University of Poznań

University of Poznań   (University)
Formation	1920
Headquarters	Poznań, Poland
The university's prestige and large class size have enabled it to graduate a large number of distinguished alumni.

The Adam Mickiewicz University (Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu) is a research university in Poznań, Poland.

It traces its origins to 1611, when under the Royal Charter granted by King Sigismund III Vasa, the Jesuit College became the first university in Poznań. The Poznań Society for the Advancement of Arts and Sciences which played an important role in leading Poznań to its reputation as a chief intellectual centre during the Age of Positivism and partitions of Poland, initiated founding of the university. The inauguration ceremony of the newly founded institution took place on 7 May 1919 that is 308 years after it was formally established by the Polish king and on 400th anniversary of the foundation of the Lubrański Academy which is considered its predecessor. Its original name was Piast University (Polish: Wszechnica Piastowska), which later in 1920 was renamed to University of Poznań (Polish: Uniwersytet Poznański). During World War II staff and students of the university opened an underground Polish University of the Western Lands (Polish: Uniwersytet Ziem Zachodnich). In 1955 University of Poznań adopted a new patron, the 19th-century Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz, and changed to its current name.

The university is organized into six principal academic units—five research schools consisting of twenty faculties and the doctoral school—with campuses throughout the historic Old Town and Morasko. The university employs roughly 4,000 academics, and has more than 40,000 students who study in some 80 disciplines. More than half of the student body are women. The language of instruction is usually Polish, although several degrees are offered in either German or English. The university library is one of Poland's largest, and houses one of Europe's largest Masonic collections, including the 1723 edition of James Anderson's The Constitutions of the Free-Masons.

The university is currently publishing over 79 research journals, most of them on Pressto publishing platform based on Open Journal System. Adam Mickiewicz University Repository (AMUR) contains over 23704 records of research publications and is one of the first research repositories in Poland.

Due to its history, the university is traditionally considered Poland's most reputable institution of higher learning, this standing equally being reflected in national rankings. Adam Mickiewicz University is a member of the European University Association, EUCEN, SGroup European Universities' Network, Compostela Group of Universities and EPICUR.

People

Notable alumni and staff

Adam Mickiewicz University's prestige and large class size have enabled it to graduate a large number of distinguished alumni.

Many AMU alumni are leaders and innovators in the business world, as well as prominents in society and the arts. Its graduates include authors (Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna, Ryszard Krynicki, Stanisław Barańczak), journalists (Adam Michnik, Max Kolonko), entrepreneurs (Jan Kulczyk, Grażyna Kulczyk); composer Jan A. P. Kaczmarek, the recipient of the Academy Award for Best Original Score (2004); theatre practitioner Lech Raczak, film director Filip Bajon and literary critic and a music aficionado, Jerzy Waldorff. One of the most notable resistance fighters of the Home Army during Second World War, Jan Nowak-Jeziorański majored in economics in 1936, he worked as an assistant professor at the university.

Notable academic staff included archeologist Józef Kostrzewski, historians (Stanisław Kozierowski, Gerard Labuda, Henryk Łowmiański, Anna Wolff-Powęska), legal scholars (Antoni Peretiatkowicz, Michał Sczaniecki, Sławomira Wronkowska-Jaśkiewicz), philosophers (Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Leszek Nowak), linguists (Wiktor Jassem, Grażyna Vetulani), literature scholars (Zygmunt Szweykowski, Edward Balcerzan, Stanisław Barańczak) sociologist Florian Znaniecki.

Hanna Suchocka, 5th Prime Minister of Poland, first woman to hold this post in Poland and the 14th woman to be appointed and serve as prime minister in the world, graduated from university. Additionally, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, the 12th Prime Minister of Poland and Roman Giertych, the Deputy Prime Minister of Poland and Minister of National Education between 2006 and 2007, are graduates.

Bohdan Winiarski was one of the longest serving Judges of the International Court of Justice (1946−1967) and between 1961 and 1964 its President. Additionally, Krzysztof Skubiszewski, Minister of Foreign Affairs (1989–1993), was the Judge sitting ad hoc on the Court (1993−2004), also Paweł Wiliński, Professor of Jurisprudence, Chair in Criminal Procedure, served as the Judge sitting ad hoc on the European Court of Human Rights for two terms (2010−2012, 2015−2016).

Three of the school's graduates, including Prof. Alfons Klafkowski (1985−1989), Prof. Mieczysław Tyczka (1989−1993) and Julia Przyłębska (since 2016), have been the Presidents of the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland. Three of the current fifteen members of the court graduated from AMU: Julia Przyłębska, Dr. Andrzej Zielonacki and Prof. Justyn Piskorski. Additionally, the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, refused to swear in Prof. Roman Hauser, former President of the Supreme Administrative Court of Poland and Prof. Krzysztof Ślebzak as the Tribunal's judges. Among the University's notable graduates are also:

• Bogumił Brzezinski (b. 1943), chemist
• Krzysztof Czyżewski (b. 1958), author
• Franciszek Gągor (1951-2010), general, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces
• Krzysztof Grabowski (b. 1965), poet and singer
• Maciej Henneberg (b. 1949), Polish-Australian anatomist and communist-era dissident
• Anna Jantar (1950-1980), singer
• Tomasz Jasiński (b. 1951), historian
• Włodzimierz Kołos (1928-1996), chemist and physicist, one of the founders of modern quantum chemistry
• Ryszard Krynicki (b. 1943), poet and translator
• Tomasz Łuczak (b. 1963), mathematician
• Crocheted Olek (b. 1978), New York-based Polish-American artist
• Halszka Osmólska (1930-2008), paleontologist
• Adam Szłapka (b. 1984), politician
• Jan Węglarz (b. 1947), computer scientist

The Enigma Codebreakers

In the 1920s the German military began using a 3-rotor Enigma, whose security was increased in 1930 by the addition of a plugboard. The Polish Cipher Bureau sought to break it due to the threat that Poland faced from Germany, but its early attempts did not succeed. Near the beginning of 1929, the Polish Cipher Bureau realized that mathematicians may make good codebreakers; the bureau invited math students at University of Poznań to take a class on cryptology.

After the class, the Bureau recruited some students to work part-time at a Bureau branch set up in Poznań for the students. The branch operated for some time. On 1 September 1932, 27-year-old Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski and two fellow Poznań University mathematics graduates, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki, joined the Bureau full-time and moved to Warsaw. Their first task was to reconstruct a four-letter German naval cipher.

 

An Alumnus on Wikispooks

Person	Born	Nationality	Description
Hanna Suchoka	3 April 1946	Poland	Attended the 1998 Bilderberg as Polish minister of Justice

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