Obituary notice
On February 3, 2023, a mathematician, the first post-November rector of the University of Žilina and later also the first rector of the Catholic University in Ružomberok - prof. RNDr. Pavol Kluvánek, CSc. Professor Pavol Kluvánek was one of the seven founding members of the Club of Rectors of Czech and Slovak Universities, which was officially founded on April 26, 1990 in Žilina at the University of Transport and Communications. Later, he was one of the founders and first members of the Slovak Rectors' Conference.
Professor Pavol Kluvánek was a renowned mathematician who specialized in the mathematical theory of transport. A graduate of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Comenius University in Bratislava, he defended his candidate's thesis in the field of transport technology in 1969. His further work at the university was interrupted due to the Normalization. One of the reasons was the emigration of his brother, a world-renowned mathematician, prof. Igor Kluvánek. Therefore, in the years 1971 - 1975, Pavol Kluvánek worked as a researcher at the Research Institute of Transport in Žilina and later at the Institute of Communications Development of the University of Transport and Communications in Žilina ("VŠDS"). Despite the successful completion of the habilitation procedure in 1971 in the field of mathematical methods in transport before the Scientific Council of the PEDaS faculty of the VŠDS, he was appointed as an associate professor only in 1990. It was only after November 1989 that Pavol Kluvánek was able to fully develop his skills and participated in the construction of a university in Žilina . Between 1990 and 1993, he became rector of VŠDS (today the University of Žilina in Žilina). At the school in Žilina, he built a department of mathematical methods in transport at the then department of mathematics, which became the basis for the creation of a separate department of mathematical methods in transport. He made a significant contribution to changing the structure of the university by dividing the Faculty of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering into the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the independence of the Faculty of Construction and the establishment of the Faculty of Management and Informatics.
In 1992, he received a professorship in the field of organization and management of communication systems. In his scientific work, he focused on introducing progressive methods of solving work technology problems in transport systems. He was a leading personality of the so-called Žilina School of Mathematical Theory of Transport.
Since 1995, Professor Pavol Kluvánek started building the foundations of Catholic higher education in Ružomberok. Thanks to him, the Catechetical and Pedagogical Faculty of St. Andrew, on which foundations the Catholic University in Ružomberok was founded in 2000. Professor Pavol Kluvánek became its first rector.
The President of the Slovak Rectors' Conference, Professor Rudolf Kropil, expresses his sincere condolences on behalf of the members of the SRC to the family, loved ones and colleagues of Professor Pavol Kluvánek.
The last farewell to Professor Pavol Kluvánek will be held on February 10, 2023 in the Church of the Seven Sorrowful Virgin in Žilina.
- University of Žilina about Professor Pavol Kluvánek
- Catholic University in Ružomberok about Professor Pavol Kluvánek
- Obituary notice
- Slovak version
RIP
Text and photo: UNIZA and KU