Poland's Jagiellonian University Presents Highest Award to UB President Greiner

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- University at Buffalo President William R. Greiner received the Medal Merentibus -- the highest distinction conferred by Poland's Jagiellonian University -- in ceremonies held Oct. 2 at the university in Crakow.

Jagiellonian University Rector Aleksander Koj said the medal was awarded to Greiner in recognition of his initiative, assistance and constant personal support in developing cooperation between the two universities.

It was presented by Koj during ceremonies marking the beginning of the Polish university's academic year.

UB has a long-standing faculty- and student-exchange program with the Jagiellonian University that preceded the signing of a formal exchange agreement in October 1990.

In a speech to the Jagiellonian University Faculty Senate during the ceremony in which Greiner was presented the medal, former rector Andrzej Pelczar said it would be difficult to overestimate "the personal and distinctive merits" brought to this effort by Greiner.

He lauded Greiner for helping to initiate the cooperative venture in the 1980s when, as UB provost, he helped establish the Program of Polish Language and Culture in the UB Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.

Pelczar cited the UB president as well for his early efforts in helping to secure funds to keep and develop the UB Libraries' unique collection of books and documents in Polish, and for his personal commitment to the establishment of a permanent Polish Center at UB.

In 1993, under Greiner's leadership, the two universities broadened and deepened their compact to allow the operation of joint programs involving students, professional staff and faculty from many fields. Together, they have studied the economic, environmental, cultural and political issues confronting contemporary Poland and devised possible approaches to problem resolution.

Outcomes so far include the establishment of a tenure track position for a Polish professor at UB and a number of visits by UB students to the Jagiellonian School of Polish Language and Culture. The Jagiellonian lecture cycle at UB has for several years offered lectures on a wide range of topics by faculty from both schools.

Reciprocal semester-long scholar exchanges involving Polish and American librarians resulted in the publication this year of a collaborative book on the role of libraries in a democratic society -- a publication to be used to help retrain Polish librarians who must now operate in a vastly different uncensored, decentralized library system.

The agreement has also provided for the presentation of work by visiting artists, as well as by scholars who have addressed such subjects as environmental destruction and the survival of Polish cultural artifacts during nearly 100 years of foreign occupation.

Most recently, UB and Jagiellonian faculty and students cooperated in the development and presentation in both nations of seminars on the international law of human rights. Sponsored by Japan's Sasakawa Peace Foundation, the exchange project involved students in international collaborative research on such topics as remedies for the protection of linguistic and religious minorities, mechanisms for dealing with human-rights violations and xenophobia and immigrants.