Polish Studies Center director honored in Warsaw

From sponsoring conferences with some of the most important Polish figures in politics to holding concerts of traditional Polish music, the IU Polish Studies Center keeps the campus in touch with the colorful Polish culture. Now, the Center is being commended for its efforts in promoting Poland.\nThe center and its director, Associate Professor Bill Johnston, received the Polish Foreign Minister Award Wednesday, Oct. 6. Johnston accepted the award from Poland's Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz during a ceremony at the Royal Palace in Warsaw, Poland. \nThe Polish Foreign Minister Award has been presented every year since 1970. This award was given to the IU Polish Studies Center and Johnston for their outstanding contributions that have significantly enhanced the promotion of Poland in the world.\nOwen Johnson, the Polish Center's acting director while Johnston is on sabbatical leave, said the award was richly deserved.\n"But the award only tells part of the story," Johnson said. "For more than a quarter century, the center, like any other studies centers at IU, has been opening up the rest of the world to IU students and faculty as well as to the other people of the state of Indiana." \nJohnson said the award provides recognition of the work the center has accomplished in the nearly three decades since it was founded in 1976. \nSince the center was established, it has played host to some of the most important figures in Polish politics and culture. The center has also sponsored numerous conferences, concerts and theatrical performances. They continue to provide IU exchange programs with Warsaw University and with Jagiellonian University in Krakow. The programs have allowed more than 60 IU graduate students and faculty to travel to Poland and for more than 60 Polish scholars to come to IU. \n"We provide a steady diet of programs about Poland and things Polish," Johnson said. "We also serve as hosts for Polish students and professors from universities in Warsaw and Krakow with which we have exchange agreements."\nDavid Ransel, director of Russian and Eastern European Institution said the Polish Studies Center has excellent relations with Warsaw and Jagiellonian Universities.\n"We're very proud of our strong Polish Studies program and for the history that the Polish Studies Center has had with Poland," Ransel said.\nJohnson himself went to Poland through the Polish Studies program.\n"The Center provided me with my first opportunity to visit Poland back in 1985, which gave me the chance to meet spokespeople of both the then-communist Polish government and the opposition movement that eventually toppled the communists," Johnson said.\nThe Center has a lot planned in the near future, including a three-day festival in celebration of Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. They are also hosting a speech on Polish-American relations by Boguslaw Winid, deputy chief of mission of the Polish Embassy to the United States and former director of the Polish Studies Center.\nJohnson said the upcoming events, as well as the award itself will help draw attention to the work of the center, not only here at IU, but within the Polish-American communities across the country. \nIU-Bloomington Interim Chancellor Kenneth Gros Louis said the value of the center to IU is to enable the community members interested in Poland and its culture to learn about it and to hear about it through lectures given by center visitors. Gros Louis said the award is special to IU with regards to diversity of international programs.\n"The award underlines IU's ties with so many different countries, and its relationship with Poland predates by many years before the collapse of the Iron Curtain," Gros Louis said. \n-- Contact staff writer Kristin Huett at khuett@indiana.edu.