Starting the New Year - Message from Rector Attila Miseta

Many of us tend to make New Year's resolutions about how we will do everything in a different and much better way. Then of course we usually break them.

We can see now that our University is in a better place now, in several ways. We partly owe it to the former rectors, deans, heads of departments and clinical directors, because they insisted on keeping their excellent colleagues, and sometimes they even managed to strengthen their staff.

Because it is not the walls that make a university strong and powerful, but first and foremost the professors, researchers, and the students, of course.

In their respective fields, everyone must possess the knowledge about the criteria of contemporary education, which new trends are worth to follow and which traditional values are worth to keep. The secret of development and improvement lies within keeping these two in harmony. All the deans and the rector must be dedicated to ensure these conditions. We must not forget that this is only possible if all our employees working for our students, professors and researchers do their jobs with enthusiasm and responsibility.

We also are fortunate since the government is committed to improve the quality of higher education, the most tangible sign of which is the Modern Cities Programme involving Pécs, and the resources from the integrated development project initiated by the Ministry for Innovation and Technology. This project calls for a more efficient co-operation between the University, the town, the county, the chamber of commerce and industry and the industrial clusters.

We are lucky also because as a member state of the European Union we can utilize sufficient funds as well. At the same time, we need to prepare for the fact that from 2020 onward we will need to access these funds in a significantly more competitive environment during the next European budget period.

And we are lucky because our headquarters are located in one of the loveliest towns of Europe, however, we must not forget about the fact that the University is a regional centre in many respects as well, therefore it is desirable to exercise an even greater influence on the Transdanubian region and the surrounding counties than before, bearing in mind that among other things, higher education has become maybe even more Budapest-centred than any other time. We wish to take upon a more important role in the development of our town by means of successful co-operation, and in any other locations where we are present. Relationships across borders are also important for us, including our role in the education of Hungarian nationals in other countries, intense connections with the universities of the developed Western world and reinforcing professional relationships with the increasingly developing universities of the Eastern world.

Unfortunately there also are some factors that hinder our development. Among those, I would like to emphasize mediocrity, the lack of ambitions, an excessive attraction to material goods and laziness. It is my and our expectation to pay more attention on the evaluation of accomplishments, however, this is a task to be taken upon by individual faculties and units, since we all are very different and it would not be fortunate to make distorted comparisons.

We need everyone who wishes to make an effort, and it is desirable for everyone, in any position, to think about how their workplace can be developed into a better and more efficient unit.

Once a colleague sent me an envelope with some thrown away cigarette-ends. A note was attached which said that she had seen these in the staircase, and they were not cleaned out for several days. She wanted to tell me that she was dissatisfied with the cleaning service, but maybe she also wished to express her astonishment over the fact that such a thing (littering) even can happen. I did not write an answer, but I made her know that I sometimes pick up dropped litter, too, but I put it in a rubbish bin instead of an envelope. I am convinced that if we all did the same, our surroundings would be much cleaner and there were less cigarette butts lying around.

To change what needs to be changed: personal examples are priceless.

Appearances are important, especially that of our environment. Our university has climbed up on the Green Universities ranking, but still not at the desired place, so besides congratulations we still have a lot to do in this respect.

The same is true for the university sports life. We consider both leisure sports and supporting our talents, both in an organized form and individually. We are proud of our students who have accomplished remarkable sports performance either nationally or internationally. They can take the credit for the fact that our university came second in the university championship, following the University of Physical Education. We are striving to maintain our successful co-operation with the sports institutions of the town. We can be proud of the “Sportiest University”, but we still have a lot of space to improve and expand.

UP also received the award “Responsible Employer of the Year 2018”; we obtained the prestigious golden qualification in the public sphere.

It is an old saying that students are the only one who disturb University life, just like clinics are disturbed by patients. However, we all must acknowledge the fact that even when these factors are disturbing, we make a living providing services for them. We can do our jobs grumpily and impatiently, but then everybody will have a bad taste in their mouths. But we also can handle these situations amicably, with understanding and patience; and believe me, good mood can be contagious as well.

I especially wish to stress that the quality of the operation of the registrar's offices of different faculties greatly varies, and although there is room for improvement at each faculty, in certain cases it is a clear expectation.

The same is true for some other areas of the university administration: more personal contact is desirable between professional and administrative staff. Administrative employees should feel themselves as parts of the system, and of course they must be provided with promotion opportunities based on their performance, too.

The “piloting” of the chancellery system has been finished. We have drawn the consequences and we are aiming at accelerating procedures and eliminating mistakes. It is a complex process demanding patience and understanding.

In the areas of education and research, universities are distinguished from any other educational institutions by the fact that their educators also are among the finest of their respective professional fields. They know not only what they have learnt from others, but they strive to innovate and create something beyond the actually perceived limits. That is why it is so important to keep young talents; they must be given opportunity to study and work abroad for a few years as well, so that they can familiarize themselves with different working cultures, languages and perspectives.

And of course it is also important that they come back to us in great numbers, which is only possible if we can provide appropriate circumstances for them. It is also important to keep our senior professors and extend our numbers with excellent Hungarian academics who have moved abroad; and we really should consider making our staff of educators more international.

As for educating our students, my conviction is that the important thing is not who enter the gates of the university but how they leave it. I would like to hear that a degree from Pécs is highly appreciated everywhere, in every field. Of course it depends on our students as well! I regard scientific students' associations and the professional aspects of personal contact with their educators as very important. The constructive evaluation of student feedback would be very desirable.

Healthcare services: a huge advantage – and the same time huge difficulty – of our university is that it operates a Clinical Centre. High quality education in medicine and healthcare is not possible without quality clinical practice, so we can be proud of the fact that our clinics provide internationally renowned services. At the same time, it can be declared that the healthcare system is chronically underfinanced, and despite the increasing internal redeployment applied during the last few decades, it produces significant deficit. Hopefully a more adequate GDP-based financing of Hungarian healthcare will come into the focus during subsequent years. Encouraging health consciousness is also advisable and to be adequately financed  by extending health maintenance programmes and screening tests, which are among the objectives of the current government.

I can see now that my New Year's greeting is already a bit long, so I am finishing now with the following proverb:

I wish you all good health; then you can get anything else!

Pécs, 7 January 2019

Dr. Attila Miseta

Rector