Dear students, fellow professors, and researchers, employees of the University of Rijeka,
At another new beginning, I wish all students, professors, and employees of the University of Rijeka a healthy and prosperous academic year, with the desire for the University to be a place of courageous solidarity, authentic openness, and collective invention this year as well.
With the beginning of another academic year, I extend a special welcome to all first-year students, hoping that studying at the University of Rijeka will be a unique experience of personal growth and that we will meet your most demanding expectations for acquiring knowledge, understanding the world and building competencies for the future. The University is now your home and we will strive to provide you with spaces of freedom of thought and action, we will open many doors to unknown and exciting worlds, but we will also be your refuge and your safe haven.
This academic year will also be marked by a series of challenges related to maintaining the health and resilience of society during the pandemic crisis, we will continue to live in ‘non-normality’ and uncertainty that will require us to adjust. We have successfully overcome previous challenges, and despite numerous limitations, we have maintained a high quality of work and made significant progress. Hence there is no reason to doubt that we will continue to do so.
Allow me to remind us once again of Marie Sklodowska’s anthological message to humanity: Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. That is why we, the people of science, have a special duty not to give up, but to find solutions and to encourage all those who are afraid. We need to empower those among us who are losing self-confidence, attract those who doubt the science, and those who are retreating. Our message of strength must pierce the walls and reach those who seek security elsewhere, to attract those who seek their place and seek more, we must remove the doubts and worries for the future.
The challenges of modern times are numerous, but we forget that they have always been so. And so there is no reason to fear the future as long as we face it with the power of reason, with the joy of our curiosity, with the respect that ennobles us, and with the cooperation that empowers us.
Semper magis.
Professor Snježana Prijić-Samaržija, Ph.D., Rector