At home: We have never seen so deeply why the SZFE booth is waiting for you.

The Senate of the Corvinus University of Budapest declares its solidarity with the Senate of the University of Theater and Film Arts, its employees and students, who defend the autonomy of their university by virtue of their rights enshrined in the Basic Law.

– This resolution proposal would have been discussed by the Corvinus University union at the Senate meeting, but based on the information we have, the rector of the University and the president of the Senate, András Lánczi, prevented it and did not called an extraordinary meeting of the Senate.

Corvinus is also particularly interesting because the new maintenance model is named after him, as Corvinus was the first public university to be placed on a foundation reserve.

There was a long correspondence between the rector and some members of the Senate on the subject, and then all the university professors were informed about the discussion. The correspondence reached the hvg.hu newsroom in various details, from various sources, partly anonymous, from which arguments and counterarguments may be known.

According to the correspondence sent to our newsroom, Gábor Toronyai, member of the Senate, president of the union, wrote a letter to András Lánczi on October 6 in which he said that he asked the Rector to convene, where only the SZFE “demonstration of solidarity in the fight for autonomy “would have been the theme.

Its towers wrote in its juice

I consider it important, and this is confirmed by the multiple requests from colleagues, to express our solidarity with the Senate of the SZFE, its university citizens and thus signal our commitment to university standards and rights with centuries-old traditions.

Its towers described that the convocation of the Senate and the discussion of the issue had the support of a third of the members of the Senate, 9 people, as required by regulation, and they asked Cadena to convene the meeting as soon as possible (which would have had 15 days in principle).

According to Lánczi, this is not the responsibility of the Senate

According to correspondence in our possession, Lánczi replied briefly. He wrote:

The proposed agenda item is not within the competence of the University Senate, so it is not possible to comply with the issue.

There were those who questioned this in response to the letter, writing that if sufficient initiative was taken to convene the meeting, it was the rector’s duty to do so, pointing out that Lánczi’s decision that he considered was a breach of trust.

Lánczi wrote that “after careful legal information” he would continue to uphold his decision, since he interpreted that he would only have to call a meeting without consideration if there were competition issues and the meeting’s agenda did not include issues of incompetence. points. Citing various university regulations, Lánczi wrote

None of them authorize diversions of powers, in fact, reinforces the absence of political and ideological issues.

The discussion then continued on a practical and theoretical level. On the one hand, Toronyai questioned Lánczi’s legal interpretation and wrote that the Senate has the right to form an opinion on any issue that the members of the Senate consider appropriate to include on the agenda.

Any preliminary restriction on the content of the Senate speech would almost certainly amount to censorship. We should avoid this.

According to the correspondence we have, another member of the Senate argued that the SZFE case goes beyond itself, setting a precedent for what can and cannot be done with a university community. The quoted member wrote that it was unacceptable to him, regardless of policy, for someone to unilaterally impose his will on someone else. For this reason, it is also unacceptable that an autonomous university community is imposed on it against its will.

For him, this is not a political question, but a moral one.

The rector proposed a simple debate

We quote this letter in detail only because Lánczi’s answer is important, because he points out here that there is a difference of interpretation between the two. He wrote that all moral issues that do not judge private behavior, as they affect the community, are political issues. Presumably, the SZMR (bylaws) is also drafted in such a way as to prevent the Senate, and thus the entire institution, from becoming a political battleground if the need arises.

He wrote that SZFE can also be discussed at the University, to which anyone can go, like all senators. Lánczi, however, wrote that for the past four years he had tried to keep the university out of political battles. According to him, what is happening in the SZFE is an important issue, but it does not follow that it should be addressed by the Senate of Corvinus. He also hinted that there are many tasks ahead of Corvinus that he should focus on.

The last letter did not belong to the rector, there was another member of the Senate who tried to get a better perception.

Hvg.hu contacted the protagonists of the correspondence, Rector András Lánczi, and the union leader Gábor Toronyai, member of the Senate, briefly summarizing the content and the main statements of the correspondence in our possession.

Their towers confirmed that the information that came to our knowledge was correct and said that the rector’s position was considered unacceptable, they stuck to their own truth, the SZFE discussion and the issue of university autonomy was still considered important.

They do not want to discuss the specific case of another university

András Lánczi did not respond to our separate request, the press department of the university sent a general response. According to this, the renovation process is being carried out successfully at the Corvinus University of Budapest on the basis of the new model, it is important that there is a continuous dialogue between the parties involved in the transformation and jointly build a culture for the successful running of the university. “That is why all the important steps related to the transformation of Corvinus University have been discussed before the Senate.”

In our diverse and interested community, there are ongoing discussions in many forums on public issues, including changes in higher education and events at the University of Theater and Motion Picture Arts. The operation of these forums has the active support of the University leadership, as an open element of a healthy university community and the education of the students is an open discussion on important and interesting topics, even divisive, in the world. In parallel, however

We consider it important that the official university decision-making forums (eg the Senate) address matters within their competence, so that they do not discuss specific issues related to the functioning of other institutions.

The Corvinus University of Budapest supports the efforts of the Hungarian Rectors’ Conference to help resolve the situation at the University of Theater and Film in a way that is acceptable to all concerned.

As far as we know, the next Senate meeting will be in early November, our university source requesting anonymity does not expect the Chancellor to change his mind, but based on information from Senate members, he says that the 27-member panel has a majority position to debate the issue. He sees little chance that the proposed decision will be adopted.

And what do the Corvinus students say?

At a rally organized alongside SZFE, we saw students holding a sign with Corvinus on Friday, suggesting that several people from Corvinus were at the rally. On Monday, based on the correspondence in our possession, we spoke with several students who said they had organized several student meetings at Corvinus about SZFE. The dialogue was led, among others, by a group called Secret University, which addressed the issue of autonomy of the SZFE in various universities. For those who participated in these, the intransigence of the Senate was no longer a novelty: a student we interviewed said that a university professor told them that the rector was not willing to discuss the matter.

The students we interviewed said that in the case of SZFE, students are forced to organize after there is no communication on the subject, either at the institutional or student municipal level. One of them stated that the HÖK neither prohibits nor supports the initiatives of the students, completely withdrawing from the speech. We are looking for the president of LÖV, Levente Szabados, by phone, but we have not yet succeeded.

According to the students, a collection of solidarity signatures within Corvinus began in September, but neither the HÖK nor the university leadership refused to address the initiative, which was supported by many (including some professors). Based on our information from other sources, it is conceivable that a signature collection will be started again, which will not be started at a higher level by the students.

MOL is also listening

SZFE and Corvinus are not only linked by the model, but also by MOL: the top management of the company is on the board of directors of both universities. The SZFE board of directors is made up of György Bacsa, strategic CEO of MOL, and Oszkár Világi, member of the board of directors of MOL and chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Slovnaft, and Zsolt Hernádi, chairman and CEO of MOL. In addition, the reservation was partially resolved through the transfer of the state shares of MOL.

We have repeatedly asked MOL to assess the situation at SZFE, and now, due to the Corvinus Rector’s decision, we have contacted them, the company has not commented on any of the issues so far.

ELTE HÖK even spoke

At the bottom of Corvinus, in order not to see the internal debate of any university, from the outside only formal silence is seen. The Hungarian Conference of Rectors issued a new statement over the weekend, in which the parties were again encouraged to negotiate. In universities, students usually act, but there is no unity either.

Support for SZFE had echoes as ambiguous in some Hungarian universities as in ELTE. The university’s student government issued a statement on September 4 questioning the willingness of SZFE students to compromise and calling on their student government to negotiate and not hold back freshmen, saying

these guys deserve so much more.

On the other hand, it soon became clear that the HÖK had barely represented the student in the matter: the students protested the announcement in an open letter, with more than eight hundred signatures in response. The students also clashed with the university leadership: On September 8, the students put up a red and white ribbon and solidarity posters in the Law School building, which the institution cleaned up almost immediately.

The MOME students also expressed their solidarity: János Áder, who came to the presentation of Ernő Rubik’s book at the university, was greeted with a silent line wall and red and white ribbons. The students and professors of the SZFE were officially supported by the Bibó István Vocational College and the former and current citizens of the Károli Gáspár Reformed University. At the University of Szeged they went further: 200 professors signed a statement of support. Both former and current Kaposvár students have shown solidarity with the university, reserved for the foundation during the summer night by a parliamentary decision, led by Attila Vidnyánszky, which sparked protests from students and teachers.