An interview with prof. dr hab. Mirosław Grewiński – Rector of Korczak University, nominated for the title of Leader by Vocation in the most prestigious category of Leader of the 21st Century, and Agata Jastrzębowska PhD, psychologist and coordinator of psychology – the new faculty at Korczak University, leader of the “Speak to me politely” campaign.
Prof. dr hab. Mirosław Grewiński
What goals have you recently achieved academically and in terms of the development of the university?
In May 2024, I was awarded the title of professor ordinary by the President of the Republic of Poland, which is the culmination of my 25-year academic path in the field of social policy. I once assumed that I would obtain the title of professor by the time I was 50, and I almost succeeded. As far as the university is concerned, we consider the establishment of the entire educational group in recent years to be a great success. It consists of faculties or branch offices in 8 cities, 4 comprehensive schools, 3 primary schools, a kindergarten, 3 psychological and pedagogical counselling centres, the Korczak Foundation and 2 companies – inter alia the Institute for the Development of Social Professions and Services. Together with the faculties, we form a 20-entity group. We are about to open our own University of the Third Age and more kindergartens. Summing up, we’re providing cross-age education, from junior to senior.
As a leader, you manage a staff of how many?
Five years ago, when I took over as rector, the University employed 60 or so people, and today there are approximately 250 full-time and around 300 contract employees across the Group. In management, I focus on people and their competence, good relations and a good working atmosphere. When making strategic decisions, I’m never solely guided by Excel, but rather by intuition, and this brings good results. Our development concept is to create a complex educational group in the spirit of education and upbringing by Janusz Korczak, his philosophy in approaching the development of children and the young.
What’s Korczak’s most important thought?
Korczak used to have many wise thoughts, but above all he emphasised respect, the dignity of every human being, including a child. Second important was personalism – meaning an individual approach to each person. Everyone is worthy, everyone has resources and potential needing to be discovered and developed. Korczak was very much concerned with the issue of children’s rights, because nowadays there’s still unawareness of the fact that children have rights, not only when it comes to speaking out or participating in decision making, but also when it comes to being treated as subjects. In many Polish environments, children still remain unheard, because adults know better. This is the case in many public schools. Korczak focused on the awareness of the child, which is related to their dignity and respect. This is something that’s still lacking, which is why our Korczakian institutions – from kindergartens to primary schools, high schools and universities – teach decent approach towards all participants of the educational process. We teach development in freedom and with respect for the dignity of each individual.
What are your main orientations?
Korczak University has specialised in educating teachers and tutors for more than 30 years. Our strongest point has always been pedagogy; we have all the possible specialisations that exist in pre-school, ECE, general, social and special pedagogy. Other important fields of study that have been developed for more than 15 years are social policy and social work, where we successfully train for social professions. New faculties which we’re now investing in are management, where we prepare human resources for management in public institutions, and psychology, which is our new and very important faculty.
The University is seated in Warsaw, but you also have departments outside the city. What do these regional structures have in common?
Yes, apart from Warsaw, we have other departments or branches in Katowice, Lublin, Szczecin, Poznań, Olsztyn, Siedlce and Człuchów. In Warsaw, Katowice and Olsztyn we run Korczak Dream Schools – primary and secondary schools and kindergartens. The glue that binds these regional structures together is Korczak’s legacy, shared goals and a coherent vision for the development of the entire Group. Moreover, the responsible leadership and participatory model of everyone’s involvement in the development of the University and other entities within the Group yields positive results, because wise and good people – whom I’m honoured to work with as a Rector – gather around us. I’m proud to have such wonderful, committed and loyal colleagues who identify with Korczak’s ideas. We are practically one big Korczak family with friendly relationships rather than a result-oriented corporation dominated by dry procedures.
Once a year we are joint by the Korczak Competition and Gala where, at the Polin Museum in Warsaw, the jury awards the Korczak Prize to leaders and local institutions and organisations working on behalf of children and the young. A really beautiful event.
How do you recharge your batteries?
Because work is my passion, work recharges my batteries. Undoubtedly, my family, my daughters Tosia and Anielka, also energise me. I’m a positive person by nature, self-motivated to do things. I like doing sports. I regularly go cycling, skiing, to the gym and to the swimming pool. I’m active in various associations. I have different fields of activity making me get away from work.
What are your further development plans?
We plan to develop new courses and postgraduate programmes. We currently run more than 20 interesting, up-to-date majors, including postgraduate courses such as neurodiversity, psychotraumatology, digital hygiene, neurology, deinstitutionalisation of social services, etc. For years now, we have been running ‘Pedagogical preparation’ for various professions, as we have noticed a deficit among teachers. We want to develop all those combined faculties, such as psychopedagogy, business psychology, social policy management – because today different sciences tend to crossroad. We have an idea to educate people how to work with seniors. Generally speaking, we believe seniors require new professions embracing care, accompaniment, activation and support functions. Our last-year success was obtaining ministerial approval for creating a new major – psychology. We’ve enrolled students in part-time programmes in Warsaw and Katowice, and this year we’re also recruiting for full-time programmes. Ms Agata Jastrzębowska PhD, an excellent psychologist of the younger generation with a vision for the development of modern psychology, has become the coordinator and the person responsible for creation of this new course.
Agata Jastrzębowska PhD
Clinical psychology is a new major at Korczak University…
Psychology is a relatively new major at Korczak University, as the first recruitment took place last year. The university offers two specialties – Child and Adolescent Support Psychology and Clinical Psychology and Adult Psychotherapy – two options to choose between in the 4th year of study and approved by the Minister of Education and Science at the end of September 2023, which is very late, and yet it managed to recruit students for psychology both in Warsaw and Katowice. I consider this to be a great success.
Why psychology at the Korczak University?
The Korczak University is a place with over 30 years of tradition. Up till now, we have educated pedagogues and social workers. Psychology is a kind of natural element to complete our offer.
Psychology at the Korczak University is built on three pillars. First and foremost, we want to respond to real social challenges, such as addictions to social media, people’s poor mental state or pervasive violence. Secondly, we want to do this with a strong practical grounding. We offer more than 700 hours of internships and thirdly, we look at the world in a multidisciplinary way, combining psychology with pedagogy, new technologies, social welfare and other sciences or perspectives. We invite experts from different fields to join discussions so that we’re able look at different challenges in a complementary way.
How many students are currently studying here at the University?
We currently have two groups of 20 students, one in Katowice and the other in Warsaw. These are part-time students, but as of this academic year, the recruitment is open for both full-time and part-time studies. We are prepared to accept up to 300 people. We’ll try to provide the best possible conditions and staff for any number of candidates. The Minister’s decision concerns Warsaw and Katowice for the time being, but we intend to extend this offer to our other departments.
You are the co-ordinator of the psychology major. What was and recently is your responsibility?
In fact, I’m involved in everything, from providing the best possible staff to building the highest quality standards in education. It’s very important for me to build good relations with students, teachers and the socio-economic environment. I’m the link between all these communities. As far as the organisation of studies is concerned, I’m involved in all work related to the educational process and organisation of the academic year. I act in a complementary way, and the opportunity to build or develop a psychology degree at the university with a fantastic tradition is a huge challenge for me, but simultaneously incredible fun. Psychology is a natural complement to pedagogy, social policy or social work here.
What’s your professional experience?
I’m a doctor of psychology. For most of my professional life I’ve worked at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, so this is my Alma Mater. It’s there where I defended my master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation in psychology. The topic of my master’s thesis concerned work motivation and self-esteem of people with limited abilities. At the time, I collaborated with Prof. Anna Brzezińska and Prof. Tadeusz Gałkowski. The matter of opportunities and resources of people with reduced mobility was extremely close to my heart. I devoted my doctoral thesis to the issue of how to match a person’s competence to a proper job. There are no perfect people and no ideal jobs, but there are people perfectly suitable for certain jobs – this was my thesis. I searched for this competence match and wondered whether it was important or even more important to have soft competences, which determine a person and thanks to which they’re able to flexibly adapt to changes on the labour market. I managed to have my doctoral thesis entitled: ‘Matching human competences and jobs’ published by Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar. My book was published on March 12, 2020 – the day of the pandemic outbreak and the day after my 35th birthday.
Tell me about your human resources.
Some of the lecturers we were able to invite to cooperation with the University were already teaching our first-year classes. We consulted the students and they actually chose people they wanted to work with. The other lecturers were chosen for their knowledge and experience, but also their ability to pass this knowledge on to the students. The full psychology staff will soon be available on our website. As far as I’m concerned, I would like to maintain good relationships between lecturers and students. For this reason, we’re organising a series of webinars, namely Let’s talk about psychology, we invite our lecturers to in order to talk about what they do academically. The webinars are free and open publicly. You are welcome to attend. You will find all the details on our social media.
How did the students evaluate the lecturers?
We carried out an evaluation. The students anonymously filled in questionnaires and were able to write what they thought of the lecturers. We took the results of the evaluation into deep consideration and those who were rated highly were invited to work and offered employment contracts.
Does the University organise student internships?
As a matter of fact, I was the Dean’s representative for psychology internships at SWPS University for 5 years and organised the whole process for half a thousand people per year. These internships had many different requirements, they were subject to evaluation and verification of learning outcomes. To be honest, I’m very happy to have the opportunity to coordinate the academic degree programme with a practical profile. Our students will have 720 hours of internships to complete, which is a lot. I feel that I know how to organise it and prepare an interesting base of offers so that they guarantee the highest quality. The whole process is still being planned. The first internship should take place no sooner than in 2026, when students will be in their fourth and fifth year.
Which faculty does the psychology fall under?
The Faculty of Social Sciences, the dean of which is prof. dr hab. Barbara Skałbania.
Do you cooperate with the other faculties?
Of course. We are most interested in ensuring our psychology faculty to be knowledgeable. Our approach towards various social problems is multidisciplinarily, without ignoring the perspectives of other sciences. We want to implement them and learn to look at them from different perspectives. This enables us to fully understand different issues. If we focus on digital hygiene or the effects of domestic violence, we’ll not only need psychological, but also pedagogical and legal knowledge. We need to know our options and what the social welfare issues are. Psychology is a social science.
What challenges do you face?
There are lots of challenges, because we are aware of huge competition in the education market. We know that students are now suspicious and attentive after the drama uncovered in one of the Warsaw universities. This attentiveness and inquisitiveness when choosing psychology pleases me personally, because I think psychology is a very responsible science and you have to be careful about ethical issues. I’m also pleased that the discussion on the quality of educating future psychologists in Poland has significantly developed. The profession of psychologist has so far been unregulated, and people can uncontrollably use the name and practice the profession. We will strive to ensure the quality of psychology at Korczak University to be the highest. We are committed to involving students in various types of activities. Therefore, we organise master debates, the last one of which was with the participation of Professor Michał Bilewicz and concerned his book titled ‘Traumaland. Poles in the Shadow of the Past’, about whether we inherit the trauma of previous generations and how to deal with it. We organise webinars, including the online meeting called ‘Let’s talk about psychology’, every other Thursday. Our current and future students have the opportunity to listen to lecturers and exchange views. We want our students to develop a relationship with the university and, on the other hand, this is how we want to present our staff. We have lots of ambitions. Personally, I would like Korczak University to be a place where ‘psychology’s going on’. I would like to organise here, at Korczak University, a psychology degree programme, which I myself would like to complete, bearing in mind the needs of society and the requirements of the labour market. If you want to study psychology and are wondering where – I invite you to Korczak University.
Dorota Kolano
Beata Sekuła
