Dr. Jacek Lubecki is a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Studies. Lubecki has been a part of Georgia Southern University since 2012, holding several positions before becoming a full professor in 2022. 

Prior to joining Georgia Southern, Lubecki studied law and languages at the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan in Poland, where he was born. After coming to the United States in 1990, Lubecki received a Ph.D. in International Studies from the University of Denver in 2000. 

Lubecki did not initially plan to pursue a career in teaching, originally thinking of becoming a journalist or a scholar. However, when he interned with a local Denver high school in his second year of graduate school, he found a passion for education. 

“I started teaching at the high school,” Lubecki said, “and I thought, it really made me want to teach.”

After teaching some courses as a graduate student at the University of Denver, Lubecki earned his first full-time teaching position at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, where he remained until 2000. 

Throughout his teaching career, Lubecki’s passion for what he does has lied in his interactions with his students. 

One of his favorite ways to engage his political science and international studies students is through the Model Arab League, a student organization that simulates conflict resolution and diplomacy among nations in the Middle East. Lubecki has served as the organization’s faculty advisor since creating it in 2015. 

Whether it’s through the Model Arab League or another activity, Lubecki encourages all students to get involved with something that excites them. 

“Find what kind of meaningful activity that you like, and try to structure your career and knowledge around it,” he said.

Likewise, most of the activities Lubecki enjoys relate back to his career in studying political science and international studies. His hobbies include learning languages, travel, and building models of military vehicles. 

Lubecki’s love of learning new languages, particularly English, enabled him to pursue higher education in the United States after living in Poland for most of his life. 

With his background and experiences growing up in the then-communist Eastern Europe, Lubecki brings a unique perspective to his classroom, emphasizing the importance of looking beyond the United States when approaching issues and politics. 

“Well, 95% of the population is not American,” he said, “we are only 5% of the world, so knowing as much as you can about the rest of the world can be very helpful.”

Lubecki has emulated this advice in his career as an academic, studying both global and localized topics like East/Central European and Middle Eastern politics, as well as a range of languages, including Polish, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, German, and Arabic. 

“My experience has been that knowing any foreign language opens a host of opportunities that would not otherwise exist,” Lubecki said, “For instance, my entire life—my career—here is based on the fact that I can speak English. Without it, none of it would have been possible.”