The room will be used for teaching and learning. It is fitted with a versatile multimedia whiteboard, doubling as a touchscreen computer, for the lecturers.
The company also had a large part of the hallway branded with its name and displaying the words that convey the core values that define the company's interactions with its employees, customers, and communities. Corning is a global corporation yet, regardless of the location, it is guided by the same set of values: Independence, Individuality, Quality, Integrity, Performance, Leadership and Innovation. Today, when it is not only the money that matters for young people making a decision whether to stay with a company for the long term, this set of values certainly conveys a strong and powerful message.
A large representation of Corning came to the grand opening of the room, which was named the Communication(s) Zone. Among them were two of the company's top executives in Poland - Marek Gagis, EMEA Regional Manufacturing Manager, and Łukasz Srogosz, Plant Manager. The two gentlemen, the former in charge of manufacturing in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and the latter director of the Corning Optical Communications plant in Stryków, are both graduates of Lodz University of Technology. Today, they are part of the top management of Corning, an American corporation headquartered in New York, founded in 1851. The company has over 50,000 employees worldwide, including more than 3,000 in Poland.
'I am happy to see that the gap between companies and the university is closing, which is clearly evident here in the Faculty of Organization and Management', said prof. Paweł Strumiłło, Vice-Rector for Development, for whom it was not the first time he had recently attended this type of event in the Faculty. He also referred to the Corning Day held at Lodz University of Technology the previous week.
The Dean of the Faculty, prof. Agnieszka Zakrzewska-Bielawska, also expressed appreciation of the long-standing cooperation with the company. 'Corning is an important employer for our graduates. It currently employs more than 120 individuals graduates from the Faculty of OiZ, and more than 200 who hold degrees awarded in the other Faculties of the University. We participate in panel discussions together, and I think a new stage of collaborative research is just around the corner.’
The company is well known not only by students of the Faculty of Organization and Management, but also by those pursuing degrees from of the Faculties of EEIA and of Chemistry.
Marek Gagis, EMEA Regional Manufacturing Manager, is proud of Corning's operations in Poland. 'At Corning Optical Communications Polska (it has been operating in Poland, in Stryków, since 2006), manufactured are products for the telecommunications industry, while a factory in Mszczonów, which opened a year ago, is the largest provider of fiber optics in Poland' he explained and went on to point out that 'Innovation cannot exist without science, which is why it is so important for us to cooperate with research centers. We have a saying at Corning that innovation is in our DNA. For example, it was Corning that developed the glass for the Hale, Hubble, and Webb telescopes. The same glass has been used in space shuttle windows and in the cameras of space exploration rovers’.
The company's representatives are satisfied with the Corning brand awareness among students and plan to roll out further internship, work experience, workshop, and degree thesis offerings. 'Today's meeting is the highlight of very good cooperation and the seeding moment for of many new activities’, assured director Łukasz Srogosz.
The opening of the Communication(s) Zone was preceded by an insightful presentation on women in business delivered by Katarzyna Adamowicz, Head of Quality at Corning Optical Communications.