EMA Erasmus Mundus Students and Alumni Association: EMA invited to ALGANT Graduation Ceremony

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Wed July 29, 2009 15:44

EMA invited to ALGANT Graduation Ceremony

Dane Lukic of EMA Conferences and Events Team (CAT) was present at the ALGANT graduation ceremony as official EMA representative. Read his report for expressions and suggestions...

EMA was kindly invited to take part in the final graduation ceremony of the Erasmus Mundus Master in Algebra, Geometry and Number Theory (ALGANT). I had the pleasure of taking part in the event to represent EMA in the period of 7-9th of July at the University of Leiden, Netherlands. ALGANT course is specific since it is the only course of Erasmus Mundus dedicated to pure mathematics and it is undertaken by Universities of Bordeaux, Leiden, Padova and Paris-Sud.

The graduation ceremony was following after master thesis defences and other social events where the representatives of all participating Universities, current and previous students, parents and guest were present. Within the opening speeches and before the certificate awards, I had the honour to address the graduates and the other audience and present EMA. I explained all the ways to participate in EMA work and also all the benefits they could have from it, especially now when they are graduating. I encouraged them to join and become active, as Erasmus Mundus life and excellence pursuit do not stop with your graduation. Actually the students that were there were not aware of the existence of EMA.

Furthermore I later had informal talks with some of the students and many of them were excited to join and take part in EMA.
I was discussing also with their coordinators why there were not active previously. On one hand its due to the specificity of their course as students are pure mathematicians and do not see them linked to other fields and other Erasmus Munduses. I tried to persuade them that we need exactly their contribution and mind, to make both EMA and Erasmus Mundus grow and improve in the spirit of interculturality and interdisciplinarity. On the other hand, they expressed that EMA is not very know at least from their perspective.

So that is one message for us that we really need to work harder on promotion and try new ideas of putting our ideas across and making a mark in this world.
Coordinators did distribute info about EMA before, but there was not a lot of response. So in that sense these individual presentations are much more useful as people will see what exactly our activities are and meet real people from EMA, not just an impersonal email.

I tried also to convey the EMA spirit which is something we are all jointly working on, which motivates a lot of us. However we cannot financially and physically be on all the graduation ceremonies, that is not feasible. So I think we should think of ways of being present virtually. How about making an EMA video that can be both shown on graduation ceremonies, but also used as promotional material? Or having speeches but via videoconference which is then projected to the screen. I think we should explore these other media to make our presence and value more visible.

Furthermore, I asked for emails from the coordinators of all their students and alumni and I’ve sent a follow up email to everyone with the PPT attached and some more info and encouragement to take part. So even the people that were not present in Leiden got to know more about our activities. I also had very inspiring and productive talks with their professors and coordinators, which were all great people. What struck me as particularly good about ALGANT course is how closely the academics and administrative staff work, as they all came from different countries to Leiden. That is a very good thing in terms of course quality as we know that our academic endeavours and administrative and personal issues are very intertwined in Erasmus Mundus. We also discussed various issues about Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctoral degrees and ways forward.

All in all, the visit was very successful and I think that all courses should have such a nice closing event where EMA should be present in some way. I am confident that some of the students from ALGANT will join EMA and become more active.

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