What is success in the case of Lodz University of Technology?
It is some kind of positioning of the university, which shows that we are working and developing well. It was a period of, I would say, such initial development. I put a lot of invention and effort into developing Lodz University of Technology, internationalising it. I have always believed that without contacts with foreign countries, with science, literature and world apparatus, it's difficult to speak of a high level of university. Meanwhile, we had strong competitors – Warsaw University of Technology, AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow University of Technology and others which operated in Poland. Wrocław University of Technology was also developing very well. We had contacts with the rectors, visits of interested research centres from abroad, and I also took an active part in visits abroad, e.g. to the United Kingdom, where I felt at home... When I'm somewhere in the world, I feel insecure, but I always feel very good when I visit London or any other English city – during the few years I spent there, I became very attached to the country.
As rector, I was invited to all sorts of student events, and it wasn't right for me not to go. And sometimes it wasn't easy to be at ease there, because there was noise, cigarettes smoke - I couldn't change that. I just had to be there and somehow find myself among the amused student fraternity. I remember, the ‘Yapa’ Festival was taking place, and I was invited to the opening of this event, which was organised in the large student canteen. As I walked in, I saw a hall filled with young people to the limit. I thought: what am I going to tell them here? But I said: If only there had been so many of you at the lectures... The atmosphere was immediately relaxed, the students were very amused by my words, and in this mood I ceremoniously opened the festival.