Inspiration in focus for study trip to Cologne
“We usually combine knowledge gathering with inspiration and social interaction at our internal conferences. And we've certainly done that on this trip”, says Ulrika Bengtsson Verde, Administrative Director at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
“We hold the climate issue very high at our faculty, and therefore try not to fly”, she continues. “We chose to travel to the University of Cologne because it is the closest EUniWell partner university to us, and we felt we could travel to it by train.”
The idea was that the whole office would participate, but for various reasons it did not happen. In the end, 21 people travelled, i.e. about 2/3 of the office. The trip was supported by funds from the Erasmus programme.
“An amazing trip in many ways.”
On day 1 in Cologne the Linnaeus delegation was welcomed by Christiane Biehl, Head of the Department International Mobility of the University of Cologne as well as by Professor Anke Ortlepp, Vice-Dean for International Relations at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. The guests also had the opportunity to listen to a talk by Professor Ralph Jessen about the History of the University of Cologne. The Linnaeus delegation continued by meeting the team of the Faculty of Humanities, and participated in a ‘speed-dating’ with collaborators from Cologne. On day 2, they first met with Cologne’s EUniWell team and later in smaller groups with the faculty staff around different topics and functions.
“We got great help from Leonie Tillmanns, Mobility Manager at the University of Cologne. She put together an ambitious programme for us where we met with the management of the Faculty of Humanities, and had matchmaking with people with the same or similar jobs.”
“The speed dating was the best”, says Study Counsellor Marie Waller. “It gave us the opportunity to meet many different people working on different things. It turned out, for example, that they didn't have a study counsellor [on faculty level, Ed.], but it was divided between several different functions. That was interesting to hear. And they were also very curious about us, and what we were working on.”
“An extremely instructive and inspiring journey that opened up a range of perspectives and thoughts.”
“A couple of things I found particularly interesting. For example, it is compulsory in their language teacher training for students to stay in the country whose language they are studying. They also have a preparatory and qualifying semester for all international students from outside the EU, which was a lot about languages, but also about study methodology and German culture. It was very interesting to hear,” says Education Administrator Stina Hultberg.
“One concrete result that we are already working on is to bring in a student employee at the office”, says Ulrika Bengtsson Verde. “We are working on that now. We also welcome visits from other universities!”
Contact
If you have questions or are interested in mobility within EUniWell (at the University of Cologne), please contact Leonie Tillmanns, Mobility Manager at the University of Cologne, at l.tillmanns[@]uni-koeln.de.
Further information
Find the original article on the Linnaeus University website.
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