In the interview below, Dr. Gábor Vaderna, Vice-Dean for General Affairs at the ELTE Faculty of Humanities speaks about reading, self-education, the teaching vocation, and intellectual vitality. In his view, a broad intellectual horizon and flexibility are not luxuries but fundamental prerequisites.

You assumed the position of Vice-Dean for General Affairs in February. Had you consciously prepared yourself for this role, or did the opportunity come unexpectedly?

The invitation came completely unexpectedly; I was not prepared for it at all. At a reception following the Faculty Celebration, the Dean suddenly asked to speak with me privately, and I had no idea what it might be about – I assumed he needed my help with some departmental matter. It then turned out that he had a much greater responsibility in mind, and I nearly fell off my chair when I heard it. It was not immediately obvious that I would accept, as I had entirely different plans of a completely different nature. In the end, however, I said yes. Quite apart from the fact that one is very rarely invited to take on a task of this kind, my main argument – at least to myself – was that the Dean was beginning his second term, so I knew what kind of leadership style to expect and what kind of faculty strategy I would be representing and serving.

At the “Jókai 200” conference (Photo: Zsófi Szollár, Index)

I thus joined an experienced dean’s leadership team. The other vice-deans had all served in the previous term, all office directors remained in place, so I am the only newcomer. This naturally comes with both advantages and disadvantages. The greatest advantage is that I do not have to reinvent the wheel: everyone except me knows their job, which will also protect me from doing something spectacularly foolish. At the same time, everyone around me understands each other halfway through a sentence, while I am still trying to catch up and figure out what they are talking about. I am doing my best to keep up.

In the new dean’s leadership structure, teacher education has been given a dedicated role, for which you are now responsible as Vice-Dean for General Affairs. What does teacher education mean to you, and what are your plans in this area?

Until now, teacher education in everyday practice has been handled by the Vice-Dean for Educational Affairs, Krisztina Horváth, and one of my major tasks is to relieve her of part of this workload. For one academic year, we will handle various administrative tasks together, and after that we will see how responsibilities should be divided between us. One academic year is necessary for this, since it is over such a period that all kinds of academic and administrative matters arise, from admissions to degree completion. But this concerns only day-to-day administration. The fact that teacher education has been given a dedicated role within the dean’s leadership means much more than that.

As curator of an exhibition at the Petőfi Literary Museum  
(Photo: Gábor Valuska, Könyves Magazin)

It is worth briefly recalling that teacher education has been undergoing constant transformation around us. In the 2000s, as part of the Bologna Process, it became a master’s-level program; in 2013 this was replaced by the undivided teacher training model, which then underwent another major reform in 2022, shortening the length of study and naturally reducing credit requirements. At the same time, yet another major reform was already being floated for 2027 – though I believe it has remained merely a prospect. This is an extremely harmful process. At ELTE, we possess knowledge and experience that enable us to offer effective, high-quality teacher education under different training structures, in ways that are genuinely useful for public education. Accordingly, we are capable of continually developing new curricula and revising existing ones based on experience. However, when this must be done constantly, with no structure ever having the chance to stabilize into a functioning system but instead remaining in a state of perpetual reorganization – an administrative hamster wheel – quality inevitably suffers in the long run. This is not only an ELTE problem, of course, but since ELTE hosts the greatest diversity of teacher-training workshops and the largest student population (and in fact, some teacher training programs are offered exclusively here), our responsibility to provide appropriate services is particularly great. This is the moment to pay attention and to be present, as there is now at least some chance that the situation may stabilize.

At ELTE we have always held – and I personally consider it essential – that a teacher should not merely know the secondary school curriculum as well as or better than their students, but should also be a broadly educated, cultivated humanities scholar who is capable of continual self-education.

Achieving this requires solid professional foundations and strong disciplinary knowledge. To give an example from my own field, Hungarian literature: after a university examination, a student may produce a brilliant analysis of Bánk bán, but this is of little use if they are unable, in their teaching practice, to adapt that knowledge in a differentiated way, tailored to a specific group of learners, incorporating new material such as contemporary literature, or even developing their own interpretations. If they cannot do this, their classes will be boring – and worse, incomprehensible. If they lose their students along the way, they will not succeed in educating them to become thoughtful, competent readers. A humanities scholar’s greatest virtue is adaptability – that capacity for adjustment—and today, for primary and secondary school teachers, this is exponentially important.

This is not merely a theoretical issue; it is often a practical one as well. The Bologna system established clear pathways from bachelor’s to master’s to doctoral studies. While teacher education is not closed off from doctoral-level continuation, the pathways are not self-evident. Yet it is vital that scholarly teachers remain in the profession–teachers with deeper disciplinary knowledge who are also capable of conducting academic research projects.

Let me add one more point, and then I will let you ask the questions again. The variety of undivided and shortened training formats creates a highly complex instructional and administrative situation that requires constant attention. This necessitates ongoing coordination within the faculty, especially since different institutes and departments have organized their teacher education responsibilities in diverse ways. Moreover, teacher education is not solely a faculty-level issue: it is coordinated by the Teacher Training Centre and involves several university faculties. Most students pursue multiple majors and take courses at the Faculty of Education and Psychology as well. My task is to mediate among the various organizational units, both within and beyond the faculty. It would obviously be undesirable for students to encounter completely separate institutional “universes” as they move around ELTE.

At the conference titled “The Age of Sándor Kisfaludy as Reflected in Himfy”
(Photo: Gyula Czimbal, Irodalmi Magazin)

What have been your impressions during the first two and a half months of the term? Were there any unexpected surprises?

The ELTE accreditation review process has just taken place, and at the beginning of the year I decided to treat it as a kind of personal test by reading everything related to it. This was also prompted by the fact that I represented the Faculty of Humanities, together with others, at one of the committee hearings. It was astonishing to see the enormous quantity of preparatory materials and documentation produced at both faculty and university level, and the sheer amount of work required to ensure that procedures across different faculties do not contradict one another, allowing the university to function harmoniously not just at the level of individual organizational units, but as a whole. Reading through several hundred pages of preparatory material was a form of shock therapy – but in the end I congratulated myself: even if I could not remember everything, at least I understood what was at stake.

For now, I am mostly orienting myself. I talk, I read, I get to know people. Of course, it is not only a matter of my getting to know my colleagues; they also have to get to know me. For that, conversation is essential.

What plans would you like to realize during the current term, and what will your first projects be?

If I wanted to be humorous, I could say that I have already become a true civil servant, because my most important plan at the moment is simply to finally have a plan. This is not – and has not been – entirely up to me. Teacher education will undergo further transformation, and since ELTE is not only a long-established center for teacher education but has always been highly progressive, we would like our expertise to be somehow utilized in this process. It is difficult to articulate concrete plans, not least because the new government has not yet taken office, and it is still unclear how participation in this work will be possible. Yet there is no shortage of challenges. To mention just one obvious example: the use of artificial intelligence must be taught; AI must be integrated into the educational process – while at the same time we must understand how developing technology is reshaping subject-specific pedagogical tasks. Since we are dealing with language models, it almost goes without saying that precise and effective prompting is a genuine humanities skill. The question is whether entire degree programs will need to be redefined as a result, or whether more subtle fine-tuning will suffice. We are prepared to deploy our professional knowledge, experience, and all our creativity.

Beyond the specific tasks assigned to him, the Vice-Dean for General Affairs is also expected to step in on smaller matters when the Dean lacks the time or energy to do so. For now, the Dean has largely let me observe – but what is delayed is not necessarily avoided.

At a book launch at the Péter and Gitta Esterházy Library (Photo: Beáta Kézdi)

How do you spend your free time when you are not engaged in vice-dean or teaching duties? What helps you unwind?

Is it terribly awkward if a literary historian says that they enjoy reading in their free time? If that is all I say, one might assume I am fortunate enough that my hobby is also my job. In reality, the matter is more complicated, because for a humanities scholar, continual self-education is not merely part of the job but a way of life. Today, one of the biggest problems facing teachers – whether in schools or at universities – is that they simply lack time to read, go to the theatre, or even watch television series. And yet a broad intellectual horizon, flexibility, and mental freshness are all qualities that can – and must – be maintained. I myself read rather eclectically: sometimes literature, sometimes history, and I also experience distinct “reading phases” when a particular obsession takes hold. After several years of Scandinavian crime fiction, for example, last summer I embarked on reading Agatha Christie’s complete works. That should keep me busy for a while.

In addition, I play football. Serious athletic commitment can be a rather melancholy affair if one is unable to adjust one’s expectations, since I will obviously never play the way I did twenty years ago. At the same time, there is something heroic in the fact that I cannot quite give it up either, and instead – trusting in an impossible resurrection – I keep trying to improve. I was already teaching at the university, my boots long since hung up and jersey put away, when in the 2010s a friend invited me back to the Humanities League, in the company of a few battle-worn veterans and one or two up-and-coming young players. Over five years, in addition to one B League gold and one A League silver, we also managed to win three A League championships. This was not primarily thanks to me, of course, but I was pleased to discover that I had not yet declined to the point where a sentimental farewell was required. When, in one particularly important match, my sole task was to push a perfectly worked ball over the goal line, one of our students reproached my teammates by saying: “Come on, surely we’re not going to let him score against us as well!” I have never aspired to higher praise.