The Summer Semester at Our Faculty in Hindsight of the Department of International Relations

  • Jana Bortlíková
  • 09.07.2021
Although the past semester was largely marked by anti-epidemic measures and restrictions limiting travel, we are pleased that the open opportunity to travel again and deepen foreign relations returned, especially during May and June. It is gratifying that our faculty was visited, thanks to the easing of the situation, by several important foreign experts, and we also managed to re-motivate students to international mobility, which we are sincerely happy about.

The faculty's Department of International Relations comprehensively and traditionally ensures not only international mobilities and arrivals of students and teachers within the framework of foreign cooperation programs – Erasmus + and CEEPUS, and significantly participates in establishing new international contacts and partnerships, but also participates in the implementation of selected projects aimed at development and support of internationalization of the university.

During the summer semester 2020/2021 we did not lag behind and:

  • Regarding students, we were happy to support the individual study of a Turkish student from Cankiri Karatekin University within the study program Public Administration and Social Policy.
  • We were very pleased with the interest of our students in study stays abroad, when almost two dozen applicants applied for the selection procedure for the next academic year 2021/2022, which is not small in the proportion of students at the faculty.
  • In order to motivate our students more to gain foreign experience, we established new cooperation with Czech schools around Daruvar in Croatia and almost immediately registered a great interest of students in two-week internships that we offer in this locality and which will be implemented next semester.

As part of the arrivals of teachers and experts at our faculty, we recorded more than 20 visits and hosting during the month of June, and we select some facts:

  • Traditionally, most of the incomings were Slovak and Polish fellow academics, who already know our background in Opava and have positive collegial relations especially with members of the Institute of Public Administration and Social Policy, participate in joint project work and publishing activities and are always accompanied by friendly meetings and professional discussions.
  • At our faculty, we welcomed dr. Cíbik, doc. Horváth and dr. Švikruha from the Slovak University of St. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava (Univerzita sv. Cyrila a Metoda v Trnave), dr. Curyło and dr. Czepil from the Polish University of Opole (Uniwersytet Opolski) visited us as well, and we also accepted dr. Podgórska-Rykala and dr. Kępa from the University of Pedagogy in Krakow (Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny w Krakowie).

In addition to the pedagogically tuned Erasmus mobilities, we have accepted five other foreign experts at the faculty as part of international cooperation projects. For example, two academics from Poland and one academic from Slovakia were accepted for a two-week research internship within the project of the Institutional Plan "Development of International Cooperation".

  • Doc. Rapčíková from the Faculty of Health of the Slovak Medical University in Bratislava deals especially with medical ethics and ethical principles of helping professions, is always a nice and pleasant visit to the Institute of Paramedical Health Studies.
  • Prof. Głębocka d. Trawkowska from the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań, Faculty of Sociology, Department of Research on Social Problems and Social Work, was at our faculty for the first time and her interest is focused on the functioning of non-profit and voluntary organizations at the border in terms of social work and sociology.
  • dr. Opioła from the University of Opole, Department of Political Science and Community Communication, Institute of Political Science and Administration has been cooperating for a long time on partial aspects of cross-border cooperation within the field of social policy with dr. Vomlela.

And at the very end of June, we were absolutely captivated by the nice visit of prof. Jo Ann R. Regan from The Catholic University of America, Washington DC, this year's Fulbright Scholar for the Czech Republic, who spoke very modestly with a lecture on "A Comparison of Social Work Competencies and Standards in the Czech Republic and the United States to Enhance Quality Social Work Education”. We asked Mrs. dean to accept our invitation repeatedly and to visit us at the end of August.

Our thanks go to all those who helped us make foreign visits and to all those who participate in the international growth of our faculty and other activities!

 

For Department of International Relations Kateřina Janků and Jana Bortlíková


Picture downloaded at https://unsplash.com/photos/IYm2PCy0f8c

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