I would like to thank all members of the academic community of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, who have supported my nomination to the office of the Dean of the Faculty. My thanks go also to the members of the Academic senate of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, who have voted for me in such a convincing way.

M. Rokyta, April 8 and April 30, respectively

General theses

Vice-Deans candidates

A more detailed program

A more detailed electoral program     

doc. RNDr. Mirko Rokyta, CSc.

The General theses of the election program, published on February 26, 2020, might be viewed as a report from a somewhat different world than the one we live in early April 2020. Nevertheless, I still consider these General theses to be a program for the future I offer to the faculty without any change. Thus, the text presented below is neither a replacement nor an update of the General theses, but rather an integral part of them and the starting point of discussions on its particular items.

Between February and April

The challenges the management of MFF UK is going to face in the coming years will not be easy. The economic development of the world that surrounds us is not easily predictable, as is the impact of the current situation on the state of both domestic and European financial resources in the coming years. However, if I am elected the Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, I can declare in the name of all the candidates for Vice-Deans I have chosen, that we are ready to work hard even under difficult circumstances. We also believe that the vast majority of the faculty public share the same determination with us.

However, the moments we are now experiencing should be not just time of waiting for the good old days to return. One nice comparison I have recently heard is that tasks are like fuses of different lengths leading to different explosives. In the context of these days, it seems to me that some of these ropes have been shortened or, if you wish, have started to burn faster. I would therefore like to “push forward” some of these “shortened ropes”.

Reflecting the current situation, the management of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics should focus on the following agenda:

• accelerate and make more effective the digitization of the agenda, especially in the area of document circulation, including the (already mentioned in the General theses) the creation of clear instructions and manuals;
• complete the transformation of the faculty website, including the pages of the Schools as the main sources of School-specific information;
• in both cases, accelerate the creation of English equivalents of pages and documents, including faculty regulations;
• • consider the future use of distance communication principles – not only in context of this and possible future viral crisis; this concerns teaching (distance consultations, class exercises…) as well as in scientific activities (seminars with international participation…), and also administrative and organizational activities (quick meetings without the need to travel around Prague…);
• revise the editorial policy of the MatfyzPress publishing house, upgrade the e-shop of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University in particular with respect to the availability of literature and textbooks in an electronic form.

Some important "faculty-wide" tasks

In the storm of current events, we should not forget the general tasks that should be addressed by the management of the MFF UK. The vast majority of them were mentioned in some form in the General theses of February 26, 2020. However, some of them may deserve repetition or emphasis. For example, it concerns the following tasks (their order may not correspond to their importance):

• Transparent personnel policy linked to the emerging Career Code of Charles University and its possible specification for MFF UK.
• Increasing the proportion of women in academic positions (not by setting quotas but by reviewing existing barriers and trying to remove them).
• The agenda of targeted and effective promotion of the faculty, its science and its degree programs.
• Developing cooperation with external and commercial entities (creation of new levels of partnership within the MFF UK partnership program, for example in the case of a partner/sponsor/donor combination; cooperation with industry and the application sector).
• Bringing the IMPAKT pavilion into full operation state with subsequent revision of the creation of the central timetable of compulsory and compulsory optional teaching at MFF UK.
• In connection with the expansion of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics into the pavilion IMPAKT, try to improve the accessibility of the Troja campus by Prague public transport.
• Greater involvement of wider faculty committees and also students in addressing faculty issues.
• Internationalization of the faculty, including all forms of support (e.g. legal support in English) and further expansion of teaching in English, considering the needs and specific nature of the individual Schools and their teaching programs.
• Finding ways to monitor and evaluate the quality of teaching not only using the form of a student poll.
• To support the creation of textbooks, especially for lectures of basic courses of bachelor study, both in printed and electronic form.
• To strive to improve the situation in teaching our subjects at lower educational levels (e.g. organizing courses for high school teachers, support for faculty schools…).

School-specific tasks

During working on my General theses, and also after making them public, I discussed the ideas with the candidates for the future Vice-Deans. I was pleased to note that considering most important points we have a similar or the same opinion - the above-mentioned General theses as well as the preceding paragraph reflected in particular those ideas that concerns the faculty as a whole. However, some ideas that can be called "School-specific" emerged as well. Although I would like to promote some of these ideas to the faculty level, too, I introduce them here, on purpose, as a structured list of School-specific tasks, as they were formulated by a corresponding Vice-Dean’s candidates. These are:

As concerns the School of Physics:

• To maintain a level of autonomy of the Departments of the School of Physics; at the same time support joint activities of physical workplaces and scientific groups.
• To employ a wider team in the decision making within the School of Physics, particularly in the management of specialized agendas.
• Organize informal meetings and seminars to discuss key issues of the future development of the School of Physics with the involvement of representatives of the AS MFF UK and possibly other experts.

As concerns the School of computer Science:

• Appropriate use of experience gained from distance teaching, for example, for students of English programs with visa problems.
• Expand the space available for computer and server room in Malá Strana building.
• Upgrade the "Rotunda" laboratory in Malá Strana building as a space for students, and consider the second phase of the attic reconstruction in the building.

As concerns the School of Mathematics:

• Try to establish a joint follow-up master's program within 4EU+ group (in cooperation with universities in Paris, Heidelberg, Warsaw and others).
• To help students enrolling into the follow-up master's degree program from other (especially foreign) schools, for example in the form of individual or distance consultations.

Dear colleagues,

this document could have many more pages if I wanted to mention all of the ideas that have been raised in informal discussions with members of the possible future faculty management. However, its excessive length would be counterproductive at the moment. I believe that there will be an opportunity to discuss many of these topics in more detail during the upcoming debates with candidates for the Dean's office.

We wish the faculty and our society a smooth “return from the quarantine” as soon as possible.

M. Rokyta et al., 8. 4. 2020