2015 Interview with Zdeněk Pinc and Jan Sokol ****************************************************************************************** * ****************************************************************************************** ****************************************************************************************** * We Never Intended to Establish a Faculty ****************************************************************************************** What led you to the idea that you could or should establish a new faculty? Pinc: That was never our intention! When I returned to Charles University in 1990, one of create a kind of shared study program, ideally open to all university faculties. That didn the extent I had hoped, because back then, people still believed that a proper university last five years or more. The idea of dividing the studies seemed like heresy. Moreover, th before the change, a university could enroll students who were not affiliated with any fac Sokol: That part – that a student must be enrolled at a faculty – wasn’t in the original d It was added later under pressure from the university lobby. Pinc: It was essentially a move against us. Sokol: In a way, yes. Pinc: It’s hard to prove outright... Sokol: ...but there was probably something to it. It was an effort to preserve the system "belonged" to faculties. Though no one admitted that, in truth, they belonged to departmen *========================================================================================= * The Formative Years *========================================================================================= What was the leading idea behind establishing the faculty, or Institute for Liberal Educat Sokol: That was Zdeněk’s (Pinc) idea, but I’ll try to explain. The concept was that educat prerequisite for university studies. At old universities, including Charles University unt student had to go through a preparatory faculty of liberal arts to learn Latin and other f knowledge. We wanted to revive that in some way. Firstly, because at 18 years old, many st what they want to study – this was evident in how often they changed programs. Secondly, i especially, it’s crucial to have some general overview. Disciplines often overlap; it’s he psychologist knows some sociology, and vice versa, not to mention history and philosophy. The second key idea was that studies should follow a liberal model: no fixed curriculum, s lectures, and must pass certain exams. We implemented that but later had to adjust. It tur often couldn’t manage it on their own and failed too frequently. So, we introduced compuls exam deadlines. When IZV was founded, we benefited from the downsizing of the Czech Academy of Sciences. M off, and the government provided funding... Pinc: ...a hundred million. Two years in a row. Sokol: ...to make use of these people, so we hired researchers leaving the institutes. Pinc: That’s really the only useful outcome of that governmental initiative. Sokol: Yes. Pinc: It didn’t happen in 2000 but eight years earlier, and I’m a bit sorry this prehistor forgotten. Our idea at Charles University was a revival of the original concept – before t faculties, there was the Studium generale with its liberal status, the Quattuor Artes Libe on that deliberately. The vision may have been mine originally, but Jan Sokol fleshed it o years. He wrote a series of textbooks that cover what we understand as foundational educat FHS: Člověk a náboženství (Man and Religion), Malá filosofie člověka (Small Philosophy of osoba (Man as a Person), Moc, právo, peníze, etika a život (Power, Law, Money, Ethics and Last year (the interview was conducted at 2015), the VIZE 97 award went to Andrew Lass, an professor from one of the Seven Sisters colleges. He speaks Czech, having spent his youth his lecture at the Center for Theoretical Studies, our alumna Dana Léwová nudged me and sa copying you!" I said, "He is, but he doesn’t know it. Years ago, I was the one copying him In the U.S., such studies are tuition-based, generously funded, and considered elite. In o people mocked our program as "three years of vacation." When the faculty was named FHS, so it as "The Faculty in Search of Meaning." (Fakulta hledající smysl – editor’s remark) I sa compliment. After all, seeking meaning is evidence that we acknowledge its importance. Sokol: Similar models were tried in Europe during revolutionary periods. Karl Popper fondl attending such a school in Vienna. The school lasted only a few years. Pinc: Such experiments often don’t survive. Maybe we won’t either, eventually. But in Amer arts institutions hold their ground. Here in Prague, we were disadvantaged – the governmen research institutes only in certain fields. So, we had a surplus of some educators and a t other disciplines. We had to work with what we had, shaping the institution as best we cou The Academy didn’t want highly qualified people to leave science and education altogether. million Czech crowns annually, twice, so these professionals could transition to universit out and took in everyone willing to join. Most stayed, some are still here. For example, K already a docent with excellent international contacts, had never taught and doubted he co time, but he became an outstanding teacher. He often says he’s my student in some sense, a than me, because I guided him through those growing pains. In the beginning, most people at IZV didn’t want to be there. The students had all applied University faculties but weren’t accepted due to limited capacity. Rector Radim Palouš dec take another entrance exam – with us. And we, though I maybe shouldn’t say it aloud, accep them that first year. Sokol: The Academy offered us space in Holešovičky at the Mining Institute, a rundown indu near Heydrich’s turn. When they showed it to us, they thought we’d say no. But we imagined done, and they took pity and offered Legerka instead – a former clinic for plastic surgery on Legerova Street, where Jan Palach died. Pinc: It was quiet except for the highway outside. When we arrived, it wasn’t operating an looked like a hospital. White tiles on the walls. It was July, and we had to start teachin So, we used leftover copies of Přítomnost, the journal we both worked on, as wallpaper ove gave the place a unique look, and students could read while waiting in the halls. It was a battle. For weeks, I worried that health authorities would shut us down. The envi terrible. The only advantage: windows couldn’t open to the street, or we would have died f Ventilation only came from the cleaner courtyard side. Sokol: The lecture halls had once been operating theatres, with huge windows that didn’t o Pinc: And were never washed. I remember when health inspectors visited. Honza Sokol handle – the women were enchanted, like in a parapsychological trance, nodding along. They only s air freshening. Honza promised to buy air purifiers. We bought them with prize money from Award – but never used them because they were too noisy. Sokol: We furnished everything in a makeshift way. Zdeněk had an office near the stairs, w bird aviary. That sounds like quite an adventure! Pinc: It really was. And it created an incredibly strong bond between teachers and student today’s lecturers were students back then: Josef Kružík, Ondřej Skripnik, Jarda Novotný, H Filip Horáček, and even Jakub Češka, in a way. They lived through that era. *========================================================================================= * Be Prepared for Anything *========================================================================================= On your sources of inspiration, for example American universities, you’ve already said a f let me ask again: where all did you look for inspiration when creating the Institute for L (IZV)? Sokol: Zdeněk should probably speak more to that, since he came up with it all, but I thin tradition played a key role. In a certain form, that tradition was preserved in the U.S., was abolished in the 19th century. True, that was also because we didn’t have gymnasiums a fact that the university began with a sort of general education also served to maintain a among educated people. A doctor, a physicist, or a journalist—they all shared a common fou them to discuss not only professional topics but also things beyond their specialization. great figures in the humanities: Max Weber, who started in medicine and dabbled in all sor Georg Simmel—in the end, as Ivan Havel would say, they were all transdisciplinary experts. only did various things but also combined them. That’s their greatness. Pinc: You had to look at the whole matter differently. Rector Palouš came to an off-site m CTS, which was a natural lab for changes at Charles University. He came with Professor Zah then-president of the Academy of Sciences, and immediately said: "The government has decid funds for integrating Academy of Sciences employees who lost their jobs due to reorganizat coming straight from that meeting. It's an opportunity for your educational project, Zdeně could present to us tomorrow." I didn’t have any project at the time, just a wealth of exp dissident days and apartment seminars, so I said: "Of course, Radim, I’ll prepare somethin had one night. But I prepared it. I presented it the next day, and Zahradník, even though liked it and said laconically: "We’ll do this." A completely liberal curriculum, competitive comparative exams, and the result would be a students with a detailed description of what they had done. Higher-level departments would people from this pool. That was something I borrowed from the liberal curriculum of underg specifically Harvard. But the apartment seminars taught us something else entirely. There, people who couldn’t o gave lectures to those who couldn’t or wouldn’t officially study. The lecturer had to teac and the listeners had to listen to what was available. Often their interests didn’t align. had to try to make it engaging and understandable, knowing he couldn’t formally examine th he couldn’t give them a certificate that would mean anything. One peculiar experience for was that no matter how well-prepared or educated they were, they quickly began to repeat t because people didn’t come for just two or three years, like in a formal program, but some years. So many of us independently came to the method of reading a good book together, som original language. Slowly, carefully, with explanation, over the course of years. Nietzsch legendary. We read him in German, though few really knew German. We even had a seminar whe Phenomenology of Spirit in German, in Patočka’s Czech translation, and in French, over thr that’s worthwhile! The initial goal was to determine whether Hyppolite's or Patočka’s tran better. After three years, we concluded Patočka’s was best. Internationally, Hyppolite's i because no one can verify Patočka’s unless they know Czech. These were also our sources of so-called "controlled reading" method comes from this: if you read a book thoroughly and m both in writing and orally, that you really understood it, it stays with you. But if you l lines from a textbook, it's useless and you usually forget it. What was your vision for the goals of the program? What would your ideal graduate look lik Sokol: You know, every teacher secretly imagines that the ideal graduate looks something l us, they were a bit like tinkerers, like we became by coincidence. People who don’t stress specialization, but think about how philosophy, for instance, might actually be useful. Ho shapes human life—not just an academic career. Pinc: Aside from people from the reduced institutes of the Academy of Sciences, there were from the apartment universities. These were people who, twenty years ago or even earlier, they would never do what they wanted. Honza was expelled from Archbishop Gymnasium, so whe or thirteen, it was decided he’d never graduate. He had to become an apprentice. But the l other foundations were already there, and he found his way to education. I studied a relat field, but at 23 I learned I’d never do that work either. Honza became a watchmaker and go a "Patrolling Dispatch Officer"—in a cooperative for the disabled, Martinská 4, Prague 1, written on my desk. My colleagues were people whose lives had gone off the rails for vario Life turned out very differently than expected. The Academy folks were probably good in th got into the Academy after all. And now they were thrown together with us. Even though you to discourage us, they usually didn’t. Maybe because they were afraid to discuss it, maybe understood it—I don’t know. But the idea that people should be able to manage, wherever li really took root. And we managed to pass that idea to our students quite successfully. Our good at that. We also believed that university education should stand on a solid base, like a pyramid. T bachelor’s program, broad and fundamental, so the pyramid stands firmly. The next level, m be as short and qualification oriented as possible. The top is doctoral study, for academi of people at each level should vary by orders of magnitude: thousands of bachelors, hundre tens of PhDs. Charles University at the time believed the opposite: ideally no bachelor st schools produce them, more masters, lots of PhDs. Under Rector Václav Hampl and likely sti the prevailing view. So we had to adapt, and now instead of a pyramid we have a block or a our orientation still stands: a person can cope well wherever life takes them. And I think well. Sokol: That’s a quality—not even a competence—that matters today more than ever. Who can s one job for life anymore? Especially young people in cities need to expect to do all sorts That this quality would be something the, pardon the term, "job market" would value—I thin right. Pinc: When I was a student, we still had job placements. The number of students admitted t was based on a state plan: how many archivists would be needed in five years—one in Uhersk Přerov, one in České Budějovice. Then one got sent here, the other there, regardless of or enough, that kind of mismatch rarely happened. I changed programs several times mainly to teaching qualification that came with job placement. Specialized fields didn’t have that. to be assigned. Luckily, job placements were abolished during my studies and never came ba polled students today about bringing them back—whoa! That would stir things up. Sokol: I don’t think so. I don’t think they’d want it. We had offers from companies to pro in exchange for five years of work afterward. It always failed due to total lack of studen *========================================================================================= * The Siege of Jinonice *========================================================================================= Now let’s move to something more practical or technical: how did the actual founding proce whether of the institute or the faculty? Was it hard to push it through? Sokol: Formally, the founding of IZV went very smoothly. It was a revolutionary time. Accr sending in a piece of paper, the commission said “yes,” and that was it. Pinc: Rector Palouš founded four new institutions at the university. One was CTS (Centre f Studies), a research institute with a transdisciplinary graduate program at the university Ivan Havel’s idea. In tandem with that, the Institute for Liberal Education was created – favourite ideas. The third institution, which Palouš was more or less forced to create, wa for Economic Research and Graduate Education), because it attracted funding – and with tha American professors could be brought in to lecture here on the subject we were most lackin fourth was the Environmental Centre. So administratively, the founding was very simple. I was named director, though I was Radi It was supposed to be Petr Vopěnka, but he became Minister of Education and left the unive choice was Petr Piťha, who got the Department of Civic Education at the Faculty of Educati dedicate himself to this. Then I was appointed. I was handed practically a non-existent in small office at the Faculty of Education, a quarter of a secretary, and an honorary title, receive any salary at first. But I did get one important weapon: I inherited the remnants Leninism. I was put in charge of all the departments at various faculties that had emerged Marxism-Leninism institutes. That meant about sixty people whom I formally commanded, and of my life at various hiring committees where these positions were being filled – I had qu there. But very quickly, my authority collapsed. A new funding system was introduced within a yea on the number of students – so this inheritance fell apart. Each dean could do whatever th the money they got. At that point, we faced a sine qua non: if we didn’t want to humbly cr our faculties—assuming they would even take us—we had to get our own students. So, the dif ideological, but technical and organizational. Establishing a faculty was technically simp principle that a faculty can be established by the rector as long as no one at the univers if someone does, you wait… Sokol: …until someone drops out. Pinc: Yes, until one side or the other drops out—or dies off. Then something revolutionary mutual friend Jiří Gruša, a poet and writer, became Minister of Education—probably a recor shortest term in office. Without him, I don’t think any of this would have happened. He wa for about three months and during that time, he didn’t do anything at the ministry except handed over a building his predecessor Pilip had started renovating—intended to house vari under the ministry—and gave it to Charles University. But the idea nearly won out at the university that no one would move into the new building everyone would just claim a corner for storing this or warehousing that. At the time, I kn wanted to keep our program alive, we had to create a faculty, and if this opportunity had take it—under one condition: that we move into Jinonice as a whole. It was said then that with us—they were also struggling with space. Since the new building was bigger than we needed, it was decided that part of FSV and a fe Faculty of Arts—which also lacked space—would move in too. But no one except us really wan Jinonice. Sokol: It even got to the point where one associate professor from FSV reported it to the authorities, so health inspectors came to shut it down. And did they? Sokol: No. But some things had to be redone. Pinc: This building wasn’t originally designed for educational purposes—it was meant for c little offices. We managed to create a lecture hall here—that was our contribution. When we first came here, it was a shell, so some of the offices could be enlarged. They ad capacity and such, but the one thing we couldn’t change was the corridors. That’s why we h first institution at Charles University to be thoroughly computerized. When the building w and we were moving in, suddenly a problem arose—FSV threatened to veto the founding of the Humanities unless we gave up some space. Professor Mlčoch, a great guy and then-dean of FSV, accused me at the rector’s board meeti “taken over” the whole of Jinonice, claiming they desperately needed some space because th where they were. I had to give up space. Then he came back again, saying it still wasn’t e the end, what I originally wanted—to move in as a complete unit—didn’t happen. The researc Faculty of Humanities stayed at Legerova, and the rest of the faculty operated in Jinonice Later, when we were evicted from Legerova—which was supposed to undergo major repairs (the started, and it’s been about ten years)—we luckily got hold of a former nursery and kinder We had to rebuild it, of course—it had those tiny toilets for toddlers, which had to be re later, city councilors decided to convert Hůrka back into a kindergarten, so the toilets w got shrunk again, and we had to leave. That’s when the idea of having our own building really came to the fore. When the new rect Hampl, visited Jinonice, he walked around and said, standing in the hall: “So, what else i thought he had just walked around the dean’s offices and was wondering where the rest of t Sokol: The founding of the faculty, of course, ran into opposition in the Charles Universi on—it was quite a fight. Rumours were flying all over the university about what we were up the end, thanks to the then-chair of the senate and future rector Wilhelm, we pulled it of us a lot—he liked the idea, and to this day he serves on our academic council and regularl deserves to be acknowledged again and again. It was already mentioned that the studies were more relaxed in the beginning. Did the stud look very different? Pinc: Not really. The mandatory exams and assessments for the bachelor’s degree were prett same as they are today. What had to be scrapped early on, though, was the idea of grading scales. For a big assessment, you needed twenty-five points—what we’d now call credits. At wasn’t a unified credit system yet; we actually had one of the very first credit systems a The rule was that if someone passed the exam even with just one point, they could still mo trade-off was a much worse overall grade, and they had to make up for those missing credit At Harvard, as I mentioned, they would put out a ranked list—who came in first, second, th the way down to three hundred and seventieth. It was the same at Charles University back i Students at the bachelor’s exam were lined up in a list, and those lists were kept. During in Constance, some academics even told him: “Brother, if you hadn’t ranked so poorly on th might not be here today!” But when Jerome of Prague was burned at the stake a year later, talk stopped—because Jerome had ranked second in his year, while Hus had been close to the we had something similar. Every year, we knew who finished first, and there were even reco the all-time rankings—who placed where—because the point system was continuous. I always t from a competitiveness standpoint, it was really interesting. But it required a connection quantitative side of education—credits—and the qualitative aspect. The unified European sy those two, so we had to let that go. But the exams themselves stayed pretty much the same. Sokol: They just added limits for when students have to complete them. Pinc: Right, they’re now tied to a specific semester, and the upper limit is a one-semeste fact that there were more credits back then meant there were way more elective options. No principle of electives is being scaled back. These days, even students who only half pay a no problem earning the required number of credits. In fact, their options are practically sign up for a course, then decide not to complete it because you already have more than en nothing happens. Back then, there were five modules, and you had to have four completed. You could leave ju one open—meaning you could skip a course there. Within one module, it was possible to have requirements, but if you had two open modules, you were either conditionally expelled or k altogether. That was way stricter than it is today. Pinc: It sure was. But on the flip side, there was the Second Chance. I’m especially proud with that. If someone messes up and gets kicked out for a semester, they can keep studying have to pay for that time themselves. Once they catch up on what they missed, they can ret studies. And if they don’t manage to catch up during their Second Chance, they get another the Second Chance can go on indefinitely. The inspiration came partly from the Gospel: the door should never be shut, and that a reformed sinner is worth more than a whole squad of Take Břéťa Oliva, for example — he was one of those chronically unsuccessful students, stu almost thirteen years because he failed to finish twice within the maximum six-year time l the university decided to run a preventative check during the Plzeň turbo-student scandal, we had any cases like that here, Břéťa’s name popped up in the system. He had just wrapped in under a year — because he’d recently started his third go at it — and he even graduated It was easy to explain, actually. The only slap on the wrist we got was for admitting him though he paid his own way each time. When Břéťa finally made it through, he walked all ar thanking everyone, and it turned out the credit really went to Ms. Dyršmídová, who was hea Administration Office  at the time, and to his then-future wife. See, he was a bass guitarist, and whenever he hit trouble with his studies, he’d book a wh gigs, earn some cash, pay for another Second Chance, and keep going. But of course, travel all over the country would land him in trouble again — and it kept repeating like that. Ev future wife locked his guitar in a closet and found him a job as a program coordinator at centre somewhere in Hlinsko, on the condition that he’d get his bachelor’s degree. She eve Helena Dyršmídová in person and talked her into giving Břéťa one last shot. And Břéťa — ju guitar back — studied and finished everything. *========================================================================================= * Heading towards specialization? *========================================================================================= Is the current situation and role of the faculty different from what you imagined back the Sokol: I think in some ways it’s still the same — especially in that the bachelor’s progra a kind of starting point for nineteen-year-olds who don’t quite know what they want yet. T advantage and a disadvantage, but it still holds true, and because of that, we continue to number of applications — unlike some other faculties these days. On the other hand, things the faculty has really strengthened its position within the university, largely thanks to the research department, which began seriously evaluating the faculty’s performance throug and similar metrics. Our master’s and doctoral programs have grown significantly, so from perspective, we’re doing much better than we were back then. But we old-school types are a bit concerned about what seems like a drift away from the or that is, that the program is starting to break down into individual disciplines. The young don’t have the same experience, tend to assume that every student is either a historian or a philosopher, and they treat them accordingly. That’s the risk — that we might slowly be the standard university model. We’ll see. Pinc: I don’t think it could’ve gone any other way. When Sokol’s possible years as dean we want to become dean — mainly because I knew something like this would need to be done, and to do it. I would’ve dragged my feet and held everything up. And that would’ve been bad — of that. Alongside the people Honza mentioned, Josef Kružík also did an incredible job bringing ord here. The fact that the faculty earned respect within the university is hugely thanks to h always first in line for criticism — let’s say we were more of an unwanted child than a wa whereas now I’d say we’re a fairly respected faculty. But I completely agree with what Hon where we gave ground, we probably had to. I can’t really imagine this process not continui direction. So, it’s only a matter of time before this becomes just another regular faculty that in the pejorative sense. Sokol: I wouldn’t go that far. Some compromises were forced on us by regulations — laws, t Declaration, and so on — but teachers here have always had a lot of freedom. The space is depends on the teachers whether they realize it and make use of it, or whether they go all specialized programs. Pinc: I’m afraid that in the long run, it’s going to go that way. It’s not that the regula our hand — it really comes down to people. But I think that the "golden years" usually pla shorter timeframes than we’ve already lived through. I don’t mean it in a catastrophic way are going to go downhill year by year. I see this blending into the broader university bod thing. And deep down, I hope that the other faculties might actually move in our direction this idea of producing people with the narrowest possible qualifications just doesn’t hold we live in. Sokol: Even in the traditionally recognized fields. Universities today are under pressure inside and the outside for not being able to adapt to new needs. We believe our model does reworked to fit those needs — because students can essentially tailor their own studies. T classes across the university — that’s a really important feature. For example, American bachelor’s degrees can be either at a university or outside of one. university is crucial — because if a student knows from the start that they want to study Egyptology, they can sign up for those lectures from year one and study that exclusive lan full five years. This idea that your studies don’t have to be chopped up into separate sta hasn’t fully caught on here. Of course, if you’re doing a bachelor’s at some college, ther there. But the point of a university-based bachelor’s program is precisely that you can ch want to focus on early. Pinc: And that’s exactly how our top students have done it. Sokol: Yes, many students have taken that path — and still do. How would you like to see the faculty develop further? Sokol: Well, first off — we’d really like it to finally have its own building (this came t editor’s remark). That’s important. After that, it’s up to the faculty itself. We also mus this concept is thirty years old, and times have changed. We may still be a bit trapped in that earlier era. I just really hope that our successors don’t lose sight of the idea that bachelor’s level, the faculty should remain a flexible foundation for all kinds of paths. Personally, I’d love to see more of our bachelor’s graduates become teachers. I truly beli due respect to our colleagues — that we’re not doing a bad job preparing people for teachi if more of our graduates went on to complete their teaching credentials, I think the educa benefit. And there are plenty of other fields where this kind of broad foundation is valua — it’s not just wishful thinking. That’s something I really hope the faculty will hold ont Pinc: I’d add one more thing — the faculty should try to maintain a high standard of inter relationships. If you heard the outgoing dean’s final speech during the handover, it was u in tone — and not particularly cheerful. The dean was leaving with a certain sense of bitt there are people here who treat the faculty environment in a destructive way. That’s a typ academic institutions. And for a long time, it seemed like we had managed to avoid it. Let’s hope we weather this storm too, and that those good interpersonal relationships stic goes not only for the relationships among faculty, but also between teachers and students. any storms in that area so far. Sokol: Oh, come on — we’ve had our share of rebellious students. Pinc: That’s fine — rebellious students should exist. Sokol: I mean the kind that take things to the press. We’ve had scandals, too. Pinc: But what’s always been clear is that students are genuinely happy to be here — that’ sense. So, I really hope we can preserve that atmosphere. It’s already become, in a way, a all, all three deans who’ve led this school so far have placed the same emphasis on it — s carry on into the future. At least into the kind of future we can see — which, for the two that far off. Marie Hlaváčková 26. 8. 2015