Call for a correction by editor Ireneusz Sudak (GW) regarding the article of May 17, 2024, entitled “What’s next for the Czarnek’s School and NBP? MBA graduate of the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School reveals the backstory.” 

Editor Ireneusz Sudak has published yet another article in Gazeta Wyborcza containing completely false and misleading information about the activities of the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School. Sudak completely disregards the information about the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School provided by us, our students, alumni, as well as scientists and lecturers from top research centers at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Princeton who cooperate with SGMK. All who cooperate with the school,  speak of it only in the highest terms and adamantly recommend cooperation with our institution. 

Experience demonstrated that journalistic skills and reliability required in preparation of press material is absolutely not a hallmark of Gazeta Wyborcza. This is confirmed by false information further found in the article by editor Sudak (GW), which could have been verified with only a few “clicks” through any Internet search engine. Dr. Piotr Turek is not the school’s rector, NBP has never been a strategic partner of SGMK, the SGMK Foundation does not exist, and the new edition of the MBA program will launch (unfortunately) without cooperation of NBP. The postgraduate MBA Banking and Financial System program was taught by some of the best central banking experts in the world, with nearly half of them foreign lecturers. This information was not the even verified by the journalist before writing his article. The article incorrectly relies on the unreliable opinion of a single student as its sole source of information, a student who, for the reasons unknown to the school, has repeatedly undermined the school’s credibility in the public eye, which was met with many complaints from other students. 

In connection with the article containing false statements and lies that damage the good name of the school, as well as incorrect remarks about Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School, we publish below responses to some of the false and unreliable information published in it, while calling for its correction. 

Examples of the unreliability and lack of diligence of the author of the article: 

(counter to the obligation under Article 12, paragraph 1. of the Press Law Act Dz.U. 1984 no. 5 item 24) 

(…) employees of the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School, whose Rector is Piotr Turek, an employee of the National Bank of Poland. 

• Dr. Piotr Turek is not the Rector of the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School. 

Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School has nothing to do with Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń(…). 

• It is not true that the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School has nothing in common with the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. In addition to a common patron, every week on Monday at 12:00 the open #Copernican Lectures are held in cooperation with UMK scientists. You are cordially invited to watch the broadcast on SGMK’s YouTube channel. 

For a college, SGMK was very unusual. It began the implementation of its educational program not by recruiting high school graduates and post-baccalaureate students, but by starting immediately with an MBA course.  

• Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School is a public educational institution distinguished by its internationality, interdisciplinarity and high quality of teaching. In accordance with the school’s charter, it maintains Doctoral Schools in Colleges dedicated to five “Copernican” disciplines: College of Astronomy and Natural Sciences, College of Economic Sciences and Management, College of Medical Sciences, College of Legal Sciences, College of Philosophy and Theology. The College of Economic Sciences and Management also conducts a postgraduate MBA Banking and Financial System program in accordance with the statutory provision defining the purpose and scope of the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School. 

(…) Copernicus becomes the brand name of the new creation, and the politicized NBP becomes the strategic partner of the college (…) and NBP employees lecture at SGMK.  

• The National Bank of Poland is not a strategic partner of SGMK, while the university authorities hope that the current cooperation will turn into a strategic partnership in the future. 

(…) The price of the course, thanks to the support of the NBP, was very attractive – lower than that of the prestigious MBA courses provided by the most reputable state economic universities. For example, an MBA at the Warsaw School of Economics has a fee of PLN 60 000 (you can pay in installments). At SGMK it was a fraction of this amount. 

• The Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School has invited specialists from the National Bank of Poland to cooperate in creating and implementing programs in the field of economics and management. The invitation was met with a positive response, and the prestigious, top-level MBA in Banking and the Financial Systems program, implemented thanks to funding from the National Bank of Poland, enabled those interested to access the knowledge of specialists, researchers and lecturers from the best universities, research centers and central banks around the world. Not surprisingly, the lecturers included specialists from the National Bank of Poland. Participation in SGMK’s MBA Banking and Financial Systems has a fee of PLN 20 000 (also can be paid in installments). 

The MBA program in Banking and Financial Systems at SGMK is very positively evaluated by graduates – we invite you to read the opinions of our graduates and the result of the survey:  

• 77% of students rate the overall quality of SGMK’s MBA program very highly, 
• 64% of students said that SGMK’s MBA program provided them with enough practical business skills, 
• 78% of students would recommend SGMK’s MBA program, 
• 71% of students rate the interdisciplinary nature of SGMK’s MBA program very highly, 
• 73% of students rate the quality of SGMK’s MBA very highly,  
• 77% of students rate the internationality of SGMK’s MBA studies very highly. 

Halicki’s case or an INCORRECT COMPARISON 

 (…) the new authorities of the Ministry of Science are avoiding official declarations, although, according to our information, they have met with a group of SGMK students and listened to reports of irregularities and objections to the university’s work. 

(…) SGMK could have repeated the “success” of Collegium Humanum in terms of “production of diplomas”, but the school started relatively late…. 

• The group of students mentioned by Gazeta Wyborcza that visited the new authorities of the Ministry of Science – according to the information that was provided to the school – was a the two-person group led by Mr. Halicki himself, and the account of irregularities and objections concerned the excessively difficult exam of the MBA Banking and Financial System program.  

Earlier, Mr. Halicki demanded adding additional points to his final grade on the certificate in official correspondence to the university’s staff due to his self-appointed role as the group leader (there were more than a dozen complaints from other students about Mr. Halicki’s behavior in this regard). He also repeatedly expressed outrage at the fact that he was taking the exam at all, stating that he had not been informed of this fact prior to the start of his studies. 

The case of our graduate, Mr. Halicki, only proves that the comparison made by editor Ireneusz Sudak is misguided and the crowning proof are the high requirements on the MBA final exam. If Mr. Ireneusz Sudak does not give credence to this information, he should ask his interlocutor Mr. Halicki one question: “At which attempt did you pass the exam?” 

To this end, we request an apology and correction in the following wording: 

“We apologize for misleading the public with information published by editor Ireneusz Sudak that the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School is engaged in the “production of diplomas”. The information about the activities of Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School written in the article dated May 17, 2024, entitled “What’s next for the Czarnek’s School and NBP? MBA graduate of the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School reveals the backstory“ is false and we apologize for it.”  

We encourage you to verify the information and invite you to follow the activities of Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School! 

Internationality, Interdisciplinarity, High Quality Teaching 

Nicolaus Copernicus University is a public university distinguished by its internationality, interdisciplinarity and high quality teaching. In accordance with the school’s charter, it maintains, as its main task, Doctoral Schools in Colleges dedicated to five “Copernican” disciplines: College of Astronomy and Natural Sciences, College of Economics and Management Sciences, College of Medical Sciences, College of Legal Sciences, College of Philosophy and Theology. 

Nearly 50% of foreign lecturers, including Nobel Prize winners 

Among the lecturers teaching at SGMK, you will find Nobel Prize winners, lecturers from Harvard, Oxford and La Sapienza. The school carries out projects with leading scientists. For example, on June 28, 2024, Prof. Paul Krugman – economist, Nobel Prize winner in economics (2008), creator of the new economic geography (a theory explaining phenomena related to, among other things, the process of globalization) and the new theory of international trade – will come to Poland at the invitation of SGMK. 

This year alone, lectures for SGMK students and doctoral students were delivered by Nobel laureates, including Prof. Didier Queloz, Prof. Joachim Frank, Prof. William E. Moerner as well as other world renowned specialists from the leading research centers: Dr. Michael L. Brodie (Harvard University and M.I.T.), Prof. John Tasioulas (Oxford University), Prof. Mark Coeckelbergh (University of Vienna), Jonathan Brill (futurologist), Dr. Ousmène Jacques Mandeng (Accenture and Harvard Review expert), Gerd Leonhard (futurologist, one of the world’s best speakers), Thomas Frey (futurologist, ranked the best futurologist in the world by Google), or Prof. Peter C. Bishop (University of Houston). 

In June, another Nobel laureate will give a lecture at the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School  

We are pleased to announce that the next Nobel laureate who will give a lecture for students at the Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School will be Prof. Paul Krugman – economist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics (2008), creator of a new economic geography (a theory explaining phenomena related to, among other things, the process of globalization) and a new theory of international trade. More information -> Nobel laureate Prof. Paul Krugman at Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School | Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School (sgmk.edu.pl)