Erasmus Mundus Joint Master of Arts Euroculture: Society, Politics and Culture in a Global Context. An international Master degree programme that focuses on the complex interplay of politics and culture in European society, set in a global context. Partners Universities include: Universidad de Deusto, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, GeorgAugust-Universität Göttingen, Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie, Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, Université de Strasbourg, Università degli studi di Udine, Uppsala Universitet.
Author: Jelmer Herms, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. See contributors page
The Erasmus Mundus Joint Master of Arts Euroculture has adapted to a rapidly digitalizing environment. There are several fields in which the Joint Programme Euroculture has, we believe, been able to distinguish itself. We hope that our treatment of these distinguishing characteristics in the post below will be of use to other Joint Programmes as they consider developing their programmes in the future.
One of our best practises is the Euroculturer: a multi-media platform thought up and managed by our many students across Europe, with the goal of connecting for an ongoing exchange of ideas. Our students regularly share articles, projects, and professional and academic opportunities. Their dedicated social media team puts out high-quality posts for dissemination not only to students, but the broader Euroculture network (including alumni, but also employers and internship providers). The sharing of these activities is aimed at boosting the reach of our programme to a global audience of interested individuals, further expanding the Euroculture network.
In terms of engagement and employability, Euroculture stands out by maintaining strong ties to alumni at multiple stages throughout the programme, both through digital means and through inperson events. Most importantly, we consider our Alumni Network Arete as the main resource for graduated Euroculture students to connect. Additionally, we maintain connections with current students and recent alumni through email, informally through staff connections, and through our LinkedIn page. The goal of these channels is to exchange opportunities and to expose students as well as alumni to inspirational and career-boosting activities (workshops, conferences hosted by partners, etc.).
Additionally, our programme hosts an annual event, the Intensive Programme. This week-long summer school is a key selling point of the programme, where the diverse student body from across Europe (and beyond) meet for workshops, panel discussions, and special paper presentation sessions. This event, too, has been translated entirely into a digital setting throughout the lockdowns resulting from COVID-19. Lectures, workshops, and paper presentation sessions all took place through online channels. While some elements such as travel, excursions and informal networking opportunities are inevitably lost in digital translation, we believe we were still able to provide valuable professional and academic experiences for our student body.
Euroculture additionally involves current students in marketing events wherever possible. We have many online public relations events, such as our Webinar/Live Q&A series for prospective students, our annual Student for a Day event, and our annual Lecture Series. Over the past year, we have adapted to online formats for all these events, resulting in higher average turnouts to each. A key takeaway during this period is that we need to be able to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances for teaching. With COVID-19 regulations constantly shifting, rooms might become unavailable, lecturers might cancel, or attendance might change at the last second. We have learned to try to be prepared for all contingencies by bringing equipment for online teaching by default. This adaptability has been very valuable. Digitalization might cause additional workload in some cases, but it offers opportunities as well. Having recordings of our events and courses (where possible) improves how effectively our course material reaches students, but also how effectively we can market our programme to non-students by transforming recordings into new marketing material.
For more details about anything we mentioned throughout this post, feel free to reach out to our staff at euroculture@rug.nl, or any of the other channels we mentioned above.
Thank you for sharing such an interesting experience!
I’m very curious about the Alumni Network Arete, I’m wondering if the Network is managed independently by the alumni or if is the Consortium supporting them in some way?
Based on our experince within the STeDe Master (https://em-stede.eu/), it’s quite hard to keep alumni involved in the network.