Interview with Jan Pavlik

(Retired) Director of the Centre for International Cooperation of Masaryk University

How long have you been working in international education?

I have been in the position of Director of the Centre for International Cooperation of Masaryk University since September 2013 only, but I have been involved with international education since the early 90s, when I was appointed Vice-Dean for International Relations of the Faculty of Arts and worked in the position from 1992 to 2000, and from 2006 to 2013. And even as Dean of the Faculty (2000-2006) I was obviously tackling the issue on everyday basis.

Which was your previous professional experience?

My professional experience at the Faculty of Arts concerned not only managerial tasks, but usual teaching as well: besides my work within the senior management of the Faculty of Arts, I was one of the members of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures (1990-2014).

Tell us something about you. In which university did you study? Which is your degree? And your main academic interest?

I am a perfect example of that despicable and universally despised academic inbreeding: I studied at Masaryk University, graduated from Masaryk University, and started working at Masaryk University as well. I graduated in French, Latin and Italian philologies, i.e. languages and literatures, and I specialized in the linguistics of Romance languages, namely French and Italian. I taught practically all the linguistic disciplines in Italian (Phonetics, Morphology, Historical Development, Semantics, Dialectology) as well as the Historical Development of French, and I led also a course in Vulgar Latin.

How many languages do you speak?

Well… you should never ask a linguist or a philologist, how many languages he or she speaks: the only honest answer is that I can express myself, speak and write more or less correctly only in Czech, which is my mother tongue. Apart from that, as said before, I have a degree in three other languages (one of which, Latin, cannot seriously be spoken), and I can make myself understood hopefully more or less without major errors in English.

Which are your favourite countries? Which are the countries that have left an impact on you?

This is not an easy question: there may be a great difference between “favourite countries” and “countries that have left an impact”. When I was a kid, I lived at the age of 10-12 for two years in India with my parents, and I have to say that it really left a great impact on me. I still remember almost every day of that stay: everything was so different, people, their behaviour, animals, the countryside… Actually, I think that was already the starting point of my feeling – which turned into conviction later on – that international experience has an absolutely irreplaceable role in one´s life. I was lucky enough to get the confirmation in the following years, during my three years of study at a lycée in France (1970-73), at the Facoltà del Magistero in Florence in Italy (1977-78), or during my work as lecturer in Czech in India once again, at the Department of Foreign Languages of the University of Delhi (1988-90), drinking chai and eating samosas with my colleagues from France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland at the end of each working day…

I do not know if I have a favourite country: I love Brittany; I love Provence and the Cévennes; I love Tuscany… but I love also the gentle hills of my country, and I do love that pungent smell spreading all over Indian villages in the evening, when families start to cook their dinner and make fire with dry cow dung cakes…

Could you mention some moment or fact that has made you think your effort and work in the international area is worthwhile?

Well, actually… It is perhaps a bit pretentious, but I have never had any doubt that there are not many things that would be more valuable in one´s life than international experience, and I have always been perfectly aware of all the benefits my international experience (connected not only with a stay abroad) brought to me. But if you want me to mention one moment, it will definitely be a very personal one: in 2015, my younger son was on his Erasmus semester in Kaunas in Lithuania. One evening, he sends me an sms saying how perfectly happy he feels there, and I ask him: “So you think I should really start believing in what I am doing?” And he replies immediately: “Dad, you have no idea…”

But… just look at any snapshot students took during their studies abroad: you can see smiling, laughing, happy faces. Can you imagine a more tangible proof?

Anything else you would like to add?

Isn´t this even too much?