The University Day of the University of Economics in Katowice is not only a moment to summarise the past year, but also a symbolic beginning of a new stage for the entire academic community. In this context, the speech of Her Magnificence the Rector prof. dr hab. inż. Celina M. Olszak acquired particular significance - it became a reflection on the meaning of the existence of an institution that has its own history, memory, and responsibility. We invite you to read the text of the speech.
The University Day is not merely a commemoration of a date. It is a special moment - a moment of pause in which the institution, possessing its history, memory, and responsibility, asks itself about the meaning of its own existence. Today, as we celebrate eighty-nine years of our University’s existence, it is easier to see what a university is - and what it is not, and should not be.
A university is not a short-term project. It does not come into being to respond to passing fashions, ad hoc needs, or changing expectations. A university does not submit to the logic of immediate effect. It does not measure its significance solely by what can be quickly counted, compared, and simplified. A university belongs to the long time. To an order in which thinking precedes action, and responsibility precedes effectiveness.
This order of long time is becoming particularly demanding today. The world in which we operate can less and less often be described as a linear system of causes and effects. Under such conditions, uncertainty grows - cognitive, social, technological, and economic uncertainty. Uncertainty that fosters mental shortcuts, simple diagnoses, and the temptation to reduce complex phenomena to easy measures. The contemporary world is increasingly losing patience with complexity. It demands quick, simple answers to questions that by nature are not simple.
In such conditions, the role of the university becomes paradoxically even more important - and even more difficult. A university cannot limit itself to the role of an observer, nor merely an interpreter of reality. It should remain a space for understanding complexity in a world of growing uncertainty. A place where uncertainty is not treated as a weakness, but as a condition of reliable knowledge.
A university has always functioned as an institution rooted in tension: between autonomy and power, or between the pursuit of truth and the usefulness of knowledge. This tension was not its weakness. On the contrary, it belonged to the conditions that shaped the university as an institution of reflection and critical thought. Today, however, the scale and character of these tensions have fundamentally changed. The university is expected, simultaneously, to achieve research excellence, global competitiveness, and measurable outcomes, and at the same time to fulfill the role of a guardian of values and a space for critical thinking.
The problem is not the mere existence of these expectations. The problem is the temptation of reduction - of bringing the complex mission of the university down to simplified measures and short-term results. A university that yields to this reduction ceases to fulfill its role. A university that tries to eliminate uncertainty through overregulation and standardization risks losing its capacity for critical thinking and innovation.
Today’s ceremony is a record of a different logic. A logic in which meaning takes precedence over speed, and responsibility over efficiency. The conferral of the title of doctor honoris causa reminds us that knowledge - especially economic knowledge - is not axiologically neutral. That economic decisions always carry social consequences. And that true academic authority is born where competence meets responsibility, and effectiveness meets a culture of dialogue and trust.
In turn, the awarding of doctoral and habilitation diplomas is an act of trust. Trust in independent thinking. In the readiness to take on difficult, non-obvious topics that require time. In an era of obsessive measurability, science reminds us that what is truly groundbreaking is rarely born in haste. It often matures in silence - outside the logic of immediate reward and quick recognition.
The scholarships for young researchers that we will award today are an expression of thinking in the long time. They are an investment in a future that does not yet have results, but already has meaning. They are an expression of responsibility for the young generation of researchers, who bring to science new methods, new perspectives, and new questions.
And the distinctions for honorary professors and outstanding graduates show that the university does not end at the moment one leaves its walls. It is in graduates’ biographies that the real quality of education is tested - whether it was able to shape not only competences, but also responsibility, the ability to engage in dialogue, and an awareness of the consequences of one’s decisions.
A university exists and endures thanks to people. Thanks to those who choose reliable reflection instead of simplifications, responsibility instead of ad hoc effectiveness, and dialogue instead of easy answers. I thank everyone who co-creates the community of our university - employees, students, doctoral students, and graduates - for their daily work and intellectual integrity. I also thank those who remain with us in dialogue and cooperation, because it is in the relationship with our environment that the meaning of the university as a public institution - responsible and rooted in the world - is most fully put to the test.
May today’s celebration remind us that the meaning of the university is born from people’s work and matures in the long time - in the patient, shared effort of thinking and acting.
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