A Greeting from Vilnius University Rector Prof. Rimvydas Petrauskas on the Start of the Academic Year

Distinguished Colleagues, Dear Students,

Congratulations on the beginning of a new academic year, as we gather once again for a fresh start, united by a shared purpose. We greet an ordinary New Year by making resolutions – to exercise more or eat more healthily. We greet this new academic year with a pledge to learn more and to teach – and study – better.

Our vibrant annual parade through the centre of Vilnius is one of the rare occasions when we can come together to experience and express the unity of our great community. Physicists and chemists, medics and lawyers, philosophers and mathematicians, together with colleagues from every other field, become part of one intellectual body.

In these complicated times, the question of the University’s role in society naturally arises. We are too large and too significant an institution to remain detached from events in Lithuania and in the world. Public engagement beyond the University’s walls is our response to society’s weariness and concern. We must show that we do not merely analyse and criticise but also propose potential solutions. Our proposal is for VU to serve as a think tank for Lithuania’s resilience.

Universities generate and sustain the circulation of ideas in society through intellectual leadership and the shaping of public opinion. It is here that we raise and debate questions that are too often reduced to political slogans. In the competitive arena, Lithuania and Europe will grow stronger if they aim to be centres of science and education, as they have historically been.

But most importantly, in a world dominated by an ever-faster pace of life, technology, and innovation, the University reminds us what gives meaning to a fulfilling life. The University does not merely seek to explain meaning – it also creates it.

The eminent Canadian intellectual Michael Ignatieff, who visited Vilnius University this year, wrote in his book: ‘Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.’ I hope that our efforts, our work, and our lives have meaning, and that this meaning is strong enough to lead us out of confusion and uncertainty.

The approaching 450th anniversary of Vilnius University, for which we are now beginning preparations, can be an incentive for all of us not only to remember our roots but also to determine more clearly the role we would like and are able to play in Lithuania and in Europe. It is a chance to formulate anew, and persuasively, why the University matters to people today and to contemporary society, and what responsibility we assume towards the state, research, and culture.

Today, we also welcome almost seven thousand first-year Bachelor’s and Master’s students who are beginning a new stage in their lives, studies, and pursuit of knowledge. This is the start of an extraordinary journey for you. Go forward boldly, with confidence in yourselves; ask questions and do not be afraid of challenges. Lean on those who are already a little further along their journey, and draw on the support of those who live and work to guide, teach, and advise you in this chain through which wisdom and experience are passed on.

We also warmly welcome our international students who have chosen our University to nurture and develop their talents. Over the coming year, you will meet and get to know peers who share your interests. You will gain new experiences and, I hope, become lifelong ambassadors and friends of our University.

We begin the new academic year with our traditional events, too. This Friday, I invite everyone to the AD ASTRA Integration Festival, while the Alumni Festival awaits us on 19 September.

I wish you all a smooth start to the semester and an engaging academic year.