Good afternoon, dear friends!
My colleagues asked me to congratulate you all on the beginning of the new academic year. I decided not to do that in the usual way, since any large language model would do it a hundred times better than me if you asked it to write a greeting on behalf of the Rector. Instead, I would like to share my thoughts on what will make this year remarkable.
Surely, the main event for our university is its 30th anniversary. This is the age when much has already been tried and tested, and it is time to start focusing on something more seriously.
In recent years, our university has worked hard to understand what the most advanced teaching technologies are, what the technologies of human interaction are (if we speak not only about the teaching profession), and how they are present in our lives. Indeed, recent technological innovations suggest that very significant global changes lie ahead.
Who, if not the university, should think about the substance of these changes? Who, if not the university, should reflect on the risks of these changes? And who, if not the university, should become a participant in designing and implementing these changes?
Today, many texts on education policy discuss not only so-called content knowledge (the specific information we learn) or procedural knowledge (the skills of applying this information), but also epistemological knowledge — knowledge about knowledge itself: how we think, on what data we base our conclusions, why some data must be treated with special caution, which data can be trusted and which cannot, how to cross-check sources, and so on.
Perhaps every school student would say that there was too little of this in school education. But in university education, such a critical attitude to different domains of knowledge should be manifested in the best possible way. This, probably, is the essence of university education.
I want to congratulate you on the 30th anniversary of our university and wish you curiosity, perseverance, critical thinking, and creativity in the coming academic year. Let us ask more questions, be more inquisitive, and approach life with greater honesty.
Happy new academic year!