INAUGURATION POSTPONED
We regret to inform you that, as a result of a covid infection impacting our key Inauguration principals, we must reschedule today’s anniversary and inauguration events to a later date.
The Inauguration of a new president is one of the most important moments in the life of a university; we postpone today’s ceremony and anniversary panel in Vienna and the panel in Budapest, out of an abundance of concern for our community and our guests.
Please be reassured that other than the affected person, no other person has any symptoms at this point.
We will be in contact with you to rearrange an alternative date, and very much hope that you will be able to join us then.
American-born Indian social anthropologist/sociologist Professor Shalini Randeria was educated at the Universities of Delhi, Heidelberg and Oxford, where she belonged to the first cohort of women Rhodes Scholars. She received her PhD and her Habilitation from the Free University of Berlin. She has held faculty positions at the Free University, Berlin; the University of Munich and University of Zurich. She was Founding Chair of CEU’s Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology. She is a former Rector of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna and Professor of Social Anthropology and Sociology at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva.
A public intellectual, Professor Randeria has published widely on the anthropology of globalization, law, the state and social movements. Her research on soft authoritarianism; democracy and demography; forced displacement and dispossession; and the politics of (un)accountability has been carried out in collaboration with historians, political scientists and legal scholars.
Democracy in Question, her influential podcast series, offers a wide-ranging exploration of the diversity of experiences of democracy and the challenges and dilemmas facing liberal democracies around the world today.
Following a last minute change in covid measures introduced by the Austrian government on Friday eve, all guests to Monday’s 30th Anniversary Panel and Inauguration events must now bring with them both their vaccination status or official proof of recovery as well as their PCR test (as originally required). Please click here for information on how to easily get a PCR test in time for the event.
The live stream will be accessible here.
Program
30th Anniversary Celebration
/ Time / 2:00 – 3:30 PM
In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, a group of central European intellectuals and other leaders of the democratic revolutions came together to discuss post-soviet higher education. Led by George Soros, the group had a vision for a new kind of university. They imagined a university that would train post-communist leaders in the principles and practice of open society, democracy, and human rights. In 1991, CEU opened its doors to its very first student intake, numbering just over 100.
30 years on, CEU is a global university with students from over 100 countries and faculty and staff from nearly 50. Noted for its excellence in teaching and research and for the quality of its graduates, CEU continues to trailblaze.
KEYNOTE
ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
Istvan Rev / Director, Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society
Archives / Professor of History, CEU
PANEL DISCUSSION:
WHITHER ACADEMIC FREEDOM?
/ CHAIR /
Shalini Randeria, President and Rector, CEU
/PANELISTS /
Elizabeth Holzleithner, Professor of Legal Philosophy and
Legal Gender Studies, University of Vienna
Sonja Puntscher-Riekmann, Professor Emeritus, University
Salzburg / Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Istvan Rev / Director, Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society
Archives / Professor of History, CEU
INAUGURATION
Time / 4:30 – 5:30 PM
/ FANFARE /
/ INTRODUCTION /
Liviu Matei / Provost, Master of Ceremonies
ORDER OF SPEAKERS
Heinz Fassmann / Austrian Federal Minister of
Education, Science and Research
Birgit Rumpler / MA Student in the Department of Economics and Business
Michael Ignatieff / Professor of History, CEU
Short film / CEU in Vienna
Alexander Soros / Alexander Soros Foundation, New York
Leon Botstein / Chair, the Board of Trustees
/ INTERLUDE /
Mozart: Divertimento in D major, K. 136 / Selini Quartet
/ INVESTITURE /
Investiture of Shalini Randeria as President and Rector of Central European University by Leon Botstein / Chair, The Board of Trustees
/ INAUGURAL ADDRESS/
Shalini Randeria / President and Rector, CEU
/ CLOSING /
Liviu Matei/ Provost, CEU / Professor of Higher Education Policy, CEU
/ FANFARE /
/TRUMPETS /
Marlene Kogler
Kerstin Gruber
/ SELINI QUARTET /
Nadia Kalmykova / Violin
Ljuba Kalmykova / Violin
Loredana Apetrei / Viola
Loukia Loulaki / Cello
/ JAM MUSIC LAB JAZZ QUINTET /
JAM MUSIC LAB Private University for Jazz & Popular Music Vienna
Madeleine Kaindl / Saxophone
Jakob Stain / Piano
Tobias Poecksteiner / Double Bass
Alexander Hewlett / Drums
Matthias Leichtfried / Guitar
CEU and Vienna / directed by Sotiris Bekas
FORMER PRESIDENT AND RECTORS OF CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY
William Newton Smith / Chair of the Executive Committee (1991 – 1993)
Alfred Stepan / first President and Rector (1993 – 1996)
Josef Jarab / second President and Rector (1997 – 1999)
Yehuda Elkana / third President and Rector (1999 – 2009)
John Shattuck / fourth President and Rector (2009 – 2016)
Michael Ignatieff / fifth President and Rector (2016 – 2021)
MEMBERS OF THE CEU BOARD OF TRUSTEES
George Soros / Honorary Chairman of the Board
Soros Fund Management LLC, New York
Leon Botstein / Chairman of the Board / Bard College, New York
Peter Baldwin / University of California
Leonard Benardo / Open Society Foundations, New York
Richard C. Blum / Richard C. Blum & Associates, Inc., San Francisco
Attila Chikan / Corvinus University, Budapest
Carol T. Christ / University of California, Berkeley
Ronald J. Daniels / Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Antonio Foglia / Banca del Ceresio Group, Lugano
Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger / Vienna University of Economics and Business
Mark Malloch-Brown / ex officio President of
Open Society Foundations, New York
Peter A. Nadosy / East End Advisors, New York
J. Robert S. Prichard / Torys LLP, Toronto
Shalini Randeria / ex officio CEU President and Rector, Vienna
Alexander Soros / Alexander Soros Foundation, New York
Andreas Treichl / Erste Group Bank AG, Vienna