(The thoughts of a former student and doctoral candidate,
at the tribute to Professor Costică PANFIL)
Prof. dr. doc. Costică PANFIL – creator and shaper of a school
The school and the vocation of certain teachers can have magical effects on young minds, eager for knowledge and in a feverish search for the truths of the world, for one’s personal “I”, for the formation of personality, character, spirit… Year after year, I have recalled Professor Panfil’s lectures… “Every human being is formed and develops from an initial cell, an egg or zygote. It brings together the “heritage” of both parents in a new genetic configuration, a “unique constellation of genes”… Man is the product, the resultant of the permanent interaction between the two “forces”, heredity and environment, which condition the totality of his vital structures and functions…”.
It is curious that, among the numerous memories associated with Professor Costică Panfil, many dating from my student days, the most vivid one remains from after I graduated, a few years after I had met him and, together with my fellow students, appreciated him as one of the great professors we had the chance to learn from.
I was a young researcher at the Cluj Horticultural Station (SCDP) and, with the prospect of applying for a doctoral program, I was nervous and went to find ‘the Professor’ at the university, hoping he would accept me for the entrance exam and supervise my thesis. It was summer, vacation…, and I breathed a bit of relief when the lab assistant, very happy to recognize a former student, told me the professor was not… The moment of euphoria did not last long, as the lady, after understanding the purpose of my visit, very kindly, got in touch with the professor by phone, without heeding my insistence not to disturb him… After the conversation, she gave me his address, on Mărului Street, telling me the professor was granting me an audience…
The slope from the city centre to the professor’s house felt like a small Golgotha, the house like a little old castle surrounded by vegetation, with various plants, mixed together, left to grow freely, flowers, trees, cherry trees with long branches and sun-scorched leaves… The housekeeper opened the door. The professor was home; I was invited into the living room and told to wait a moment… I shall never forget the emotions of that wait, the flood of thoughts and feelings, the retrospective of the student who deified his teacher… I was in the house of the professor, of the one who, even during my student years, was the recognised scholar with “Întrebări și răspunsuri din genetică (…)”, called by the students ‘the docent’ of Romanian genetics (by the way, about one of his books and the fact that he was one of the two docents of the university…). I was in a house that imposed silence and respect, that evoked simplicity and grandeur, not so much through ostentation, but through the state and the feeling that it was the ‘spiritual citadel’ of a family of true intellectuals, people of culture, ‘aristocrats’ of Cluj’s science and intellectual life… (Later, getting to know Mrs. Panfil as well, a professor of ancient languages at Babeș-Bolyai University, the feeling turned into evidence and conviction).
When the professor appeared, the emotions were at their peak! He was in a simple satin robe, yet his bearing gave me more the feeling of a host of Roman stock than of an academician or a man of letters. He entered quietly, looked at me, and I immediately felt that he had perceived my inner state exactly. He extended his hand, smiled finely, openly, slightly ironically: “Do you still remember that I caught you in a lecture, while you were listening, in the last row, to a football match on the radio, together with your friend, Cotârlă?”. Suddenly, all my emotions dissipated; I could breathe, as if the room had suddenly become wider and brighter: “Yes, Professor, we apologised then, it was an important match for ‘U’ Cluj, and we wanted to find out the result… You told us that learning is more important than a football match!…”.
The years of doctoral studies followed, the transition from research to teaching, the years in which, as an assistant and a senior lecturer, I worked, learned, and was formed in the same space at the university where the professor had worked. Even though he had retired from active work, he was there, and I always felt him by my side, with advice, guidance, exhortations, encouragement. In this relationship there was also a kind of pressure, constant, continuous, but by no means disturbing; on the contrary, it was encouraging, stimulating me, giving me strength, hope, and optimism. The professor’s ‘space’ obligated me, but also inspired me. It could not be otherwise: Cluj had become a recognised centre in plant genetics and breeding in Romania. The recognition and eminence of the geneticist Panfil grew with the school formed by the great professor. Mircea Savatti, Marin Ardelean, Constantin Botez became very well-known and respected professors in the field of plant genetics and breeding. They in turn became formers and creators…
The other day, in the last part of April 2013, on the terraces of the university’s plantations, large-scale activities were taking place, in which hundreds of students were planting trees, fruit-bearing shrubs, and grapevines for the university’s new didactic-experimental plantations… Above, on the hill, the new faculty building was rising (ICHAT), with the intense green of the trees in the park behind it, and the brilliant sun above… A superb spring, a new awakening of nature to life, beautiful, intelligent, hardworking young people, a new face – page of the university… Mr. Dr. Mihail Jidav, a well-known researcher and creator of new varieties at SCDP Cluj, retired from active work, visiting the university, was amazed by the fervor and ardor with which the students were working and expressing their desire to learn and to participate in the work… “Professor, what I see delights me and gives me hope… I wish that these students will become engineers and good people, and that they will see their professors the way we used to see them, in the old days: as true gods”. I remembered the beneficial effect that Dr. Jidav had on me, when, as a young engineer, I entered research (and I needed so much any kind of support…)… I thanked him for his thoughts, and smiled to myself… It never crossed my mind how students would see me over the years. I always wanted to do ‘Good’ (rediscovering some of my ‘searches’ in my youth, in the book by the renowned British writer William Somerset Maugham, ‘The Summing Up’/‘Bilanț’), and I always wondered whether what I do is good… Whether I fulfill my mission as a teacher, as a Human Being, as an intellectual. Whether, beyond intelligence, professionalism, honesty, integrity, I put soul, a desire for Good, Truth, and Beauty into what I do. Whether I have the strength to look past the ‘trivial’ things (as the professor used to say, without, however, explaining to me what those are…).
In the past, were professors ‘gods’ for students? I admired and valued not only Professor Panfil, but also his successors, Professors Ardelean, Savatti, Botez… I learned a lot from all of them, but also from those around them… Similarly, I appreciated Dr. Jidav not only for his scientific knowledge, his culture, his elevated and literary language, but also for his humanity and generosity… After the meeting the other day, I realized that Dr. Jidav was not only a student of Professor Panfil’s, but also one of his doctoral students…
In the past, were professors ‘gods’?…
Cluj-Napoca, April 2013
