixed rules even for academic
personnel and faculties REQUIRING the employee to spend 8.5 hours
per day *at one's workplace* including signing in and signing
off; of course with everybody just PRETENDING to obey all of
these nonsense rules invented by (and for?) bureaucrats. Can you
imagine these rules on paper are still as they were under the
communists? People became so used to cheat them that nobody cares
to invest time in pressing for legislative change... This is an
example of what I mean by `inertia'.)
>
>
> > (some staff deleted)
> >
> > If Hajduk was illegally appointed, the courts should be
> > allowed to decide.

I second this. This the crucial point.

Had Mr Slobodnik been convinced that Mr Hajduk was illegally
appointed, then he had to bring the claim to the court on behalf
of the government. The early exchange of letters between Mr
Slobodnik and Mr Hajduk went by Mr Slobodnik sending a letter to
Mr Hajduk saying his appointment was wrong and that he had to
step down. Mr Hajduk replied that he did get his appointment in
writing, and unless he's recalled, he won't step down. It went
like this three times or so, and at one point Mr Hajduk suggested
that Mr Slobodnik sends the matter to the Constitutional Court do
resolve the dispute (yes, I saw the copy of that letter!). Mr
Slobodnik is known to be eager to sue nearly anybody who publicly
mentions Mr Slobodnik's Nazi-related past, but in this case he
apparently thought of going to court as pointless...

(BTW: A week ago Mr Slobodnik told the `Praca' newspaper that one
of the proofs that the `campaign' around TU was politically
motivated were the `intercepted e-mail messages' calling for
international campaign in this matter.)

> >    If he was technically unqualified, as it appears he was, he should
> > either have resigned, or offered to get the qualifications.  He did
> > neither, but seems to have got the qualifications gratuitously from a
> > Czech university instead of a slovak one. It counts.  Now people will
> > argue whether it was a sneaky move to do indirectly what could not be
> > done directly.  Darn right it was.  You win some, you lose some.
>
> > Now let's hope people cool off and do something sensible for the
> > students and the city of Trnava.
>
> Allow me another short glance at the past.
>
> In 1964 the Pedagogical Faculty of Comenius University was
> established in Trnava - a well organised institution with good
> academical results in education as well as in research. In 1982,
> i.e.  the year of the 390. anniversary of Komensky's birthday
> the faculty was closed.  Slovakia needed a lot of primary as
> well as secondary school teachers. In spite of this fact the
> Pedagogical Faculty was closed, because... because the
> Department of Technical Engineering of the Slovak Technical
> University in Bratislava needed its buildings, laboratories,
> dormitories... and because the wife of the minister of education
> was in a powerful academic position at the STU.
>
> At that time the academic staff of the Pedagogical Faculty made
> all possible attempts to save their school. Nobody from the
> Bratislava or Trnava intellectuals, nobody from the present
> fighters for academic freedom did support any of the numerous
> memorandi, petitions and declarations, sent out by the
> representantivs of the faculty. All the leading personalities of
> the present commando of fighters for academic freedom in Trnava
> (with exception of Mr Miroslav Kusy, who was at that time
> engaged in the disent) were at that time about forty and were
> acting in different academic or cultural positions; none of them
> raised at that time his voice to avoide a shameful case - the
> closing of an educational institution settled in a city, which
> had been one of the most important stops of Komensky's long
> journey through European states.  - Isn't it suspicious, that at
> the same time so many blind people are getting light in their
> eyes or minds ?

No, it isn't. I do think that's life.

>
> You could learn from my previous postings, that I'm always
> shocked when I see, how easy it is to manipulate the whole world
> mind by little misinformation and/or half-truths.  I'm everytime
> shocked, when I see, how mightless a community is against
> campaigns, which follow political or economical interests of a
> small group of people, covering their personal interests with
> well choosen and timed political slogans.
>
> And I'm also shocked, when I see, how the officials and
> administrators aren't able to discover the connections
> enlighting the real truth. This truth would give them the credit
> to decide and to force a decision with legal power.
>
> From my point of view the causa Universita Tyrnaviensis is from
> the very beginning out of law. The best what could be done by
> the international community would point out the legal aspects of
> the case. This aspects were clearly defined by the first
> statement of the premier Mr Strasky, who is an experienced
> lawyer, too. He stressed, that if a decision had been made in
> contradiction with the conditions defined by the present law,
> any following acts were invalid.

Even Mr Strasky doesn't have any authority to decide whether the
appointment of Mr Hajduk by the president was legally O.K. or not
-- once again, in legal disputes like this, it is a matter of
courts of law to decide, not the Prime Minister. Mr Strasky acted
more like a buffoon than `experienced lawyer': Otherwise he would
have known that no actual act of that nature may become `invalid'
merely by its own will: either SOMEBODY with the authority must
recall it (Mr Strasky was the only one in such a position, but he
claimed he couldn't call off a rector, merely to appoint a new
one, which he also didn't do), or a COURT must decide that the
act was invalid -- in such a case somebody must file the case to
the court, because courts cannot start proceedings without
initial impuls from SOMEBODY. Every Sophomore in the studies of
Law must know this, they needn't be `experienced lawyers' for
that.

>
> So the only raison d'aitre of all the campaign isn't an
> academic, but a political one.

ONLY IF you consider the appeal against political interference
into academic matters as `political'. I hesitate very much to
accept well-foundedness of such a position. The autonomy of
universities and academic soil from political environment is
absolutely essential substance of the very meaning of `academia'.
Honoring the essence of democratic institutions is unseparable
from democracy itself. This is not a preference of any particular
political opinion, but merely insistence on the very grounds of
the democracy itself. hence it is by no means a *political
campaign*.

>
> Please, let us keep our ability for distinction. It seems to
> be very important for rational and democratic thinking.

Yes, this something I fully subscribe to as well.

>
>
> >     Jan George Frajkor       _!_
> >  School of Journalism       __!__
> >  Carleton University,         |
> >  Ottawa, Ontario             /^\
> >  Canada K1S 5B6           /^\   /^\
> >    -- gfrajkor@ccs.carleton.ca --
> >   613 788-7404     fax:613 788-5604
>
>
> Best regards
>
> Jan
> --
> Jan Szelepcsenyi                                Telephone: + 42 7 220863
> janszel@posen.mff.uniba.cs                      Address  : ul. A. Mraza 4
>                                                            821 03 Bratislava
>                                                            Czechoslovakia

Regards,

--Jiri Zlatuska, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechoslovakia
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