Introducing …. Alumni Chapter JDEAS
We were delighted to welcome 20 Alumni and current students as well as Professor Roberta Maierhofer to the first online event of the JDEAS Chapter, an event which was organised in response to the current Covid 19 restrictions, which have made it impossible for JDEAS Alumni and students to meet in person this year. The focus of the event was to update participants on the JDEAS programme and Alumni Graz and, most important, to collect ideas for future online events.
One feature of the JDEAS programme is that some of the students and graduates have never studied at Graz University, which is the organising university of the programme, but at two of the partner universities in Bamberg, Barcelona, Krakow, New York, Paris, Pécs and Venice. It was therefore particularly encouraging that some of those students and Alumni attended the event and thus were able to establish a first contact with Graz University. We collected suggestions for future activities such as a book club, career talks, and conferences/workshops as well as requests for useful services such as passing on information about PhD positions. These suggestions are really helpful to us at Alumni Graz for the planning of future activities for the JDEAS Chapter.
The current restrictions have affected our lives in many ways and it is difficult at times to see any positive aspects. However, as Head of Chapter, I must say that we would not have initiated this online event if face to face meetings had been possible, and we would have missed this wonderful opportunity to bring Alumni and students from different countries together. International cooperation and friendship is at the heart of the JDEAS project, and online meetings offer a wealth of opportunities for students, Alumni and staff to meet one another.
Even when restrictions are lifted, we will continue to offer online events as they provide an excellent way of enabling the JDEAS community to stay connected, no matter where we live.