Professor Walery Goetel (1889–1972)

Rector for the 1939–1945 and 1945–1950 terms of office
Stratigraphy, regional geology, Mesozoic geology, general mineralogy, petrogenesis, scientific grounds for environmental protection

He was born in Sucha Beskidzka. He graduated from geological and palaeontological studies at the Jagiellonian University. He received a doctor’s degree at the University of Vienna (1913), was a senior lecturer of geology at the Jagiellonian University (1918), and obtained a doctor’s degree in geology at the University of Mining and Metallurgy (1950).

Initially, he was employed at the Jagiellonian University, where, in 1918, he obtained postdoctoral qualifications. In the years 1917–1939, he lectured on tectonic geology, stratigraphy, and Polish land geology.

He was appointed associate professor of the Mining Academy (1920), chair of the Department of General Geology and Palaeontology (1920–1925), chair of the Department of General Geology (1925–1956), full professor (1922), dean of the Faculty of Mining (1930–1934), vice-rector (1937–1939), and chair of the Department of Geology (1956–1961). He lectured on economics, mining, general geology and palaeontology, as well as on the protection of the human and natural environment. At the University of Mining and Metallurgy, he organised a team dealing with the protection of the environment, natural resources, and the durability of resource utilisation, which played an important role in educating specialists.

He contributed to organising an efficient conspiratorial activity of the university and a capable re-emergence from the underground to create a foundation for the development of a multi-faculty University of Mining and Metallurgy, dealing with a wide variety of subjects related to searching, utilisation, and processing of minerals. He initiated the grand construction project to expand university buildings and equipment. As the rector of the Mining Academy, he led to the inception of the Faculty of Geology and Surveying and the Faculty of Geology and Mineral Exploration, as well as the renaming of the academy as the University of Mining and Metallurgy [Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza]. He was one of the founders of the Academic Sports Association (AZS) and its long-term supervisor. He developed a lively activity in the field of mountain tourism.

Professor Goetel authored more than 250 papers in the field of stratigraphy, regional geology, tectonics, general mineralogy, petrogenesis, and scientific grounds for the protection of the flora published in several languages in various national and foreign journals. As part of his fruitful research-organisational activities, he was the creator of, among other things, the Tatra and Pieniny National Parks. He developed a “5-year plan to expand geology and surveying sciences in Poland”. He also prepared scientific grounds and principles for rational management of geological and biological resources; he introduced a programme and the scope of a new science field concerning the protection of the environment and its resources, as well as the environmental grounds for the shaping of human habitat; he introduced the name ‘sozology’ to denote this new field of study, which is widely used to date throughout the world.

Professor Walery Goetel, as the only Pole, received in 1959 the Van Tienhoven Award, the highest distinction in the field of environmental protection in the world, for his activities in the interest of European natural reserves and creating national nature parks.