Eulogy by Rector Professor Philippos Pouyioutas

Our beloved Andreas Polemitis,

We have gathered here today to address to you, with infinite love, our last goodbyes. We have gathered here to honour you and to warmly thank you for your most important contribution to our country, to our society and to each one of us.

You have been a pioneering academic with a grand vision for Education. Since the beginning of the 80s, you set as your life goal the founding of a university in Cyprus. The legal framework did not even exist back then. Through your experience in academia, through your particular ingenuity and your entrepreneurial mind, you managed to find a temporary solution and eventually offer university-level education in Cyprus in 1981, when you founded the Indiana Education Center, which in collaboration with the University of Indianapolis offered university degree programmes. This solution did not fulfil your vision. You later merged your educational institution with Intercollege and kept on working tirelessly towards the evolution of Intercollege into a university. And thus, you laid the foundations for the creation of the University of Nicosia as we know it today.

Serving at Intercollege as the Academic Dean, you constituted the academic heart and soul of our organisation. A heart and soul always pulsing with excitement, because of your immense love for our organisation and its people, with whom you were so closely connected on both a professional and a personal level. Since then, your persistence to safeguarding quality has been guiding all our actions.

You developed and authored the College’s academic regulations, which define the essential framework for the operation of an academic institution. As the College’s senior academic administrator, you oversaw the implementation of the regulations and whenever there was any academic issue that the rest of us could not deal with or solve, you stepped in and always provided a viable solution. You effortlessly combined theoretical knowledge with practical thinking. After all, your Doctor of Business Administration studies and your vast experience in both academia and industry, helped you develop the skills and abilities needed to handle complex issues and solve almost any problem.

But first and foremost – and this is something that only a few can realise the value of, as it is extremely difficult to evaluate – you developed and put into place an academic framework which allowed the smooth and problem-free  operation of the organisation.

You believed in comprehensive education and you wanted our graduates to be critical thinkers and well-rounded human beings with principles and values. Therefore, you always insisted that the curricula of the study programmes dully comply with the standards that you developed. Standards that also foresaw the selection of additional general education courses, mainly from the disciplines of humanities, social sciences, and the arts. You were also a pioneer in this respect.

With your initiative and your important contribution, we developed numerous study programmes. The quality upgrade of the College, and the great increase in the number of its students were the result of your enormous contribution.

We remember how, as the most academically fit and with the in-depth knowledge of all study programmes , you were always at the forefront of providing information to interested young people and their parents. Everyone left your office fully informed, wiser, and ready to make the right decision regarding their choice of study. Thousands of our alumni are grateful to you.

Since 2001, when Intercollege began to function as a university, with the reorganisation of its academic structure into Schools and Departments, the creation of a Senate and a Council strengthened with the participation of academics, you undertook the supervision of the Schools and the coordination of the Deans under the Rector Professor Vangelis Koufoudakis. Your impeccable cooperation with the Deans led to the creation of a real university academic culture. From 2005 to 2007 you coordinated the five-member committee, set up by the University Temporary Administrative Committee (responsible for the transition of Intercollege into a University), that was appointed with the heavy task to write the extensive, thousands-page application for the founding of the university.

You authored most of the application, including the University’s strategy, its pillars and actions as well as its four-year development plan. Your intervention for the revision of the proposed University Charter, the most important document that defines the university, was crucial, since the most important changes you made ensured later the smooth functioning of the institution. You turned the rigid 200-page document submitted to you into a flexible 35-page document by transferring many of the secondary details to the internal regulations.

With the establishment of the University in 2007, you assumed the duties of Senior Vice-Rector and contributed immeasurably to the emergence of the University of Nicosia as the largest university in Cyprus, with over 14,000 students, and ranked among the best universities in the world. You bestowed on us among many other things, the university academic framework for the delivery of quality education, the university culture, the University Charter and the internal regulations for the smooth running of the university, and hence a solid foundation for success.

You continued with the same zeal to oversee the Schools, to prepare the most important academic documents, to design and create, to advise students and young people interested in studying and to be a pioneer, always striving towards the upward course of our organisation.

The Intercollege/University of Nicosia community will be forever grateful to you for all you have contributed. What unites many of us gathered here today is in fact Intercollege and the University of Nicosia. The very existence of these two top academic institutions is interwoven with your existence. Your life and your work have deeply influenced our lives. Without you, many of us might had been abroad, far from our homeland. Your actions gave us the opportunity to work in our country in this wonderful organisation.

Cyprus too owes you a huge ‘thank you’. Because you were a pioneer of university education. Because you were one of the reasons why Higher Education in Cyprus is flourishing today, channelling educated citizens into society and generating approximately 5% of our country’s GDP. Because Cyprus can now feel proud to be a regional hub for quality university education.

We really owe you so much regarding our professional establishment and career. At the same time, we are especially grateful to you because you have been a part of our lives. Because you made us smile all the time. Because you shared your charismatic personality with us. Because in addition to being a colleague and mentor, you were an honest, humble, simple, sensitive, giving, kind, peaceful, genuine, and unique person with a special sense of humour. A human being in every sense of the word. We all admired and loved you very much.

We will always remember the stories you told us. The quizzes you used to challenge us with. Your subversive theories. Your advice on every subject you knew about. Your love and fatherly affection. The meals you prepared for us and served with such joy. And we will always remember you, each one of us in our own way but also as a group. And we will do so by recalling the beautiful moments we shared with you. We all have so much to say about you.

For me personally, you were the third and last mentor in my academic career. I learned by your side, serving initially at Intercollege as Associate Academic Dean for 9 years and then at the University of Nicosia as Vice Rector for 8 years and Rector for almost 7 years now. I personally owe you so much. I wanted and expected you to run for Rector since you would definitely have been elected without competition.

Your modesty, however, did not let you to run for Rector. The only title you finally accepted as a tribute for all your contribution to the University was the one of Senior Vice-Rector Emeritus, when you decided not to continue serving in the position you held. Although you achieved so much in your professional life, you never sought recognition, publicity, or glory. You were content with the love, appreciation, and the respect of your own people and of our university community.

Our beloved Andreas,

You left too soon, and we are very saddened. You have nevertheless offered us so much joy. The past few years, you were lucky to have your whole family close to you.

Your joy, when Antonis decided to return to Cyprus from the States to be near you and contribute to your vision for the university was indescribable. You were happy to enjoy the wedding of Antonis with his beloved Evie and the arrival of your precious grandson Andreas into the world. You experienced countless joys with your beloved Elena. You were loved by everyone, your family, relatives, friends, partners, by all of us.

We wish you a peaceful journey to the heavens and towards the light. Paradise is waiting for you. We will miss you every day. May your memory be eternal.