Graduation ceremony speech of the rector of the AFAD

 

Dear graduates of master’s and doctoral studies,

dear ceremonial assembly!

 

Today, I am addressing you in my capacity as Rector at a graduation ceremony for the last time, and therefore my speech will focus primarily on you, the graduates, and on our school. I will try to put into words the world we have sought to build for you alongside your education and creative work. I believe that the atmosphere at the school stems from the school’s value orientation, from the very free and open system of our mutual relationships. I will allow myself to deliver my speech in the first person singular, even though none of what I strive for would be possible without mutual cooperation and support.

 

It has always mattered greatly to me that you learn to overcome your worries, fears, and insecurities. Not only in the studios, in your creative work and in the search for your themes, but also to be able to suppress fear in various life and civic situations. A good response to the hegemony of fear, in my view, is freedom, because freedom and fear exclude one another. Fear tends to isolate us; through it, we may lose our courage, our bravery to think and act. Fear is an emotion that weakens when hope grows stronger (Barack Obama). When hope dawns, we become more and more free. Beneficial forces then develop, encouraging people to act creatively and to build communities and fellowships. Our shared dimension of “We” means creating together, standing together for freedom and democracy, overcoming obstacles together, and investing energy together into activities regardless of how they turn out (Václav Havel). The meaning of our lives should be built on happiness, wisdom, philanthropy, humanity, friendship, solidarity, and many other values that enable us to look toward the horizon of what is to come.

 

I often think about how to create a safe, supportive, and loving environment at the school in radicalized and autocratic times, and how to protect the school from mediocrity and superficiality. I believe that what helps us in this is our “loving turn toward the world,” which determines our path to knowledge. The deeper the love, the deeper the knowledge. Love turns toward the past, drawing on our passion for knowledge, while hope turns toward the future. The spirit of hope searches in the past for traces of what is to come (Walter Benjamin). In other words, our knowledge of the past helps us find traces in the present that reveal what will come, what is yet to be born. Whenever I think about how to formulate a statement in response to ugly political remarks or socio-political crises, how to stand up for our school and its values, I often look for traces of what we have already lived through once before. We have the advantage of knowing how certain historical events ended, and what degree of determination and bravery people showed in individual struggles. At such moments, I tell myself that not retreating is the only possible path: to suppress fear and look with hope toward the horizon of what is to come. For we are a school that, by the very nature of its existence, anticipates possible future worlds; we are a courageous school that is not afraid to face adversity; we are a school that gives many people hope in all its fullness and brightness.  

 

The identity of our school is what we cultivate, constantly reassessing who we are and where we are going. I would very much wish, dear graduates, that you carry a piece of our school’s identity with you on your path through life, and that, with the ease that is yours, you may say: “I am AFAD.” I am convinced that you are ready for what is to come. Do not expect it to be easy, but the loving turn toward the world will be your light, and hope will be the spring of your strength and movement.

 

I would also like to mention one more situation that I keep thinking about. I have always been aware that we are one of the smallest public higher education institutions in Slovakia. Caring for our school also includes building a fleet of people, institutions, and companies around it. I knew that in turbulent waters it was necessary to join forces so that we could lean on one another and share the same value orientation. The purpose of this is to change our society for the better, to build cohesion among us, and to create conditions for strengthening the public good. To give deeper meaning to our lives. I think that this is what it is about: to suppress fear and find within ourselves the determination to live and create freely, to build cohesive and educated communities.

 

At the end of every graduation speech since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, I have addressed our Ukrainian graduates in particular. Ukraine is defending itself with extraordinary bravery against Russian military aggression, thereby protecting not only its own country and nation, but also the rest of us in Europe, including Slovakia. It is paying the highest price for this, namely human lives. I want to say that our Ukrainian graduates do not have their loved ones here with them today, and therefore all of us here today are your family.

 

Thank you for your attention.

Bohunka Koklesová

Graduation Ceremony, 2 July 2026