The Faculty of Technology Has a New Dean
3. July 2018The Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Technology, Assoc. Prof. Roman Čermák, Ph.D., has been appointed as the Dean of the faculty for his four-year term. He has been appointed after the Academic Senate unanimously proposed him for the post on Friday, 29th June 2018.
He replaced Prof. Ing. František Buňka, Ph.D., who decided to become the Head of the Department of Food Technology as it is expecting a significant project – to build and open new food technology laboratories in the Mostní street with total budget of CZK 106 million.
Who is Roman Čermák? What are his plans and what would he like to achieve?
I have been employed at the Faculty of Technology since 2001 when I finished my Master’s Degree in Materials Engineering. I was awarded the Ph.D. degree in 2005 in the Technology of Macromolecular Materials field and in 2008 I became an Associated Professor. My pedagogical and scientific focus is on the area of processing, structure, and attributes of plastic materials and elastomers. I was the Dean of the Faculty between 2011 and 2015.
In the following four years, I would like to achieve satisfaction of both students and employees. I believe that satisfaction can be achieved only if we communicate more – small or large issues, that I notice at the faculty, occur due to insufficient communication or misunderstanding between the student and teacher. Very important is also communication between academic staff, administrative staff, and the faculty management. I would like to see that no one is afraid to speak up their mind, give feedback, I want respond to suggestions, and show that it all is meaningful.
I am also aware of the importance of future employment of graduates. A significant fact for employment is not only the field and if students learnt how to work with modern machines and technologies, but also how they are prepared for work in an international team. The Faculty of Technology is well equipped in this regard with its structure of study programs that, whoever, is necessary to modernize based on practical experience. I believe that we have to invest more energy in stimulating our students to undergo an abroad stay during their studies – this experience is absolutely irreplaceable from the perspective of soft and language skills.
I would like to improve conditions for employees and develop the academic environment. A satisfied employee is, in my view, the one who does a meaningful job, is rewarded for it, works in a good environment with great team spirit. From my own experience, I can say, that to see the meaning and results of one’s work can be considerably difficult, especially if the employee is overwhelmed with tasks that can be hardly perceive as “creative”. My aim is to introduce system changes leading to minimizing administrative burden of academic staff, creating an environment for creative activities and improving the pedagogical ones. At the faculty, there is a functional system of rewarding for research and development, what is, however, missing, is a system for rewarding first-rate teaching and other activities that benefit the faculty. This is another area where I see space for my further work.
I often meet people from other schools, institutions, and companies, people from various cities, regions, and countries. It makes me happy to hear that they are satisfied with our graduates, projects, publications, our work. I consider the image of the faculty “from the outside” as key and I know that it is necessary to actively create it and spread the good word. This “faculty personality” is not created only by promotion, it is above all created by every employee and student who speaks about the faculty. I am convinced that improving internal communication can significantly help the communication directed outside the faculty, towards general public.
I can see many great tasks ahead in the following four years and if I should summarize them in one single sentence, it would be: I am going to do everything so that the faculty is perceived by students as a great school, by employees as a great environment for teaching and creative activities, and by general public as a first-class institution.
I look forward to our shared journey
Roman