Translation of radio interview with Katalin Farkas, Provost/Academic Pro-Rector of CEU;
Laszlo Kontler, Professor, Department of History; and Zsolt Enyedi, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Media outlet: Hungarian National Radio, Kossuth
Program: “Esti beszélgetés” (“Evening discussion”)
Date: May 27, 2011
Interviewer: Benedek Varkonyi
Benedek Varkonyi
Good Evening. The editor of the program is Benedek Varkonyi. This evening we are going to talk about Central European University on the occasion that it has been operating in Budapest for 20 years. This is a very important institution both in the Hungarian and in the international educational system. On this occasion we invited three guests, all of whom are professors of the university: Katalin Farkas, who deals with philosophy and who is also the Provost/Academic Pro-Rector of the university; Zsolt Enyedi, who is a political scientist; and Laszlo Kontler, who is a historian. Let us start with how the story began 20 years ago, since that is quite far away by now and there is a lot to be said about it. Why was Central European University founded 20 years ago? We know that it was George Soros who founded it, at a time when Hungary was already in the process of the regime change, in 1991. So the university started to work under a new political system. What was the aim of George Soros with this initiative? A new university in the Hungarian educational system or did he have any other motivation?
Laszlo Kontler
I am Laszlo Kontler and even though I am not the oldest ranking from among the three of us, I am the one who was in the situation at the time to be close to this story more or less. We have to go back in time a bit more, to the times before 1991, somewhere near the change of regime, when it could be sensed that new winds were blowing; around 1988-1989. It was not about creating a Hungarian university, but an institution of higher education which could prepare people both intellectually and culturally for the expected changes in the Central, Eastern, and South-European regions. More precisely, the aim was to start and try to educate an intellectual elite that would possess the European, Western, and up-to date knowledge in social sciences—but be educated in the region, at regional sites. The very beginning of the story goes back to the spring of 1989, to Dubrovnik. Of course, there were certain antecedents to this, including personal connections and negotiations. However, it first appeared in public when there were several lectures in social sciences at the Dubrovnik International University Center. A meeting also took place there, at which intellectuals and researchers in opposition plus those who participated in the first public announcement discussed how this plan could be realized.
Benedek Varkonyi
We know that one of the most important underlying concepts of Central European University is that of open society, a notion created by Karl Popper. It is also known that George Soros was Karl Popper’s student at the London School of Economics. And this is why he wanted to continue with this notion—and indeed, he did. But what does “open society” mean exactly and how does it manifest itself in the life and daily operation of Central European University?
Katalin Farkas
Commitment to the values of open society in the daily operation of the university means that as a university, we strive for both producing outstanding knowledge and acquiring the already existing knowledge in an outstanding way. However, the university also has a very important social mission, namely the protection of the values of open society. Briefly, this means the protection of democracy, the rule of law, the freedom of expression and the media, and the values of tolerance. In the context of the university this means that students come to us from a great many places, for example, from countries or nations that might traditionally be in opposition to each other. What they learn here at CEU is to respect each other’s values and backgrounds. Furthermore, we also lay an enormous emphasis on developing critical thinking. That is, it should never become an unquestionable, entrenched ideology, but it should always be open to criticism and critical scrutiny.
Benedek Varkonyi
Is this idea manifested in a concrete form in the disciplines taught and studied or is this rather a general idea which everyone encounters? If the latter, we should also touch upon how this happens.
Zsolt Enyedi
This rather permeates the atmosphere of the university, so if anyone would look at the concrete course materials, mostly he or she would find more or less the same texts, the same conditions as in the case of any Western or any high-quality university in the world. What might make a difference here is connected to multiculturalism, namely that each professor has to take into consideration that there might be students in one class from 15 to 20 different nationalities. The professors therefore have to be capable of creating a common language among the students, which sometimes involves structuring the courses differently. Teaching techniques are different, but as regards to the material, we keep more or less the same professional requirements in sight as other high-quality universities of the world.
Benedek Varkonyi
The university is called Central European, not only because Budapest is located in Central Europe, but because its appeal is Central European in some way. At the same time, if I remember well, there is another one in Warsaw. Has that one ceased to exist? Or has it never existed? Or is that a different institution?
Laszlo Kontler
This also has a story that could be told if we had the time. The campus at Warsaw ceased to exist in 2001 or 2002, I think. Only the Department of Sociology was there, but that also moved to Budapest.
Benedek Varkonyi
And is it called Central European because it attracts students from Central Europe or is there a different, cultural reason too? You published a book, if I remember well, for the 10th anniversary of the university. On the cover of this book pictures of Freud, Mahler, Bartok, Musil and Kafka can be seen, all of whom are typical figures of Central Europe. Is this university also somehow typically Central European if we take these five thinkers as examples?
Laszlo Kontler
It is worth adding to the prehistory that the idea of this university was born in the eighties, when the idea of Central Europe went through a very serious renaissance. Of course, we are not talking about a geographical notion, but about such a cultural and political notion that embodied the desire—shared by Kundera, Jeno Szucs, of course, Czeslaw Milosz, and the list could be continued for a long time—that we should not imagine these countries as an entity wanting to retain their freedom as part of a homogenous, Eastern Empire, but as countries having their own cultures, own Western-type cultures. In a certain sense we could say that when we were talking about Central Europe in the eighties, we were talking about the fact that since we are more deeply aware of the importance of Western culture than those who live in it, it is also more important for us and therefore this formed a very important identity discourse at the time. This probably had an important role, as several personalities, scholars, and intellectuals were among the founding fathers who were devoted to this idea. Nowadays this is not so much in the focus of the functioning of the university, that is, the fact that the university preserved its name could be regarded as a way of following traditions.
Katalin Farkas
When the university was established it was Central European because most departments had a Central European focus. They worked on Central European issues. Departments such as the Department of Political Science and the Department of History mostly dealt with Central European topics. It was also Central European in the sense that most of the students came from the Central European region. This was 20 years ago and the university had developed since then, as a variety of things have happened. At present, around half of the students come from the Central European region, and the other half from different places. The scientific and academic view of the university also broadened.
Benedek Varkonyi
What is really the purpose of Central European University? I mean, we know that the purpose of a university is to provide knowledge. However, does Central European University provide knowledge in the international scene differently, or is it the same as any Western university? Because I think the fact that it is both Central European and international at the same time means something.
Zsolt Enyedi
I believe CEU is a rather unique place. It is a university primarily following an American model, which operates in Central Europe, in a post-communist country. Consequently, such a combination came into existence, which as far as I know, does not exist anywhere else. Students do not simply come from many countries; there is not a dominant culture here. That is, even the Hungarian students, who form the biggest nationality, do not reach 20 percent. Therefore, there is a quite special mixture of different cultures and nationalities. On top of all this, emphasis on research is very strong. Obviously, this is true to some extent for many other universities in the region. However, CEU is special in the sense that professors know their first and foremost task is to contribute to the production scientific knowledge. Students also know this and when they enroll to a master’s or a doctoral program, they do it with the hope that besides attending classes, they can also join well-defined and well-prepared research projects
Benedek Varkonyi
Are there any criteria of becoming a professor? Obviously, if somebody wants to be a university student, I suppose there is an entrance examination, one has to meet certain requirements. But what is more interesting here is to know what is needed for someone to become a professor. What should be the fields of interest, and are there any extra requirements in connection to open society?
Katalin Farkas
These issues might be important for those departments that work on topics having an immediate social effect, for example the Department of Political Science or the Department of International Relations and European Studies. At those departments, it is part of the university’s commitment to have professors of such interests. This, of course, is taken into consideration in the hiring process. Otherwise, the recruitment of professors happens the same way as at any other university.
Laszlo Kontler
I would also like to add that in case we interpret the notion of open society as an ideal of free discourse, then this plays an eminent role in the program of each department. Otherwise, I agree that regarding to the selection of professors, each department has to represent high professional standards. They have autonomy in their decisions, more or less regarding what positions they would like to get filled, or in what new directions they would like to create new positions. The job adverts are open and advertised both in Hungary and internationally. Generally, there is rather a big over-application to the open positions.
Benedek Varkonyi
We touched upon the fact that the composition of the students is very heterogeneous, that is, they come from many different places, speak many different languages. Is this reflected somehow in the education they receive? The fact that the university accommodates students from many countries, where everyone has a different cultural background and obviously, someone who comes from further away has to understand other issues than someone who comes from a nearby country, as the Czech Republic, for example. Is this problem considered when syllabuses and course materials are developed?
Zsolt Enyedi
I believe this has changed a great deal over time, at least in my field, in political science. In the beginning, yes, there were huge differences in the background knowledge of those students who came from different parts of the region. However, today there is an available undergraduate education, which is more or less similar in political science. Furthermore, nowadays more and more students come from different, faraway countries. Those who apply to our university are aware that our requirements lay strongly on analytic literature focusing on social structures and on political institutions. This literature is clearly marked in our different publications and consequently by now there is less confusion about what we expect. Nevertheless, remedial courses—f or example for those who are not trained enough in statistics—still need to be taught. I believe this will not change in future as political science, just as many other disciplines, is taught in rather different traditions in the different countries. Therefore, the professor will always need to estimate the background knowledge of the students in a given class.
Katalin Farkas
This also depends on which department we are talking about since, for example, at the Department of Mathematics the material does not vary according to which countries the people come from. However, as Zsolt mentioned earlier, the university puts great emphasis on research. We do not have any undergraduate programs but master’s and doctoral programs. The doctoral students participate in research and the research topic they choose in a great many cases depends on where they are from. A sociologist, an anthropologist, a political scientist, or a historian often turns to the experiences of his or her own country, and this naturally gets built into the material that students learn at a certain department.
Benedek Varkonyi
Twenty years in the history of a university is not such a long period if we compare this to the fact that there are institutions in Europe that are 800 years old. Sorbonne, for instance, is much older than CEU. Still, these 20 years are important and many things had happened during this period. What caused the changes? Is it because a lot of things change generally over the course of 20 years, or perhaps because Hungarian society itself has changed? When the university was founded we were right after the regime change and it wasn’t clear what exactly was going to happen. Was this what led to changes or did things change on their own?
Laszo Kontler
To my mind, there is a natural maturation process. When this thing started in 1991, there were a few loosely related programs engaging in a dialogue with each other. These were called departments then, organized around a charismatic scholar and professor. The process of developing an institution started only after this, when we started to have rectors and a professional academic administration. But it was preceded by the process in which the university put together the intellectual basis. Of course, apart from this, the environment around us had changed, the Hungarian environment. I believe the university did and is still doing a lot to organically integrate into this immediate Hungarian environment as much as it can. Our doors are open. There are plenty of programs to which we either invite or simply welcome colleagues from Budapest and Hungary itself, the Hungarian public. I would like to mention, for example, that the Open Society Archives grew into a cultural venue that plays a strong, characteristic, and important role in Budapest with its exhibitions, film screenings, concert programs, and other events. I think this is more and more characteristic of the university.
Benedek Varkonyi
How is the university exactly different from other universities in Hungary, apart from what we have already talked about—namely that the university offers only master’s and doctoral programs and there are no undergraduate programs? How is it different from ELTE (Eötvös Loránd University) or from any other ecclesiastical universities, as for example, Pázmány Péter Catholic University? These are also universities, they also provide higher education, but obviously have a different image. What is the reason for this different image?
Laszo Kontler
CEU is very small and big at the same time. It is very small, altogether I think there are only about 2,000 people, including the administration, professors, students, staff, and the cleaning personnel. It is a small community, where everyone knows each other as in a small town. On the other hand, we are active on many different scenes: on the American, on the Hungarian, and European scenes, and therefore, we have to meet different systems of criteria. This is not an easy task; living the CEU life is very intensive. I don’t know what else to add.
Zsolt Enyedi
To confirm all of the above, I would like to stress that since most of the students come from abroad, this automatically means that they are not embedded in family relationships or friendships, and so they do not have much else to do except for studying—and we take advantage of this. In this sense, the workload on their shoulder is a little bigger compared to other universities. On the other hand, since our university is well embedded into the international academic life, the students can hope with a reason that while studying here, they can get to international conferences, summer schools, and several special courses more easily. That is, not only the university is international, but for many it provides a springboard opportunity for getting involved in the academic life in America, England, Germany, and so on. We have bilateral agreements with a large number of universities in these countries. Also, our graduated students continue their doctoral studies or continue as teachers at the universities that form part of our network. Furthermore, colleagues from these universities come to teach at CEU. As a result if a student graduates from here, he or she has good reason to hope for a recommendation letter from someone who is well known in international academic life.
Benedek Varkonyi
It is known from books and for those who paid attention, from the events calendar of CEU, that very renowned lecturers have came to CEU in the past and they still come to give lectures here. If somebody graduates from here and goes back, say, to America or anywhere else in the world, and would like to continue studying or would like to start working, is it an advantage that he or she came from Central European University? For example, if someone continues to study in America, will people say, wow, this person is from CEU? Is the university in the rankings as all the other universities in the world are?
Katalin Farkas
I believe we are not yet listed in the general university rankings so I couldn’t say where we stand in world-famous rankings, as for example the Shanghai or the Times Higher Education rankings.
Laszlo Kontler
We haven’t yet had any Nobel Prize winners.
Katalin Farkas
We haven’t yet had any Nobel Prize winners, but it would be a bit difficult to have one, since we do not teach disciplines in which the Nobel Prize is given. But things are developing rapidly. Twenty years ago nobody heard about CEU. Twenty years ago it did not mean anything if somebody wanted to find a job with a PhD degree from CEU. However, nowadays it matters more and more. I experience it with different disciplines for which we are more and more recognized. We have just established the new Cognitive Science Department with excellent, world-famous scientists. People getting a PhD degree from there will have very good chances of finding a job.
Benedek Varkonyi
Before finishing the discussion, let’s speak a bit about the departments, which we haven’t yet covered, and perhaps it is not a marginal issue. What can one study here? We know that Central European University is focused on the social sciences, but what are the most important departments?
Katalin Farkas
Each of them is important. We have 14 departments in the social sciences and the humanities and we have a business school and a Department of Mathematics.
Zsolt Enyedi
And environmental sciences…
Katalin Farkas
Environmental sciences perhaps belongs to the social sciences.
Laszlo Kontler
Environmental sciences and policy, to be more precise.
Katalin Farkas
Yes, environmental sciences and policy. Economics, law, history, medieval studies, philosophy, gender studies.
Laszlo Kontler
And let’s not to forget about our Nationalism Studies Program, since it is very rare.
Benedek Varkonyi
Do these departments develop their syllabuses independently from each other?
Katalin Farkas
Another important issue we haven’t covered yet is that we aim at using an interdisciplinary approach exactly because our university is a small university and the combination of the departments is quite unusual. Due to this there are several collaborations which might not be so common at other universities. The departments are located so close to each other that they can only build strong relationships with each other.
Laszlo Kontler
Kati mentioned interdisciplinary. Let me add that quite uniquely, there is an interdisciplinary Department of Medieval Studies at the university, so there is a pronounced need for dialogue between different disciplines in the policy of each department.
Benedek Varkonyi
And who decides what departments should be established? Was this determined in the spirit of George Soros, or who decides whether to open or to close a department?
Katalin Farkas
This is the task of the Senate. The university has a Senate, which is authorized to make decisions about starting programs or departments. However, the need for them develops in a quite organic way. For example, at the moment we are thinking about starting a program in network science and hiring more researchers in this area. This was the natural result of the interests of those who teach at the existing departments.
Benedek Varkonyi
We touched upon the issue of research. There is an archive near the university, the Open Society Archives. How strong is research at the university? Obviously, a separate infrastructure would be needed for that. Furthermore, it is also important to know that the university has its own publishing house. Does this mean that results by CEU’s several researchers are published by CEU Press, or everybody is doing his or her own research and then somehow publishes his or her scientific results somewhere?
Laszlo Kontler
The connection is not necessarily this direct, because CEU Press is a relatively small enterprise, publishing 15 to 20 volumes per year. The amount of knowledge produced by the colleagues is much bigger. The management of the university expects from the professors to publish at high-quality international forums.
Zsolt Enyedi
CEU Press is also interesting, since the orientation to Central Europe can be best followed through that. But to go back to research, since there are no departments in the natural sciences, or just with certain limitations, we do not have huge laboratories or technical equipment; we do not need them. However, there is a highly competent administration that helps us apply for EU and other types of tenders. The requirement for professors is not only to publish, but to submit tenders and thereby bring money to the university.
Benedek Varkonyi
What is the most important thing in the life of the university and what has changed most in the last 20 years? Of course, it is difficult to answer this question briefly, but let’s try to summarize it somehow. What is completely different from that moment when the university opened?
Zsolt Enyedi
I have special memories, since I first came in contact with the university as a student in 1993. At that time I liked the openness of the professors very much, which has remained the same ever since. I remember professors of the department asked me to go to a departmental seminar and present my—obviously far-from-perfect—paper which I prepared for a class. This spirit continued but what changed I think was the professional attitude. If I may put it this way, institutional structures replaced the original informal structures. Another trend is the growing openness to the world in the sense that while earlier, mostly Czechs, Slovaks, Romanians, and Hungarians studied at the university, now we also have Africans, Canadians, and South Americans. The topics studied in the classes, with the obvious exception of mathematics, have changed accordingly in case of many departments.
Benedek Varkonyi
Finally, I would like to ask all of you a personal question. What is it that you like most about this university, and in what sense does it feel completely different to teaching or to studying at this university than at other universities? What is this special feature?
Katalin Farkas
I came to CEU 10 years ago, at the same time as the establishment of the Department of Philosophy, and I am also one of the first professors there. You mentioned earlier that there are 800 year-old universities. That must be also great to teach at an 800 year-old university. However, the fact that I came here 10 years ago and we began a program, which today is known throughout Europe and is one of the best programs in Europe in analytic philosophy, this is a really exceptional feeling. You feel like you and the other 10 people who participated in this made a big difference in the life of this department.
Zsolt Enyedi
My approach to this question is a little narrower. For me as a person who works there, the lack of hierarchy is the most attractive. That is, while we obviously differ in age and rank, communications is very horizontal, so it is an attractive workplace for me.
Laszlo Kontler
Joining to the opinion of Kati, I would also like to say that it is indeed an incomparable experience to become part of a process like this for 20 years. The other thing is the students, of course. At the beginning of each academic year we tell them how great the faculty and the library are, and there are very good opportunities, but that they will learn the most from each other. I am convinced that this is the truth and we also learn a lot from our students.
Benedek Varkonyi
In the last half an hour we have been talking about Central European University on the occasion of its founding 20 years ago, in 1991. We had three guests, all of whom teach at CEU: Katalin Farkas, Zsolt Enyedi, and Laszlo Kontler. Our evening discussion now ends. The editor was Benedek Varkonyi. Thank you for your attention, goodbye.
The Hungarian National Radio’s Kossuth Chanel (MR1) is the main public radio station of Hungary. “Evening discussion” is a live evening discussion program dealing with culture, academic life, new research, and social issues.