Stanley A. Ward is the new Senator of Corvinus

The voting was valid and successful, with 69% of eligible voters casting their votes. The new Senator is Stanley Allen Ward Jr. Master Lecturer I., and the alternate member is Tamás Bokor, Associate Professor. 

Stanley A. Ward got his first degree in the Virginia Polytechnic and State University in 1997, completing both his Bachelor’s of English and the military leadership program at the Virginia Tech Corp of Cadets. He then moved to Japan and during his eight years there worked as a teacher, and eventually rose to manage several branch offices of a global Japanese education company. During this time, he completed his Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics. He then moved to Hungary in 2005. 

In Hungary, he has worked as a full-time lecturer at Eötvös Loránd University, and as a part-timer at the University of Vienna. He then joined Corvinus in 2007, and became a full-timer in 2017. He currently does work for the Business and Management, full-time MBA, and CEMS programs. He primarily teaches English for Business, Business Communications and International Debate. He is also a Member of the Board of the Fulbright Association in Hungary. 

We asked him for a brief introduction in a short interview: 

What was your motivation to run for Senator? 

As a teacher, I want to see the university be even more competitive at the regional and wider international levels. Corvinus has already reached several important milestones as the first university in Hungary under the new foundation model. One of the big changes is, of course, the internationalization of the university. I want to make Corvinus a place where not only foreign teachers can come and work, but where foreign administration staff and people capable of managerial leadership have a chance to join us and thrive. 

As a senator, how do you see yourself supporting the development of the university?   

First of all, I see myself as someone who’s had a lot of experience being the “foreign person” in the faculty of a university, down in the trenches, if you will. I’ve worked at several universities over the years, in Japan, in Austria and Hungary, and was often one of the few, or even only, foreign professors in particular departments. I know what it’s like to have to push to get information, or get help from someone because you don’t know how things work in that place, or help someone else new both to the university and living in a foreign country. I think this experience can be very useful as Corvinus moves forward with its internationalization. Thanks to my work with the Fulbright as a Board Member, I also have experience dealing with high level organizational matters, and I think this can also be an asset to the university. 

What changes have you seen in the integration of international colleagues at Corvinus? 

If I speak specifically about Corvinus, when I first came back in 2007, virtually everything was done in Hungarian. Today, it’s a completely different world. Many documents are now available to us in English, including on the intranet and within institutes and departments (that said, there are still some things that aren’t translated). Many institutes and departments now hold meetings in English (but again, sometimes they are split into different languages meetings). Meetings for higher level bodies (such as the Senate) were, up until recently (or still are) held only in Hungarian, which would necessarily exclude foreign people from trying to join them in future. These are the things I want to help change, or at least get them rolling towards a better solution. 

We wish you every success in his work as Senator!