'It’s a pleasure to be here'
'At Inholland everyone is excited about international collaboration'
Last Monday, more than 40 people from different universities visited the Inholland campus in Rotterdam for the Partner Day. Everyone came to strengthen their existing partnerships and explore new opportunities. By lunchtime, new ideas for international projects were forming already. We asked four of our partners what brought them to Rotterdam and what they were looking forward to.
Irena Melua, Vice President for Internationalization at the Caucasus University in Georgia
“First of all, we have a great partnership with Inholland. We exchange students for Erasmus+ programs and for faculties. We not only enjoy a partnership, I feel like I came here today to see my friends at Inholland. We are looking forward to networking with different colleagues, and to exploring new partnership options with universities we aren’t yet connected with. One of our goals is to attract more international students. Right now, we have more students going abroad than students coming in from other countries.
We are trying to get more European students to come to our beautiful university, and to see our country. We have a wide range of programs in English, we offer a lot of great educational opportunities, and we have great facilities. Our campus is situated in the capital, in the historical old city. If students come here, they get a real taste of our unique Georgian culture with it’s with warm people and great hospitality.”
Madina Mamanova, KIB University in Kazakhstan
“It’s my first time in Rotterdam. I really like the city; it is very modern. I’m here at the Partner Day because we are partners with Inholland and because of the Erasmus+ training week (training opportunities for staff). I would like to spend some time with the international office of Inholland to see how they work and how they communicate with students and learn more about the selection process they use. I am responsible for the students that go abroad. We work with different European universities, and we have about 30 to 40 students who are eager to go study in other nations. However, at present we only receive 2 or maybe 3 students per year.”
Armend Berisha, Head of International Projects, Universum International College in Kosova
“I’m here at in Inholland for the second time. What brings me here are my connections with Inholland - and new ideas are already bubbling up. We have different things going on currently: from working on projects together to exchanging ideas for new projects. The Inholland colleagues can select students who would like to come for a project in Kosova to do a Blended Intensive Programme and work together on a topic within the domain of Tourism and Hospitality. It is only my second time here, but by the looks of it, I’ll be back many more times!
I’m responsible for developing our projects and I’m always eager to explore new areas of collaboration and new projects. Fortunately, here at Inholland everyone is very openminded and excited about international collaboration, making it a pleasure to be here. I think Inholland’s Tourism Department is well developed and they have interesting ideas about the Tourism industry. One of the things I learned from them is how we can improve our students’ learning experiences, because at Inholland, they look at things both from a local and an international perspective.”
Sarah Marx, Project Coordinator at Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin in Germany
“We are already partnering with Inholland, but I’m here and also attending the EAIE because I want to meet new people. As a COIL coordinator, I’m always looking out for best practices to glean or learn from. Maybe we can start a COIL connection with Inholland in the future. [Coil stands for Collaborative Online International Learning.]
That would be a great opportunity. I don’t have a specific topic in mind yet, since our university is diverse and offers a wide range of studies. It would be great to have a multi-disciplinary COIL. I’m openminded and I look forward to talking to different teachers from different fields. In America and South America, the COIL is a well-known concept. It was only introduced in Europa in the last 4-5 years, so it is quite new here. Maybe Covid has helped it to become more prominent.”
Photographer: Bart Stoutjesdijk, student Creative Business at Inholland