Campus Europae Newsletter, April 2009

Sunday the 22nd was devoted entirely to the work of subject committees, which are the loci for academic cooperation within CE. The subject committees account for the greater part of the inter-universitary collaboration that imbues Campus Europae and are organized in workgroups in the areas of Business, Engineering, Humanities, Law, Medicine, Natural Sciences and Teacher Training.

Six matrices are ready, more expected until Summer

The subject committee’s main task is to design mobility pathways that allow for exchange students to spend up to two years abroad without incurring in prolongation of their studies. From a methodological viewpoint this is customarily achieved through the comparative curricular analysis of a study programme at a time, with mobility pathways being noted in written in the so called matrices. During the last years their development and updating had become a particularly challenging task: in one hand the rapid increase of the number of universities joining Campus Europae meant that new partners and their study programmes were constantly brought into play while, and perhaps more devastatingly, study programmes across Europe were being redesigned to comply with the implementation of the Bologna Process.

However 2008/2009 has proven to be a fantastic window of opportunity to make up for some of the lost time and since September the subject committees have achieved extraordinary progress in building mobility pathways for students in the areas of Biochemistry, Biology, Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Physics and Tourism. Outside of the realm of Engineering, Humanities and Natural Sciences the professors of Teacher Training – a scientific area where curricular instability is still very much a reality all across Europe – are hard at work in completing their curricular database, and the same is true for Business and Administration, whose mobility pathways are due to be readied come next June. As for Law the eight participating universities have put together a very comprehensive curricular database but are still discussing how recognition can be best ensured.

In spite of the difficulties that pervade this painstaking work this is a momentous occasion for Campus Europae: for last 23 years Europe was always faced with the problem that nearly 30% of its mobile students could not overcome academic recognition related issues. The hope is that the excess of 2000 working hours invested by the Professors from the 18 CE member universities throughout 2008/2009 in developing recognition pathways for their students might prove to be a light at the end of the tunnel for this complicated problem.

All the information compiled for the above mentioned study fields is currently being prepared for publication in the Campus Europae website in such a way that the 2009/10 CE movers may access information essential for preparing their learning agreements in a practical and reliable way well in advance of their departure. As for the subject committees the wrap up of the 08/09 development cycle provided an excellent opportunity for debating what activities are envisaged for the next academic year.

New avenues for inter-universitary cooperation

The conference also allowed for four workshops where Professors from different universities and subject areas discussed solutions for the key issues that impact student mobility. The workshops were meant as a forum for sharing experiences and best practices and focused on the constraints surrounding recognition, grade conversion, interdisciplinary studies as well as new avenues for cooperation. The discussion that ensued was valuable and provided further insight on how CE can best contribute to ease and strengthen student mobility. Several suggestions were put forth with a view to broaden the scope of cooperation amongst member universities to encompass academic and staff exchange, joint development of BA and MA programmes and exchange of doctoral students.

CE Degree to be issued from 2009 onwards

Monday the 23rd started with a plenary meeting of the subject committees and Board of Directors where the latest developments concerning the matrices and the suggestions concerning the immediate future of Campus Europae were presented and discussed, which was then followed by a debate on the implementation of the CE Degree. This was continued in the afternoon meeting of the Board of Directors, which decided on the outstanding issues pertaining to the issuing of the CE Degree and where it was confirmed that the Degree will be awarded to all students who have fulfilled the Campus Europae requirements (two years abroad, at least 45 ECTS credits earned in each exchange year and knowledge of the local language up to B1 standards) from 2009 onwards.