Opening message for the academic year 2020/2021
Date published
Dear students,
Speaking about solidarity, Andrei Pleșu said that two people are solidary when they meet and remain silent for a while about the same thing.
Usually, this day, the opening of a new academic year, would have been one of joy, enthusiasm, the thrill of hope and confidence in the future to come, the tumult of joy in seeing each other again, all of us, teachers, students, those who, with their hard work, make our University a benchmark in Romanian education.
From time to time, however, humanity experiences a moment of "crossroads," a turning point, when it is given the chance to pause, reflect, judge, and meditate on its own fate and destiny. This cold wind of a strange, unknown, and deadly virus has turned everything upside down, perhaps the most difficult impasse in the history of mankind.
From its beginnings, humanity has meant association, community, communion. With peers, with gods, with other people, of different tribes, of different nations, and of different colors. Man is not created to live alone. He must communicate, relate, and create strong, indestructible human bonds.
The impasse in which humanity finds itself today shows us that we can only succeed together. Any gesture from one of our peers can influence, in much less time than we might imagine, a community in Romania, for example. Separated, we no longer know who we are, nor what purpose we have on this Earth.
The opening of the academic year should be a joy. And it is. But only halfway. Because meetings will no longer be direct, face to face, but online. Of course, apart from those activities with an applied character.
So, online education. Is it good, is it bad? It depends on all of us, teaching staff, students, and auxiliary staff responsible for maintaining and ensuring the proper functioning of the systems so that we can continue, under the best conditions, the learning process at the academic level. The second semester of last academic year showed that it is possible, and still under the best conditions. Both the teachers and, especially, you, dear students, have risen to the occasion.
So we will leave, for a while, the classrooms to resonate only with the echo of past footsteps and voices, while we will meet online, discussing the same important thing as in the amphitheaters, the news in the fields you have chosen to prepare for.
Let’s see and hear each other well!
Timișoara,
01.10.2020 Dean,
Prof.univ.dr. Florin IMBREA