October marks the beginning of the academic year in Poland. All campuses of SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities will celebrate this occasion with official ceremonies.
We will welcome first year students, eager to begin their academic journey, and the returning students, ready to continue their studies after the long summer vacation. As a community of academics, students and administrative staff we are looking forward to new challenges and opportunities this year will bring.
Ceremony
On October 4th, SWPS University will host many distinguished guests from academia, the government, and the local municipality. Rector of SWPS University, Professor Roman Cieślak, will preside over the Inauguration ceremony and will address the distinguished guests and students. Additionally, everyone will have an opportunity to enjoy a performance by SWPS University Choir.
The Ceremony will take place on October 4, 2018 at 11:00 am, at:
SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities
Chodakowska 19/31, 03-815 Warsaw
Professor T. Tomaszewski Lecture Hall, room 214
Opening Address
The opening address titled To have or to be? Returning to the question about the essence of happiness will be delivered by Professor Tomasz Zaleśkiewicz, Dean's Representative for Interdisciplinary Doctoral Studies at SWPS University in Wrocław.
Lecture Abstract
One of the main human goals is to achieve the state of happiness. Almost all people ask themselves the question how to attain this goal. For thousands of years, philosophers and spiritual leaders and, nowadays, researchers representing various disciplines of social sciences, have been searching for the right answer to this question. One of the dilemmas intertwined in the debate about the essence of happiness relates to the tension expressed by the question “to be or to have”; the tension between the spiritual and the material world; between sacrum and profanum. Can accumulation of money and material possessions make us happy? Starting with the message passed on by a German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm in his essay To Have or to Be and the wisdom derived from the classic philosophical and religious works, I will attempt to define the relation between the state of happiness and the attachment to money and possessions or the attachment to social and transcendent values. This difficult, yet crucial, problem will be analyzed in the context of the current psychological knowledge related to the emotional and cognitive consequences of taking a materialistic approach to life. Erich Fromm and other thinkers who had lived hundreds of years before him, suggested that greed and pursuit of material possessions did not appease the human longing for happiness. The latest experimental research, conducted by psychologists, economists and scholars representing other disciplines of science, seem to strongly confirm these assumptions.
Speaker
Professor Tomasz Zaleśkiewicz, SWPS University in Wrocław - social psychologist. His research focuses on economic behaviors, such as money investing and financial decision making and comprises behavioral economics, neuroeconomics and game theory. He is Head of the Center for Behavioral Economics at SWPS University in Wrocław. The Centre for Behavioral Economics conducts research projects in the field of economic psychology and behavioral economics and collaborates with business organizations and associations of stock market investors. Author of several publications on economic psychology and on risk taking, for example: Psychologia inwestora giełdowego (Psychology of a stock market investor) (2003), Przyjemność czy konieczność? Psychologia spostrzegania i podejmowania ryzyka (Pleasure or Necessity? Psychology of perceiving and taking risks) (2005), and Psychologia ekonomiczna (Economic Psychology) (2012).
Ceremony
The official inauguration of the 2018/2019 academic year at SWPS University in Wrocław will take place on October 09, 2018,at 13.00, in the W. Sterna Lecture Hall, at Ostrowskiego 30b, Wrocław.
Associate Professor Katarzyna Byrka, Dean of the Wrocław Faculty of Psychology and Associate Professor Monika Lewandowicz-Machnikowska Dean of the Faculty of Law and Communication will jointly preside over the ceremony and will welcome honorable guests and students. Additionally, everyone will have an opportunity to enjoy a performance by Piú Mosso Vocal Ensemble of SWPS University in Wrocław.
The opening address titled Beyond the instrumental brain. University at the time of algorithms will be delivered by Associate Professor Mirosław Filiciak, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, at SWPS University in Warsaw.
Speaker
Associate Professor Mirosław Filiciak, SWPS University in Warsaw - media expert interested in the relationship between new media and cultural participation. His research interests include the Internet, computer games, transformation of television, contemporary culture, and informal distribution of information. Co-creator of Kultura 2.0 [Culture 2.0], a project devoted to cultural transformations in the digital era as well as Medialab, the first Polish initiative combining social activism, art and technology. Author of several books, such as Wirtualny plac zabaw. Gry sieciowe i przemiany kultury współczesnej [Virtual Playground. Online Gaming and Transformation of Contemporary Culutre] (2006), and Media, wersja beta [Media. Beta Version] (2014). He is also Deputy Editor of Kultura Popularna [Popular Culture], a peer-reviewed academic quarterly journal.
Ceremony
The official inauguration of the 2018/2019 academic year at SWPS University in Poznań will take place on October 16, 2018, at 12.00, in the Artis Lecture Hall, Kutrzeby 10, Poznań.
Professor Anna M. Zalewska, Dean of Poznań Faculty of Social Sciences and Design, will preside over the ceremony and will welcome honorable guests and students.
The opening address on self-control will be delivered by Professor Edward Nęcka from Jagiellonian University in Kraków.
Speaker
Professor Edward Nęcka, Jagiellonian University - psychologist, professor at the Jagiellonian University, Head of the Department of Experimental Psychology, Vice-President of the Polish Academy of Sciences (2015-2018). He specializes in general and cognitive psychology, in particular, he studies various aspects of intelligence and determinants of creative processes. Author of the three-stratum theory of human intelligence, which assumes that various aspects of intelligence are simply different levels of information processing. Author of numerous publications, inclluding: Proces twórczy i jego ograniczenia (Creative process and its limitations) (1987), Psychologia twórczości (Psychology of creativity) (2001), Inteligencja: Struktura – geneza – funkcje (Intelligence: Structure – Genesis – Functions) (2003).
Ceremony
The official inauguration of the 2018/2019 academic year at SWPS University in Katowice will take place on October 12, 2017, at 12.00, in the Main Lecture Hall, Techników 9, Katowice.
Associate Professor Katarzyna Popiołek, Dean of Katowice Faculty of Psychology, will preside over the ceremony and will welcome honorable guests and students. Additionally, everyone will have an opportunity to enjoy a performance by Mr. Łukasz Frant, cellist of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice and the choir of the Fryderik Chopin Music School in Bytom.
The opening address on Intelligent thought and feverish shivers. Civic responsibilities of a thinking man will be delivered by Professor Tadeusz Sławek, from the University of Silesia.
Speaker
Professor Tadeusz Sławek, University of Silesia - Expert on literature, translator, writer and poet. Head of the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Silesia. Former Rector of the University of Silesia (1996-2002). From 1989 to 1990, he lectured in San Diego, USA. In 1990s he was a visiting professor at Stanford University and Naples, Italy. He specializes in the history of English and American literature and theory of literature. He is also an English to Polish translator. Member of the Committee on Literary Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), Member of the Board of the Committee “Poland in the United Europe” of PAN, Member of the Board of the General Council for Higher Education and member of the Polish Writers’ Association.
Ceremony
The official inauguration of the 2018/2019 academic year at SWPS University in Sopot will take place on October 19, 2018, at 13.00, at Polna 16/20, Sopot.
Associate Professor Aleksandra Janowska-Fila, Dean of Sopot Faculty of Psychology, will preside over the ceremony and will welcome honorable guests and students.
The opening address, Changing the world. Should psychology and psychologist have such ambitions? will be delivered by Assistant Professor Tomasz Grzyb, from the Facutly of Social Psychology at SWPS University in Wrocław.
Speaker
Assistant Professor Tomasz Grzyb, SWPS University in Wrocław - Psychologist. Specializes in psychology of social influence. He is also interested in methodology of psychological research, marketing and new technologies. Since 2013, he has been lecturing on techniques of social influence for the officers of NATO and allied countries. Author of numerous publications on psychology of social influence and mechanisms of human behavior in crisis situations, including a book Psychologiczne aspekty sytuacji kryzysowych (Psychological aspects of crisis situations) (2011). Editor of articles published in academic journals and popular science magazines, such as Journal of Applied Psychology and Marketing i Rynek (Marketing and Market), a Polish publication. In 2014, he received a Certificate of Appreciation from the NATO Special Operations Command in Afghanistan.