Many jobs may be considered life-changing—but few as dramatically as Dr. Jerzy Letkowski’s arrival at Western New England. That’s because he was actually escaping communist Poland. In 1985, he got permission to attend a conference in Chicago and never went back, bringing his family to the U.S. when he was able to.

“That was good for us,” Dr. Anil Gulati, Chair of the Department of Business Information Systems, said of the move. “He is 110% professional. In all the years he has been with the department and the University, he has progressed with the changing times. For example, in our department, we have changed the program four times during my tenure. We have had to retool, learn new things, and then do things differently. He has been instrumental in keeping up with the times because we are in the field of information systems, and things change every second within the industry. His contribution from that vantage point has been tremendous.”

Dr. Letkowski’s academic interests have included computer programming, database, semantic web, management science, and statistics and analytics. Courses he’s taught recently include Statistics for Business Analytics, Modeling and Problem Solving with Non-relational Data Structures, Data Science with Python, Data Analysis with R, and Database Management Systems.

“He is an Energizer Bunny times 10; it’s amazing what he has done for the students,” Dr. Gulati added. “At the end of the day—and the beginning of the day, and all day—his reason for being in this profession is the students.”