Campus Europae Newsletter, October 2010

Table of contents

  • European Citizenship though CE Alumni eyes

  • Fast Facts

    • “Internationaliszation of Higher Education: Trends and Strategies” – conference report

    • Humanities Subject Committee publishes academic equivalences for Tourism courses

    • Student Council Alcalá meeting - report

  • Upcoming events
    • Humanities Subject Committee meeting
    • Engineering and Natural Sciences Subject Committee meeting
    • Seminar on Student Mobility and European Citizenship
    • Business Subject Committee meeting

European Citizenship though CE Alumni eyes

Campus Europae and the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, in the person of Prof. Leonidas Donskis, will organize a seminar about “Student Mobility and European Citizenship” at the European Parliament, on the 18th November 2010.

The purpose of the event is to allow Campus Europae, European Parliamentarians, the European University Association, the Erasmus Student Network and the European Council of Student Affairs to discuss together how the design of student exchange programmes can be improved vis-à-vis instilling a sound understanding of the origins and values of the European project.

In attendance will also be 10 CE Alumni, whose contributions are expected to light up the discussion and keep it within touching distance of the matters that matter. The selection of the CE Alumni was done through an essay competition in which they elaborated on the interrelation between academic exchange and European citizenship, thus outlining the debate that will take place in Brussels. The good adhesion to the initiative has provided an excellent poll of remarks, as well as thought provoking suggestions on how to improve mobility programmes and render European citizenship a more tangible and widespread reality.

We would like to thank all Alumni who participated in this project, and as a token of our appreciation we publish bellow some short passages of essays that, in spite of not have been selected, strengthened our believe that Campus Europae students really do tend to develop strong and informed views about Europe’s raison d’être.

 

On the need for outreach: “There is still a lack of information: not everyone, at least here in Baltic, really knows what is Erasmus or Campus Europae. In order to motivate the next generation for a deeper zealous studying approach and make them fully conscious of being European citizens, there should be a strong “propaganda” for academic exchange programmes.” (Veronika Sopova)

On virtual mobility: “It is impossible to raise intercultural competence by watching documentatiries on TV and having no direct contact to other cultures.” (Liene Pucite)

On bettering financing: “Even if an increment on the amount of money invested in those programmes would be well received, the key resides on how the money is distributed among students: the rationale for economical aids should definitively be based on the students’ financial possibilities, their country of origin and the final destination. For student mobility programmes, if money distribution were taken into consideration the EU would maximize the utility of its resources.“ (Juan Cantero)

On language learning:
"to make people actually learn a new language well is a challenge because there are many students who use mainly English even they are studying in Spain. In my opinion speaking Spanish in Spain would give them so much more from the exchange period“ (Juho Juvonen) 

“Mobility encourages students to learn foreign languages. The language we speak helps define who we are. Knowing other languages promotes mutual understanding, breaks cultural stereotypes and creates direct communication between individual citizens in an expanding and more diverse Europe” (Sylwia Luszcek)

On borders:
“It is very important that mobility-programs try to include EU border-regions into their concept. This could help the EU – outside its borders - not to be seen as a gigantic fortress, who does not let anybody in, who comes from outside” (Camilo Breitling)

"Visa and fellowships remain big problems for Russian students while participation should be improved beyond students with excellent academic records . We should work towards a situation when students from all countries will have approximately equal opportunities for mobility, even beyond the frames of the European Union”. (Anna Pilicheva)

On studying abroad and its (un)intended consequences:
“I come from Latvia, and before going abroad I considered myself as a Latvian. Of course I knew about European Union and European citizenship, but in my mind it was something far and unreachable. My peers don’t watch Europe in the news, many don’t know which countries are members or witch rights they can claim. The vast majority of Europe’s citizens are immobile, settled within their national borders which they only leave for short trips. For me this all changed after one year abroad, because student mobility is a new way of thinking about space. Getting to know other European countries, other citizens, getting involved in European daily life – it made me feel like we all have common goals, that Europeans are similar and it’s great that we can join in one union, because together we are stronger. Now I definitely consider myself as European.” (Agnet Avota)

 “Students get to discover new ways of thinking, various models of education, different political and economical issues and exciting cultures” (Liene Kukaine)

“As an architect it is very useful to see the world, meet new people, because by connecting many great things together I can come up with new, useful and innovative ideas” (Norbert Harmati)

“When we declare to be aware of being European it is because we saw, we felt, we touched this reality and we personally experienced what this means. What I would like to say is that we should spread it out by our voices, in order to make the world realize that we are the direct ambassadors of a “passport”, and this passport is the proportional result of our efforts to become one nation, and student mobility is a basic step to understand it.”  (Silvia Crocita)

“There should be no doubts that the experience of cultural and academic diversity promotes tolerance and reduces discrimination; that the international integration can lead to personal enrichment and a less xenophobic world.” (Sylwia Luszcek)

“I have realized that the famous motto of the European Union In varietate concordiai is not just an allegation. I have met students from different European countries. Although we spoke different languages and had different ethnic origin we were surely united in diversity.” (Alfia Adgamova)

Fast facts

“Internationaliszation of Higher Education: Trends and Strategies” – conference report

The St. Petersburg State University, together with the Baltic Sea Region University Network (BSRUN), invited a number of experts to discuss new Trends and Strategies in the Internationalisation of Higher Education in the context of a International Conference held on the 4th and 5th of October. Hans de Wit, who will also be a speaker on the upcoming Campus Europae seminar at the European Parliament, analysed the development of Internationalisation in Higher Education during the last century, during which he set forth the new key components for internationalisation (powerpoint presentation available here).

Jane Knight from the University of Toronto discussed the so call “1st generation of cross-border education” and shared insightful statistics from the IAU 3rd Global Report “Internationalisation of Higher education: Global Trends, Regional Perspectives”, as well as from her own research. Her analysis focused on the pace at which branch campuses are currently being established, as this movement seems to epitomize the “2nd generation of cross-border education”. The IAU noted the existence of 24 of such branch campuses in 2002, but seven years later this number had increased to 162, more than two thirds of which being branches of Anglophone institutions. The majority of the host countries are located in Asia and the Middle East, and the regional or national impact of these “branches” seems to be more diminutive.

Branch campuses are paving the way for the 3rd generation of cross-border education: the “Education Hubs”. While a precise definition of what education hubs are some common characteristics of these “education/international academic cities” are the way they leverage financial and infrastructure incentives to attract international HEIs, knowledge industries, research centres and fee paying students, whose presence in turn elevates the competitiveness and the geo-political status of the concerned region. Jane Knight last question was: “do these new realities and their unintended consequences suggest that internationalisation trends are what we would like them to be?”.

Humanities Subject Committee publishes academic equivalences for Tourism courses

Tourism courses from the Universities of Alcala, Aveiro, EHU and Novi Sad have been added today to CE´s online academic equivalences database.

The development of ex-ante recognition pathways for Tourism courses has been carried by the Humanities Subject Committee throughout its two last meetings. The Humanities Subject Committee had recently prepared academic equivalences for courses of History of Art and is also finalizing equivalences for courses of History.

The Campus Europae academic equivalences database can be found here.

Student Council Alcalá meeting - report

The Student Council convened on the 1st and 2nd of October in Alcalá de Henares for its second yearly plenary meeting. The 24 delegates that were in attendance started their works with the discussion of a statement which is mean to convey an up to date account of the Council’s core objectives and activities, firstly amongst which are the upcoming homecoming events. Their timing, format and objectives were discussed in considerable detail, whilst the other pillars around which it the Council is focusing its activities are promotion and follow-up of outgoing students.

The Student Council also dealt with a CE Movers charter of rights and duties which is being elaborated in cooperation with the Ombudsmen, the further development of the Student Council structure and organization, a large promotional project which is meant to debut in 2011, the CE conferences on Citizenship and Human Rights and a new proposal on combining the subject committee meetings with informational events.

The next Student Council meeting will be held jointly with a CE Coordinators meeting in Luxembourg, on the 18th of February 2011.

Upcoming events

Humanities Subject Committee meeting

Ankara, 22-23 October

Engineering and Natural Sciences Subject Committee meetings

Nancy, 5-6 November

Seminar on Student Mobility and European Citizenship

European Parliament, Brussels, 18 November

Business Subject Committee meeting

Brussels, 19 November

The next Campus Europae newsletter is due for the 15th of November. To unsubscribe please visit this link.