Early Bird

Roadrunner honored abroad

Provost Emerita Vicki Golich, Ph.D., receives honorary doctorate from Hungarian partner university.

By Doug McPherson

November 22, 2021

Vicki L. Golich, Ph.D., provost and executive vice president of Academic Affairs emerita at Metropolitan State University of Denver, received an honorary doctorate this month from the University of Pécs in Hungary, an MSU Denver partner institution.  

Golich has been instrumental in fostering the MSU Denver’s partnership with the University of Pécs, working specifically on joint accreditations, training, study-abroad opportunities, faculty and student exchanges and scientific work. 

“I’m deeply honored and humbled to be recognized by this prestigious university and its august faculty with this honorary doctorate,” Golich said. 

Two MSU Denver professors from Hungary, Jeno Balogh, Ph.D., and Zsuzsa Balogh, Ph.D., who had colleagues at the University of Pécs, started the partnership in 2010. Since then, six MSU Denver professors have taught at Pécs and 10 Pécs professors have taught at MSU Denver – some on a short-term basis and others for a full year or semester.  

The partnership has expanded to the Departments of Art, Africana Studies, Political Science, Engineering and Social Work as well as the College of Business. 

The Early Bird interviewed Golich to learn more about the partnership and MSU Denver’s efforts abroad.  

What does it mean for MSU Denver to have relationships abroad such as the one with the University of Pécs?

Golich: I believe MSU Denver students and faculty members benefit greatly from this partnership because it exposes them to diverse cultures, languages and ways of living. The United States is such a huge country and global power that we can easily misunderstand how the rest of the world lives and works. We know that these opportunities can be life-changing, often altering career plans for students (who studied at Pécs) upon their return to the U.S.  

What does the average citizen need to understand about globalization, especially today? 

Golich: It is important to recognize that the critical issues of the 21st century ­– such as immigration and labor flows, human rights, hunger, pandemics, climate change and environmental degradation, ethnic and religious diaspora, energy, transportation, terrorism and security, nuclear proliferation, and trade and finance – all cross both arbitrary political borders and natural borders such as rivers, mountains, even oceans. 

As Cheikh Hamidou Kane observes in his novel “Ambiguous Adventure,” “Every hour that passes brings a supplement of ignition to the crucible in which the world is being fused. We have not had the same past, you and ourselves, but we shall have … the same future. The era of separate destinations has run its course.”

We live in an era of expanded and increasingly intense mutual dependencies among a growing number of state and nonstate actors, which make us vulnerable to each other’s actions, if not sensitive to each other’s needs. 

We understand you spoke to the law faculty at the University of Pécs. What did you present?

Golich: My lecture was titled “Entering the Third Decade of the 21st Century: Trends in International Relations.” I discussed five trends: complex interdependencies, changes in technology and access to knowledge, global climate change, resource scarcity and war and how they all combine to tell the story about the vast array of connections around the world that create our irrevocably globalized societies.