Campus Europae Newsletter, April 2010

Campus Europae universities appoint an Ombudsmen for student mobility
Fast Facts
- Prof. António Ferrari elected President of EUF-CE
- Universities of Cyprus and Hannover join Campus Europae
- Extending student mobility within Campus Europae
- Hooking up! Meeting in Kaunas
- European Higher Education Area comes into being

Upcoming events
- Humanities Subject Committee Meeting
- Education and Teacher Training Subject Committee Meeting
- Student Council Plenary Meeting
- Engineering Subject Committee Meeting
- Natural Sciences Subject Committee Meeting

Campus Europae universities appoint an Ombudsmen for student mobility

The Board of Directors of the European University Foundation – Campus Europae has set forth yet another practical example of policy entrepreneurship through the decision of jointly appointing an Ombudsman for student mobility.

Since its inception and by virtue of its design Campus Europae has always put a strong emphasis on ensuring excellent standards of student exchange: its Subject Committee members and the CE Coordinators are particularly attentive towards any issues that students exchanged in the network may face, notably with regards the organization of studies abroad, and since 2005 that the CE Movers are asked to answer two yearly questionnaires that supplement those organized by the sending and receiving institutions and whose analysis is submitted each year to the Board of Directors.

With the creation of a permanent instance to deal with quality assurance matters the Campus Europae member universities reaffirmed their commitment towards furthering excellence in student exchange. The CE Ombudsmen will pay particular attention to issues concerning the recognition of studies abroad and provide a contact point which exchange students may directly address. This position will be taken by Prof. Estela Pereira, former President of EUF-CE, who will work closely with the Secretariat and the Student Council in pioneering novel and potent approaches to the quality assurance of student mobility.

Fast facts

Prof. António Ferrari elected President of EUF-CE

Prof. António Ferrari (University of Aveiro, Portugal) was elected by the Board of Directors as the new President of the European University Foundation – Campus Europae, succeeding Prof. Estela Pereira. Prof. Ferrari will work with Prof. Ass.Vaidotas Viliunas (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania), who takes on his second mandate as Vice-President.

Universities of Cyprus and Hannover join Campus Europae

The Board of Directors of the European University Foundation approved the request for membership of the University of Cyprus and the Leibniz University of Hannover, thus raising the number of members of Campus Europae universities to 20. Both applications were unanimously approved, with the Rectors in attendance expressing their satisfaction for extending cooperation to such valuable members.

University of Cyprus website
Leibniz University of Hannover website

Extending student mobility within Campus Europae

The EUF-CE Board of Directors decided that all that all students moving amongst network members will be eligible to benefit from CE language training, study related internships and the CE Degree, yielding participation in Campus Europae more flexible.

The decision from the Board means to maximize the number of students whose mobility experience can be improved through the infrastructures that CE developed over the years and seeks to reach beyond to the realm of subject areas which are worked on by the Subject Committees. Whilst efforts to develop ex-ante recognition systems will continue to focus on a limited number of subject areas, due to the intensive preparations necessary to establish recognition matrices, this policy change is meant to encourage and support students wishing to embark on an exchange year within the network. In this design the CE Degree plays the pivotal role of inspiring students to fulfil the Campus Europae ideal of being abroad for two year long periods, which in turn should conduce to a much keener awareness of the cultural and linguistic diversity of Europe.

Hooking up! Meeting in Kaunas

A 3 day evaluation and planning meeting was held in Kaunas from 25th to 27th March with the attendance of more than 30 participants. These were (i) foreign language teaching experts (FLTEX) functioning as coordinators of Hook up! within their respective universities, (ii) course developers and teachers of the 12 languages of the network, (iii) students involved in the production of video material, in language learning counselling and generally presenting the point of view of the students and possible contributions including those of the Student Council. The 3 main outcomes of the meeting were the adoption of a common dissemination strategy, a review of the course content to meet more efficiently the needs of the student going abroad and the practical planning of the interactive courses which should start in April as soon as the names of potential CE movers are given to the EUF Secretariat by the CE Coordinators. For further information please visit: http://languagelearning.campuseuropae.org.

European Higher Education Area comes into being

The Ministers of Higher Education of the 47 signatory countries of the Bologna Process met in Budapest and Vienna on the 12th of March for the launch of the European Higher Education Area, as envisaged in the original Bologna Declaration of 1999. The event commemorates a decade of unparallel transformation in the European Higher Education landscape and fruitful cooperation amongst Higher Education stakeholders, although there is no denying that some of the core objectives of the Bologna Process have been achieved only to “variable degrees” – something that the student protesters in Vienna seemed keen to remind to their Ministers. Issues such as the need for tangible progress in enhancing participation and the social dimension of the Bologna found echo on the Ministerial declaration, while further progress on student mobility and academic recognition remains to be more openly dealt with.

The Ministerial declaration can be found here (pdf format).

Upcoming events

Humanities Subject Committee Meeting

Alcalá, 16-17th of April

Education and Teacher Training Subject Committee Meeting

Ankara, 18-19th of April

Student Council Plenary Meeting

Luxembourg, 1st of May

Engineering Subject Committee Meeting

Ankara, 14-15th of May

Natural Sciences Subject Committee Meeting