Люблин Католик Университетінің Тарихы

Catholic university in Lublin, Poland

Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II

John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Universitas Catholica Lublinensis Ioannis Pauli II, abbreviation KUL) is a university established in 1918. It is the only private college in Poland with the status of a university.

Father Idzi Benedykt Radziszewski founded the university in 1918. Lenin allowed the priest to take the library and equipment of the Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy to Poland to launch the university just as Poland regained its independence. The aim of the university was to be a modern place of higher education that would conduct research in the spirit of harmony between science and faith. The university sought to produce a new Catholic intelligentsia that would play a leading role in Poland. The number of students increased from 399 in 1918–19, to 1440 in 1937–38. This growth was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War and Nazi Germany's occupation of Poland. Of all the universities located in the German occupied territory, the University of Lublin was the only one to resume work in October 1939. On 23 November 1939, the Nazis executed a number of academic workers, including, among others, professors Michał Niechaj and Czesław Martyniak. The university was ordered shut down and its buildings were converted into a military hospital. Nevertheless, the university carried on its teaching activities in secret. After the invasion of Lublin in July 1944 by the Red Army, the university reopened on 21 August 1944. Since then the university has functioned without interruption. The university stayed open during the years Poland was under Communist control between 1944 and 1989, though some of its faculties did not. The faculties of law, social science and education were shut down between 1953 and 1956. After the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989, the university has flourished, quadrupling its student population and greatly expanding its campus. In 2010 the university was involved in a scandal concerning the granting of PhDs by departments that were not allowed to grant them, due to not having a sufficient number of academic staff.

The university has had a steady advance in university rankings. In 2011, it was placed 8th among all Polish universities. Also in 2011, Wprost magazine ranked it 15th among humanity universities. Before that, in 2006 Newsweek Polska ranked the university 54th among all Polish universities. In 2011–12, the university's philosophy program was ranked first in Poland by the Polish Accreditation Agency, distinguished twice, receiving 9 million PLN total in grants that year as a result.