start

Thinking and Developing

At the time of the anniversary of Stanisław Pigoń State College in Krosno, I would like to address the Students of the College as well as our Faculty and Staff. I do also think about the other inhabitants of Krosno and the entire Subcarpathian region, which is very dear to my heart.

I would like to express my gratitude to their Magnificencies, the Rectors of the Universities of Kraków, Rzeszów and Lublin as well as their Professors. I am thankful to all who have supported us from the very beginning, served us with good advice, and have been willing to share their Faculty with us.

On my own behalf as well as that of my predecessors, the previous Rectors, Professors Janusz Strutyński, Andrzej Gonet and Janusz Gruchała, I would like to express my gratitude to the authorities of Krosno and the Subcarpathian region as well as our MPs and Senators. And to all of those who played a part in founding our College and who pointed out our chances and showed us ways to avoid blunders. They have supported our College in the past and in the present in all its activities – both for the sake of students and for the good of the town, the region and the entire country.

The College, which in 2012 was named after Stanisław Pigoń, the son of the land, and an eminent Professor of the Jagiellonian University, has been here for you for fifteen years. Each consecutive year has been filled with intensive activity, which has been both fruitful and useful for the town and the region. Through its dynamic development, the College has always responded to the needs of new generations of the Subcarpathian region. It has always aimed at serving the inhabitants of the region, offering knowledge and professional skills, equipping them with social competences, cultivating their awareness of culture and etiquette, and teaching them respect for other people and patriotism.

We were established in 1999, ten years after the majority of Poles had rejected communism. And we will do our best to make sure communism is only the subject of historical research. We revere the memory of the “outcasts” who sacrificed their lives for a free Poland of their dreams, fighting with a criminal ideology and its illicit political practice. We reject any form of imperialism and we regard the borders of East Central Europe which were created in 1991-1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union as permanent.

On 1 May 2004 Poland became a member of the European Union. Here, in the Subcarpathian region at the EU’s eastern borderlands, we feel even more strongly that we are an indispensable part of the Christian and Humanist legacy of Europe that, to use the words of our great countryman Saint John Paul II, stretches from the Atlantic to the Urals. Apart from our College, there is no other place in Subcarpathia, or maybe even in the adjoining Małopolska region, where young people of Europe, America and Asia – from Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary, Turkey, Spain, European and Asian part of Russia, Belarus and the USA – can meet so willingly and in such large numbers.

Our well renowned International Youth Festival, organised for the third time as part of the Juwenalia student festivities in Krosno, hosts students and their teachers from all the above countries this year. Let them speak to us in all languages, let them protest here against those politicians who want new conflicts in Europe. Today, as always, we need a creative peace in the huge expanse between East Carolina and Vladivostok.

*
In our College we have a very good infrastructure, excellent teachers, administration and maintenance service. We have an interesting educational offer, which keeps expanding to include newer and newer fields of study. At Stanisław Pigoń State College, the future engineers in construction and mechanics, experts in the environment, power systems, commodity science and agriculture, nurses, managers and directors, experts in physical education, tourism, herbal medicine, and teacher trainers meet their fellow students of humanities – Polish, English, Russian, or German studies and future translators.

Is there any other such place where renewable energy, energy-efficient housing, shale gas, and mechatronics can be discussed in the language of Byron, Goethe, Mickiewicz and Pushkin? In the near future, pending the agreement of appropriate authorities in Warsaw, we are planning to offer programmes in Cosmetology, Biotechnology, Gerontology, Wood Processing, and Natural Gas Production. My dream is also to expand the space for teaching foreign languages within the College and to be able to introduce full-fledged Spanish and Ukrainian courses.

Since 2012 we have been following a practically-oriented curriculum. This is why the authorities of Stanisław Pigoń State College in Krosno have put great emphasis on cooperation with the businesses of Subcarpathia and the adjoining Małopolska region. We have established the Partner Schools Programme in order to work actively together with secondary schools in the Subcarpathian province and those of the adjoining districts of Małopolska which would be happy to place their graduates in the good care of Stanisław Pigoń State College in Krosno.

Currently life in Subcarpathia is developing under the auspices of the regional authorities, shaped by owners of local businesses and enterprises, students and staff of the College, representatives of the Church, managers of hospitals, banks, museums and other public services, as well as the dynamic media makers of Krosno. Promoters of sports play an important role too, and strongly represent our College in the region at large, including its capital Rzeszów. I wish everyone to build their own successful future and keep developing, while remaining in close touch with Stanisław Pigoń State College in Krosno – the genuine place of learning.

*
In conclusion, I wish to share with you a reflection of a long distance runner. In the early mornings of spring or winter, when I run through the neighbourhoods of Krosno, Odrzykoń, Korczyna or Bratkówka, as if suspended between a dream and being awake, I can see how pretty this land is and how much has been done over the last decades. My joy is not spoiled by the fact that there is still a great deal to be done in the entire region – there is still time ahead of us all to complete the tasks. Today we are celebrating the 15th anniversary of the College, but tomorrow we will start our creative and patient march towards the anniversaries and jubilees to come.