On Resilient Leadership in Eternal Rome

    Representatives of our university participated in an advanced leadership program Building Resilience into Leadership organized by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
    On Resilient Leadership in Eternal Rome

    Our university is a member of the Catholic Universities Partnership (CUP), a group of cooperating universities coordinated by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies from the University of Notre Dame. Except other programs and activities run by the Nanovic Institute, over the last couple of years the institute organized annual meetings for CUP representatives on the topics of Catholic leadership, fundraising and organizational processes at the University of Notre Dame. Selected alumni of this program were invited to participate at the continuation of the program, at an advanced leadership program which was organized at the premises of the University of Notre Dame in Rome – the Rome Global Gateway building. The focus of the three-day program was on the issue of resilience and resilient leadership. The topic was chosen in the previous years but it became even more timely given the current war in Ukraine.

    Participants from 6 CUP universities (Catholic University in Ružomberok, Catholic University of Croatia, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Ukrainian Catholic University, Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani University in Tbilisi and Pázmány Péter Catholic University) had a chance to discuss in detail their challenges in the context of the issue of resilience. The first day started with a presentation about the situation in Ukraine by our colleagues from Lviv and a retreat session led by Fr. Friedrich Bechina, undersecretary for the Congregation for Catholic Education. The program continued with presentations given by Clemens Sedmak and Monica Caro (the Nanovic Institute), Carolyn Woo (retired president of Catholic Relief Services and previous dean of the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame), David Buckley (managing director of General Atlantic), Helen Alford and Piotr Janas (Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome).

    Marek Babic, Markéta Rusnáková and Eugen Zeleňák, representing our university had a chance to learn more about resilience in the time of crisis, to reflect on and discuss various issues of the CUP universities and to advance cooperation with our friends and colleagues from other Catholic universities.

    We are grateful to the Nanovic Institute for European Studies for sustaining this cooperation and helping our institutions to improve.