The Catholic University of Lublin – youthful despite its 105 years

The Catholic University of Lublin is 105 years old yet remains youthful and vibrant. It is a university brimming with energy, offering the academic community a plethora of good initiatives, says rector of the Catholic University of Lublin Fr. Prof. Mirosław Kalinowski before another anniversary of the University’s foundation on December 8. The Gospel and the teaching of the Catholic Church have invariably been the compass for the development of the university and its modern agenda, assures Fr. Rector.

Fr. Prof. Kalinowski observes that the Catholic University of Lublin is made up of eminent scholars and academics, inquisitive, imaginative, and talented students and Ph.D. candidates, as well as reliable administrative staff and generous friends of our University.

In the academic year 2023/2024, the extensive educational portfolio of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin includes over 100 study programs and specialisations in social sciences, humanities, technical and natural sciences, theology, philosophy, law, and medicine. The innovative educational offer is geared towards prospective physicians, coaches, career guidance counsellors, and AI specialists.

The first estimated recruitment results from September this year indicated that approximately three thousand new undergraduates, graduates, and doctoral students would begin their studies at our University. Two thousand of them will be taught at uniform MA and undergraduate programmes and around 800 people at MA programmes. In total, there are about nine thousand students at the University, including several hundred international students. The latter come not only from the war-stricken Ukraine, which our University is trying to help, but also from distant countries in the Americas, Africa or even from Australia.

The Catholic University of Lublin has embarked on a number of modern initiatives which go beyond the classical educational offer addressed only to academic youth. The three most interesting relevant endeavours include the Catholic University of Lublin Study Centre at the Remand Prison, whose inmates study as part of their social reintegration. There is also the Polish Diaspora Centre with its vast offer of as many as 18 courses for Poles abroad, or the University's youngest child, the Centre for Research on Diplomacy, whose task is to conduct national and international research on contemporary diplomacy, particularly important in today's polarised world.

Studies for prisoners have been conducted by the Catholic University of Lublin for over 10 years. This initiative, unique on a European scale, is fully in line with the Catholic University's mission to provide help even to those who have gone astray in their life. In fact, the studies are intended to empower convicts to receive higher education and to acquire important ethical and humanistic values.

Prisoners who, in their own words, do not want to waste time behind bars, learn how to work as assistants of dependent persons (undergraduate studies) or how to animate a social environment (graduate studies).

One should never give up, pointed out Prof. Michał O. Zembala from the Faculty of Medicine of the Catholic University of Lublin, a respected specialist in cardiac surgery and clinical transplantology. During the inauguration of a new study programme, he gave an inaugural lecture entitled "Quo vadis Samaritana?". It is worth mentioning that in the current academic year more than 50 students detained in the Lublin Remand Prison have started their higher education.

The Polish Diaspora Centre of the Catholic University of Lublin, active for merely a year, can boast of success, having recently launched the third edition of the Study Programme for Poles and Polish Communities Abroad. More than a thousand people from 30 countries applied to study 18 courses offered by the Catholic University of Lublin: artificial intelligence, speech therapy, mediation and negotiation, effective management, culture of the Polish language and courses in reportage and journalistic interviewing. The largest number of participants, more than 400, have applied from the UK, but the University's offer is equally popular in Germany and France and other much more distant countries.

The Centre for Research on Diplomacy is the latest initiative of our University. Inaugurated in May 2023, in addition to research on contemporary diplomacy, it focuses on cooperation with foreign scientific research units engaged in the study of state foreign policy, international relations, and diplomacy. The Centre's tasks will also include the publication of monographs, scientific journals and other source publications, as well as the organisation of conferences and modern popularisation activities, and the construction of an educational offer in cooperation with external partners, including the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The lecture at the inauguration of this unique unit of the University, entitled "How much God is in modern diplomacy?", was delivered by the Director of the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, Emil Brix, who discussed the changing relationship between international politics, churches and faith and the role of diplomacy in this context.