International Staff Week: an experience worth repeating

From the 17^th  to the 21^st of November 2014, Unistra’s International Relations Office invited its international partners to participate in its first International Staff Week, an Erasmus + mobility programme dedicated to teaching and administrative staff. The event was funded partially by the Erasmus + programme and partially by an Initiative d’Excellence, with the aim of enhancing Unistra’s attractiveness and to promote exchanges between partner institutions. Twenty-two members from Spanish, German, Greek, Slovakian and even American institutions took part in the event. They attended French classes at the International institute of French Studies, met their Unistra counterparts and discovered the campus and the city through various cultural activities. Promoting exchanges The daily classes gave the participants the opportunity to brush up their French and to get acquainted with the university’s functioning and the related vocabulary. At the end of the week, they stressed that the program’s quality was “a very good mix of intensive French training, interesting cultural tours (the European Parliament and Haut-Koenigsbourg castle), and good opportunities to share practices with our Strasbourg colleagues”. The participants were offered to meet their colleagues in the equivalent departments or services in Strasbourg. “In Germany, I am in charge of exchange students housing”, Ursula Berg from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg explained. “During the week, I’ve had the opportunity to visit a CROUS residence, where our students are hosted when they come to Strasbourg. It was very interesting to compare our practices, discover different working methods and above all to be able to better inform our outgoing exchange students.” This event allowed the participants to gain valuable contacts, paving the way for a second International Staff Week in 2015.