Interviewer:
Our guest is Katalin Farkas. Good morning!
Katalin Farkas:
Good morning!
Interviewer:
You are here today as the provost of Central European University. First of all, let me congratuate you because you are the only Hungarian university that has a program, the philosophy program, which is listed among the first 200 in an international ranking.
Katalin Farkas:
Thank you very much. I am particularly happy because I myself am a philosopher, too. When I don’t act as provost, I teach at the Department of Philsophy.
Interviewer:
This is a victory for you and for your collegaues as well, then.
Katalin Farkas:
Let me make a small correction: We were the only university in the humanities that got into the ranking. In natural sciences, the Department of Chemistry at Szeged University and the Departmet of Earth Science at ELTE (Eotvos Lorand University) got into the best 200 in the ranking. We do not yet have a result in social sciences. We are still waiting for the results of the ranking in this field.
Interviewer:
Do you have any hopes in this field, too?
Katalin Farkas:
Yes.
Interviewer:
Is Central European University a good university?
Katalin Farkas:
Central European University is a very good university, yes.
Interviewer:
Is it the best university?
Katalin Farkas:
Yes, in many respects it is the best.
Interviewer:
I checked it on the Internet and saw that students apply from 133 countries, which is an extremely big number. This means that each year, there are applicants from every second country. How does the university develop its reputation in the world? The university is 20 years old now, so it is not a very old institution, but according to these figures it is a very prestiguous one.
Katalin Farkas:
Our Alumni body is most important in creating a good reputation for the university. There are around 10,000 CEU alumi who came from all over the world and thus take with them the name of CEU everywhere in the world. I think the fact that so many people apply shows that people had very good experiences here.
Interviewer:
20 years ago, this university started off with very nice idea and high hopes. It was founded by George Soros. At the time the goal was to provide up-to-date education for those studying there—education that went beyond certain systems, including the educational ones, and on the other hand, to spread democracy throughout the world. To what extent can you monitor whether these goals are realized?
Katalin Farkas:
This is a very good question and here I could mention our alumni again. Many of them work in different organizations that protect the rights of people in civil service, in NGOs, and in cultural organizations all around the world. And we can see that these people truly represent those values that we are trying to convey at the university. Open society, the rule of law, democracy, freedom of expression, tolerance, respecting the differences of others: These are the values we are trying to foster during our everyday work.
Interviewer:
To what extent is a university that works on these principles at the mercy of its environment? I mean, there are governments that try to communicate, especially according to these lines, these values, and there are those who say that this is all very nice but at the same time, it is a bit too unrealistic to think this way.
Katalin Farkas:
Central European University has a double identity. On the one hand, it is accredited in the United States, on the other, we function as an intitution of higher education that is recognized in Hungary as well. Many of our departments are accredited in Hungary and all of our programs are accredited in the United States. In this respect, since we are part of the Hungarian higher education system, we have to keep in mind the Hungarian circumstances. Otherwise, we are in that enviable situation where we are more or less free from the actual political powers, since we receive funding from the foundation and we enjoy academic autonomy.
Interviewer:
Are these 20 years, which the university has behind it now, is this a great celebration or just a step on the way? What is your attitude about it?
Katalin Farkas:
We are celebrating now. This is like our 20th birthday for us. And one thing that somebody can do at his birthday is to look at all the fantastic achievents that he has made.
Interviewer:
Is the list long?
Katalin Farkas:
Yes, the list is long, but we in truth would rather use these 20 years to think over what these 20 years really meant, how much the world has changed, how much the mission of the university has changed, how much its composition has changed. In other words, for us it is a time of reflection, a time to think things through.
Interviewer:
And has the mission changed? The world certainly has.
Katalin Farkas:
The mission has changed only inasmuch as the original goal was to help develop the values of open society. This is still a central issue. But this has been extended with several things since then. Compared to 20 years ago, Central European University has now become an institution that possesses serious research capacities. This is also part of our mission.
Interviewer:
Regarding the way of thinking about open society—and I am asking the best person about it, a philosopher: If we start counting these 20 years, we get back to 1991, which is the time when the Internet appeared. At first it was a miracle and nobody knew what it could become later. How much did the appearance of the Internet and its speading all over the world alter the notion of open society? Its definition was obviously quite different from its definition today.
Katalin Farkas:
I am not an expert about this issue. A social scientist might know it better, but I think that the appearance of the Internet influenced this question both in a positive and in a negative way. On the one hand, it means a greater freedom regarding news and the general communication of information. On the other hand, closed ideologies that do not tolerate others can also find a forum for themselves on the Internet that represents their values.
Interviewer:
Does a university have to respond to this? And basically, what does a university have to handle from the happenings of the world at all?
Katalin Farkas:
We study these problems, we talk and discuss them, we organize talks about them and we try to see what effect these processes have on politics and society.
Interviwer:
Prizes will be given for the occasion of the 20th anniversary and among other things, George Soros will be coming to Budapest to present these prizes. To what extent does he interfere into what direction the university should take?
Katalin Farkas:
George Soros himself? For a long time George Soros was the chairman of the Board of Trustees, that is, the head of our supervisory body. Now he is the honorary chairman, because he retired from the position. To my mind, it is quite admirable, but he does not interfere. He founded this university and since then, as a matter of fact, the institution could function autonomously.
Interviewer:
And he displays the art of temperance, in other words, he does not interfere with things. One of the recipients of the prize is Richard Holbrooke, who is no longer among us and will receive the prize posthumously. However, Javies Solana also receives a prize and he is coming to Budapest to take this award. To what extent are the students in the picture, since these people belong to the past, even if to the recent past? But for someone who is 20 years old, it is long past. Do they know who the people are who receive the prizes? To what extent do they know who George Soros is?
Katalin Farkas:
Everybody knows at the university who George Soros is.
Interviewer:
Is it an obligatory subject?
Katalin Farkas:
No, it isn’t but we do expect our students to be well-informed enough to know this. Anyway, the prize that the mentioned gentlemen are to receive is the CEU Open Society Prize, which we present annually at the graduation ceremony, which will be held the day after tomorrow. That is, the prize itself is not really connected to the 20th anniversary, only inasmuch as we give two prizes instead of one. One of them fostered the values of open society in America and the other in Europe. This way, we honor the double identity of the university.
Interviewer:
Do you have any plans, either in writing or only as a subject of discussion, about how to proceed? In other words, how can a university develop further that has its own ethos about what it is working for and how? Moreover, it is clearly not for or about Hungary, even if we regard it as Hungarian. Therefore, maybe the university should develop in this sense, but how, and in what direction?
Katalin Farkas:
I would’t say that it is not about Hungary, as 18 percent of our students and 40 percent of our faculty are Hungarian.
Interviewer:
And what is the percentage of Hungarian students at other universities here in Budapest?
Katalin Farkas:
But still, Hungarians form the biggest community at the university. We are, of course, proud that we have students from more than 100 countries.
Interviewer:
This is an amazing thing.
Katalin Farkas:
It is an extraordinary thing and I think that there are very few universities in the world where the compostion of students is so varied, and where there isn’t a dominant nation. Otherwise, we do regard ourselves as part of Hungarian academic life. As to the direction we should take, we would like to strengthen further what we already have, that is, we would like to maintain academic excellence and to achieve very high standards. We would like to have more of our programs listed among the best 200 rankings, we would like to have our philosophy program not only in the best 150 but in the best 50, and of course, we would like to continue the original mission of the university.
Interviewer:
We wish you all the best.
Katalin Farkas:
Thank you very much.
Interviewer:
Thank you for coming.
Katalin Farkas:
Thank you.
View the full interview in Hungarian: http://atv.hu/videotar/20110614_husz_eves_a_soros_egyetem