Professor Maria Bielikova can return to the Slovak University of Technology which terminated her contract last week. This was announced by the Miroslav Fikar, the Rector of the University. His step came after fierce student and staff protests against the decision by the Dean of Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Ivan Kotuliak who fired his predecessor. "As the Rector, I am concerned at the fact that the decision to terminate the contract with the former Dean was taken ahead of the final conclusion of the investigation," Fikar wrote on Friday.
Kotuliak decided upon the immediate notice on 9th January. As he informed, his office received an anonymous declaration suspecting Bielikova of avoiding tax payments. It is being investigated by the Chief Controller Office of the University. The SME daily quotes former Vice Rector Peter Pistek saying that it was standard routine, years before Bielikova became the Dean of this Faculty, that students were granted a stipend instead of signing a regular contract which involves tax. Bielikova initiated the establishment of the Faculty 16 years ago. The SME daily also pointed at the direct links between Kotuliak and companies Datalan and Tempest which considerably participated in EU funded informatisation projects.
The case stirred up great discontent not only among students but also among experts from abroad. The support to Bielikova, a member of the EU High Level Group on Artificial Intelligence, was also expressed officially by the management of the IT Faculties of Masaryk University and Brno University of Technology as well as almost 30 international experts from the international User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction journal.
So far, both parties in the dispute, Bielikova and Kotuliak, have agreed on a compromise. Bielikova will withdraw her candidacy to become a member of the Senate of the University which works as the watchdog of the dean's work.
