A week or two ago a bunch of sociologists published the shocking (to Poles) results of a survey they took among Polish academics. They cautioned that the study was biased because mostly those who were frustrated responded. Gazeta Wyborcza ran with it all week and judging by the latest cover, Wprost is taking it up as well. Normally there would be nothing much to detain one in the frustrated moaning of some academics – nothing that hasn’t been doing the rounds for decades in the west anyway. But this being Poland, there are a few wrinkles.
Among the complaints is that Polish academia is inward-looking. Professor do not publish enough in internationally peer-reviewed journals. There’s a lot of back scratching going on. Fair enough. But “international” means “English language” and some of the letters and articles and appeals betray an alarming linguistic slave mentality. Andzrej Koźmiński, rector of a private business school called – wait for it – the Leon Koźmiński Academy manages to use the word “English” 6 times in a 400 word letter to the paper. He suggests that entire programmes be taught through English – including post-graduate and doctoral programmes. Professors must have English language publications and posts should only be given to people who speak English. When Bismarck tried that it was called “Kulturkampf.”
To prove that there’s no old fogey like a young old fogey, there is an article by Łukasz Abramowicz and Michał Miąskiewicz, two young hotshots who have made it where people speak English. They present their ideal university and round off the article with a ringing false dichotomy – it’s either our way or Rydzyk’s way. Among the ideals of their university is that students would ring their profs at home – that’s how down with it the faculty and the students would be. You might take a course in linguistics because a part of it is devoted to the study of rhythm in the language of hip hop. After finishing this ideal college, they suggest, you might get job in hip hop management! How this article got published would be a mystery if it were not for the fact that it says – without offering any evidence – that the development of good universities without the help of big business is impossible. You press the buttons you get the banana.
A personal favourite, though, would have to be the story of one Joanna Bronowicka, just a regular average schmo, who studied in Harvard, where she got talking to a professor, who hired her as his assistant on ten bucks an hour. Things weren’t so good in Paris, though: there her prof was as distant and uncontactable as in Poland. Obviously, he was cuter than his American counterpart: seeing the ambitious young Bronowicka coming a mile off, he decided he had better things to do than pay the class pain ten dollars an hour to pester him after every lecture.
And therein is the rub. It’s always the lecturers’ fault. No one ever suggests reforming students.