Ever meet a non-Polish teacher at a Polish university?

Apart from the ubiquitous English language teachers, have you ever met a foreign teacher in Poland?

1992-4 - Mr Le Tu, a Vietnamese, working for IT sciences institute of Wrocław University - he used to say 'x do krawatu' ('krawat' is a tie in Polish) - instead of 'x do kwadratu' - 'x square' (his Polish was not bad but wasn't perfect too from what I can tell) - actually I quit IT sciences after a grave misunderstanding between me and him during at the of one of the exams

Yes, for one a German bloke, got married to his Polish girlfriend in late '80s, was still denied residency, his wife was denied an exit visa, he was about to get deported, he asked for his supervising professor for help: no more visa office problems.

I also knew a fair mid 90s USPC volunteers at various business schools, who met with varying fates.

And in more recent times? I have a feeling that examples will be few.

and what do you expect actually - in such an ethnically homogenous country Poland is - are Poles not able to learn in foreign languages and then pass the knowlegde in Polish -

now how do you expect foreigners to give lectures/teach in Polish universities if they don't know Polish well - it's not an easiest taks to learn Polish, I guess you would agree on that

Absolutely! I've been learning for three years and have almost mastered 'sz' but 'cz' escapes me.

I should have said I was talking about the various courses conducted in English, of which there are so many. But I've not noticed one with a non Polish-teacher. Some have a German surname, but always a Polish first name.

The topic came up a while ago with an German acquaintance. She occasionally demonstrates something or other at various Polish universities and commented that foreign teachers aren't really welcome. She gave me the example of one visiting American prof who was in Krakow a few years ago on an EU-funded Da Vinci/Erasmus/short term type of thing. Supposedly while she was very popular with the students, the other professors cold-shouldered her. I thought this must have been an exaggeration. I am myself looking at doing a doctorate in English in Poland and was looking at the various universities and their English language offerings (they have a group website study in poland) and I noticed that there wasn't one foreign name amongst the list of teachers. It seems a shame, as the universities would surely benefit from being more cosmopolitan.

the one and foremost reason there are so few (if any) foreign teachers at Polish universities is the simple question of the rate of pay university level teachers receive in Poland - one can say it's downright prohibitive for Westerners - most Polish educational institutions would rather hire a Pole (who is paid in the Polish brackets of pay) then to pay loads of cash to an imported foreign teacher - (of course everyone would like to have say Noam Chomsky among his scholars - just not anybody can attract such people and the pay is one of the important factors)

Yes of course, one guy from China, other from Syria and one somewhere from LAtin America... It's not something common but definately not very unusual.

There are some of us but, as has been said, the pay is terrible. I almost consider my uni job as voluntary work.

another thing is: universities in English speaking countries can very well be cosmopolitan an many definitely are - but the reason is very simple - English is THE INTERNATIONAL language - you can't have a truely cosmopolitan academic environment in Poland because of one simple reason - the need to teach people - in this case the Polish people - it still needs to be done overwhelmingly in Polish (there is neither demand nor capacity/ability to teach any significant percentage of Polish students mostly in English) - maybe in some 20 years with rising levels of English among Polish youth this changes

What are you doing there ?

I suppose in English you'd say I was a Junior Lecturer in the neo-philology faculty.

In my experience there are plenty of countries where there are almost exclusively native teachers; and plenty of others, where it's full of foreign teachers. As for reasons, I agree with teflcat (pay) and gumishu (language). I'd add a third, though I have no idea of Polish universities. In some countries, nepotism aside, the typical path to professorship is 1. student; 2. Ph.D. student, with teaching (and being the professor's slave) responsibilities; 3. teaching position; 4. professorship of some kind - all of these steps in the same university and under the wings of the same professor(s). In such a country, it's difficult to be a foreigner and apply for a teaching position, unless you have clearly better aces in your sleeve than the locals.

I can see how pay comes into it, but hopefully this won't play such as pig part of it in the future, as general wages rise, but best not to hold ones breath on that one.

Actually, my step-daughter will be studying economics in Warsaw next year. In English, on a course aimed at mostly Polish students, based on information from a relative who graduated this year from the same course/uni.

On the University of Wrocław site, it says that for €3000 "At the doctoral level students may study in English in any area they choose." The implication being that no matter what, there will be someone able to supervise the PhD student in English.

Bachelor €2000 (non-EU student = €3500)
Master €2000 (non-EU student = €3500)
PhD €3000 (non-EU student = €4500)

This is interesting, as masters at €2000 per year is cheaper than what I pay in the UK, but the MSc is actually dearer, and Wrocław seems cheaper than most Polish universities for the doctorate.

BTW, on the topic of foreign professors in Poland, I just noticed a few minutes ago that Prof Roy H. Ginsberg (as opposed to Chou En Ginsberg) will be presenting at Wrocław this week in English presumably (on the topic of 'The EU in global security: The politics of impact'. sounds interesting...zzzzzzzzz) there are enough people interested in hearing him.

I still can't help but get the impression that foreigners may be deemed a threat by locals, which I feel is a shame.

I just noticed that the University of Wrocław don't do PhDs in Polish. You could read that as the foreign PhD students are a desired source of income (just as fee paying students are in other countries) or that there isn't a demand in Polish. Given the choice, maybe some locals would prefer to do it in English?

Well but we had a similar classmate in our college too..
She was from Malaysia but studied Sanskrit.