New Faculty Established at Transylvanian Hungarian University

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (EMTE) in Romania has established a new, fourth faculty in the city of Sfântu Gheorghe (Sepsiszentgyörgy), the leaders of the private Transylvanian (Central Romania) Hungarian university announced on Tuesday.

Márton Tonk, rector of Sapientia EMTE, said the decision was made by the university’s senate in May, and the government’s decision on the structure of the new faculty was published in Bucharest in the past few days.

From autumn, the new faculty will have agricultural engineering, forestry, and sports and coaching courses, with András Náhlik, former rector of the University of Sopron, as dean, who also helped set up the forestry course as a forestry engineer.

The rector recalled that when Sapientia EMTE was founded, its aim was to establish a base for independent Hungarian-language higher education in the centers of the Hungarian-inhabited counties of Transylvania.
He said that the city of Sfântu Gheorghe (Sepsiszentgyörgy) is building an autonomous higher education entity that can become a central player in the scientific, social, and cultural life of the city and the region.
Bishop Béla Kató, the Reformed Bishop of Transylvania and President of the Sapientia Foundation, stressed that the institution is particularly needed in Szeklerland, where young people tend to leave. Those who leave to study seldom return, so the new faculty will help them build a career at home.

He said that

with the new faculty in Sfântu Gheorghe (Sepsiszentgyörgy), the Hungarian institutions in Transylvania had reached another stage in their efforts to expand and strengthen the Hungarian institutional system in the region.

He stressed that training is provided in fields that “really fit this region.”
Professor András Náhlik, who took up the post of dean on June 1, said he was honored to be asked to return to Transylvania, and as a native of Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár), he was delighted to be back.
In his plans, he said he wanted to strengthen education locally, and to do this he needed local teachers with the highest possible qualifications, and to be internationally embedded.
Tonk added that the university could afford to be provincial in terms of its community – Hungarian Transylvanian – goals, but that the international field was the benchmark at the professional and academic levels.

Tonk stressed that the number of students at the university has remained stable at around 2,200 every year, but with the addition of the faculty in Sfântu Gheorghe, it will increase to 2,600, so that one third of young Hungarians from Transylvania will be able to study at the private Transylvanian Hungarian university, which is supported by the Hungarian government.

VIA MTI; Featured photo: Facebook/Sapientia EMTE