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RECTOR´S STATEMENT

Herewith a copy of the speech given by Ing. Oldřich Kratochvíl, the rector of EPI s.r.o. at the general assembly of students and academic staff on 25th September 2005.

Dear colleagues, students,

We are opening the academic year 2005/6. By now our university has 257 full time students and 412 students in long life learning courses. We have accepted 207 students for the first year. I am very sorry that Mr. Jiří Pavlík, a gifted young man is no longer with us. He died due to a serious car accident. Let him rest in peace. I beg you for one-minute silence in honour of your friend. It is a sorrowful beginning but that is life. I would appreciate you to take lesson from this event and take care of yourselves and your friends.

So, I welcome the first year students among us. I hope they will quickly accept the culture of our school, their dreams will became true and that they will make many friends. I wish Mr. Peter Štěpáník every success as the head of the first year students and to all his fellow students in the completion of their studies under his supervision. I hope Mr. Slezák, the head of first year students in the long life learning will fulfil his words that he will bring all his fellow students to success in their bachelor examinations. I welcome the second year students. They can be proud of overcoming the first yearˇs obstacles.They will share their part of the responsibility in the day-to-day operation and further development of our academic community and that our mutual efforts will make our university among the best in the world. I welcome the third year students. You will prepare your bachelor thesis, defend them successfully and pass the final state examinations. I hope you will be successful. I hope Mr. Václav Kilián, the head of the student's par­liament, will create a team that will be globally competitive.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we are to be successful we should know who we are and where we should go. What does each of you need to live a happy and pleasant life and to be successful in your own career? We need vision, goals and strategy, which will match our ambitions. Who are we then? We are the community, which creates the university. Evaluation of the university by the public is the evaluation of our work, and behaviour and attitudes of each of us. In the whole history of modern society the university was understood as a place of wisdom, as J.A. Komensky said a workshop of humanity. Each of you has come to this university to gain new knowledge and to enhance your own competitiveness. You can expect that you will learn many specific disciplines, you will become a member of an educated global community and, at least partly you will remove your fear about the future. These goals will certainly become a reality. We will teach you scientific disciplines which will determine the direction of development in your specialisation.

Our mutual goal is to learn to live together with other cultures, to understand the requirements and needs of your environment, human community, to protect that environment for your children and grandchildren, to learn how to live today and in the future, to find happiness, love and your heart's content. In order to achieve it you need to know yourselves. It is learning how to live together and to find the future that should be the most important aim of the next period. We have built the learning and teaching organisation at our university, we have built the knowledge society, but it does not secure the happiness and the future of our population. We need to learn how to apply the wisdom on our knowledge and decisions patterns. We are searching for the knowledge of our predecessors and with surprise we found how much wisdom there was in ancient Greece. How clever Socrates was when he was looking for the absolute truth and moral perfection. Plato whose legacy is the idea of welfare which is the highest one superior to idea of truth , beauty and justice. I remember Aristotle and his three parts of education – intellect, physical and ethic – and his final goal of education above all intellectual development of a human being and the formation of his moral profile. All these men knew that education is more important than teaching. They understood the importance of ethics and respect to people, animals and nature. They were seeking after the truth and happiness.

Unfortunately we have not got enough time to think over all their clever thoughts. In our own interest and the interest of those closest to us we will have to find time to sort out which values are lasting and which are not. It is the lasting ones that we should systematically take care of. Which human characters have people been evaluating since the old Nubie? Surely it is not laziness, absurd gathering of fortune, wasting human lives. I think that these values are honesty, love, honour, ethics, devotion, modesty, friendship, sincerity, veracity, faith and self discipline. If we want to put wisdom in our knowledge then do it through the tools I have just mentioned.

Our community is looking for its own time and the way to it. If we find it the others will follow us. We will do all of that mainly because of ourselves our relatives and friends. In this academic year we will try to achieve our personal happiness and make friends at the university besides the educational aims. We do not only want you to be prepared for life. We also want you to enjoy the life at our university. The grants „Analysis of Key Factors of Transition of Learning and Teaching University into the Wisdom Community with the Priority of Humanity“ and „Analysis of some Key Factors for Optimisation of Schools Economy Using Input Knowledge“ will help us with that.

The searching for new reality will accompany us during the whole academic year. We would like to join the European Commission research, we would like to solve the research „Using E-learning Technology for Transition of the Traditional University to the Model of Virtual University as a Facilitator of the Region Development“. We have been working on this research together with the university in Kielc, Poland and the university in Žilina. Together with the university in Trenčín we have been solving the research of 3–2-1 system and with the university in Žilina we have been solving the research of e-learning technology. Our mutual future is in creativity.

You will be managing your future. Efficient tools have been created for it. You have found the answer to the question how to realise the Senge´s learning organisation in the system 3–2-1. How to manage the knowledge of such institution by self regulation how to make each member of our community be an individual source and selector of inside and outside information. Finalise this system and it will become an efficient tool not only for you but also for your successors.

Working students have got the advantage compared to those who are preparing themselves for their career. They already know that nothing in life is free of charge, they know that they have to work hard and seek after information to avoid mistakes. We need to join the wisdom of working people with our mutual work. It is your task to include working people in our work in finding the future. Let it happen on the bases of semester work and bachelor thesis. Our endeavour will support the innovation of small and medium sized companies so that they can compete in EU and global market. It is upon you to arrange for your employers and your business environment contacts with companies globally. It is upon you to look to the future of companies in cooperation with EU entrepreneurs, American businessmen and very soon find the opportunities in Asia.

It is upon you how you realise Chandler´s sentence saying that the future is good because you can plan it.

Join all the institutions which can help plan your future. Join political and cultural life and stimulate the community in your surroundings. Who else should determine where our society is to be heading except you. If you find the way of life which can be marked as wisdom, if we build access to e-learning technology information and education without barriers for all people in the region it will be you that will become the facilitator of the region development where you live and work. It will be you who will determine the near and distant future. In this area too we would like to look for the solution to the questions we would like to answer and above all we want to help the community in its life and development. It will be your privilege to cooperate with authors of the idea of the wisdom community, Prof. Mr. Kučerová and Prof. Bližkovský. You will become their successors.

You can see how far we got during one year of our life. Our internal research has developed in many folds and we have come to leave the clear theoretical work and we have come to approach the applicable research which should help people to look to the future and a happier life. We have improved and enhanced our academic staff with the addition of Prof.Ing. Blažej, DrSc. Visionary and designer of new technology for the environment, Prof. Ing. Cisko, CSc. expert in finance disciplines, Doc. PhDr Jedlička, PhD., poet and visionary have joined their destiny with ours. I wish all the new academic to be happy at our school and to enrich our knowledge and wisdom.

We have changed significantly during one year. If we are to answer where there is the source of this development then I see it in mutual work and using the synergy of all of us.

In the frame work of the research of e-learning technology we have grasped how the load of direct teaching can be reduced if we equip students with high-quality texts. If we want to change the technology of our school within a year then we will have to start our mutual work. This is the reason why I appointed Prof.Ing. Rukovanský Imrich to lead the work in this task and to pursue the combined form of studies. Help him with this task, please.

On 2nd October 2004 we started two years engineering programme in Public Administration in cooperation with TU AD Trenčín in the long life learning system. We have completed our vision and one of the most important task for the next year is to form mutually a vision for the next years.

I positively evaluate the student´ mobility organised by vice-rector Ing. Koudela Peter. I would be happy if this state will continue and indeed be enhanced.

We had organised a few sport events in the last year. We were missing the mutual culture event like a concert or a theatre. The first year students have promised to fulfil this task.

In this year we will promote you to build up your uniqueness and originality similarly with the whole university and its study programmes. That is why we will devote attention to your ISP so that your studies will improve your development and career, community development you live in and the working team you work in. The paradigm in this year is the reality that you are responsible for your life and your destiny.

The aim in the last year was to improve the information flow between the management of the school and students and vice versa. I think we have fulfilled this aim. The „star system “ and correct work of the Students Parliament have improved our mutual job. Teachers are getting used to the new system and most of them have already mastered it.

The ratio between full time students and working students and long life programmes have changed in the last year. It results in a change of management of the school in this year. The programmes during weekends and long life learning programme will be run by Mgr. Matušíková Iveta, in the week days the education will be run by Doc. PhDr.Vinklárik Milan CSc and Ing. Hlačina. I have appointed Mgr. Matušíková Iveta in the position of vice rector, Ing. Koudela Peter has been appointed into the position of vice rector of International Affairs. Ing. Hlačina Tibor has been appointed as the director of the Institute for Economics and Management and Ing. Petrucha Jindřich has been appointed the director of the institute of Apply Information. The foreign language department will be run by Mgr. Matušíková Iveta. We will create the Research and Development Institute during the year. The organisational charter has been flexibly adjusted to the real life situation. I would like you to help these people to meet their complicated tasks.

Dear friends, we changed substantially during the last year and we have made a good progress in our work. If you continue on in this trend then you will belong to the best. We need to work mutually as one team and we also need common goals and aims. We need everybody to create the individual intelligent information system as a part of a network where each of us has an irreplaceable position. Above all we need health, good mutual relations, honesty and also demandingness and good background in our families.

I wish that this desire will become reality for you in the following academic year.