Promoting international exchange

At the beginning of the summer semester 2023, TH AB welcomed representatives from three new partner universities from South America, Asia and Europe.

César Pancorvo Rosazza, Coordinator for International Projects and Development of the private Universidad Peruana de Ciencias (UPC) Aplicadas in Lima, the first TH-AB partner university in Peru, held talks on the promotion of mutual student and lecturer exchange with the Vice President for Teaching, Studies and International Affairs of  TH Aschaffenburg, Prof. Dr. Holger Paschedag, as well as representatives of the International Office and the Language Centre. During his stay, César Pancorvo Rosazza also paid a visit to the lecture "Business Spanish" in the second semester of the study programme "Business Administration and Law", where the TH-AB lecturer Carmen Pilar Vila Silván and her students welcomed him in Spanish. The UPC has four campuses in the Peruvian capital, with a total enrolment of over 80,000 students.

Professor Eriko Katsumata from the latest addition to the TH-AB portfolio of Japanese partner universities, Aoyama Gakuin University (AGU) in Tokyo, was on site at the TH Aschaffenburg for a week (see news article: Third Japanese Partneruniversity for Aschaffenburg UAS) She lectured "Business English" in the second semester of the Bachelor's programme "Business Administration" and "International Competencies: Intercultural Cooperation and Communication" in the first and second semester of the Master's programme "International Management". There, she taught the students about the emotions experienced during a culture shock in a workshop. In addition, Prof. Dr. Eriko Katsumata met with colleagues with an affinity for Japan from the Faculties of Business and Law and Engineering and, last but not least, members of the Institute for Intercultural Communication to pursue joint projects and initiate reciprocal visits. Among others, Professor Eriko Katsumata will hold a hybrid workshop with Professor Renate Link from Aschaffenburg University of Applied Sciences during the Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) at Turku UAS at the end of April.

The lecturer Õie Tähtla from the Tallinn Health Care College (TTK), the first Estonian Erasmus partner of TH-AB, spent several days teaching at TH Aschaffenburg. She took part in an excursion to the Aschaffenburg-based start-up Green MNKY with students from the elective module "Business Seminar Germany II". In addition, in the second semester of the Bachelor's programme "Business Administration" in the module "Business English" and in the first and second semester of the Master's programme "International Management" in the module "International Competencies: Intercultural Cooperation and Communication" she reported on her country’s start-up culture, which is particularly vibrant in Estonia. Õie Tähtla, who teaches English primarily in the "Midwifery" programme at the TTK, also toured the TH-AB Midwifery Skills Lab with state-of-the-art simulation mannequins in a delivery-room setting during her visit. With members of the Language Centre and the "Medical Engineering and Data Science" programme, she explored further opportunities for collaboration in the healthcare sector.

All three university partnerships had already come about before the outbreak of the pandemic through Prof. Dr. Renate Link, Vice Head of the Language Center and Head of the Institute for Intercultural Communication: The contact with the Peruvian UPC was established in 2021 at the virtual NAFSA Conference & Exhibition, and that with the Estonian TTK in 2019 at the joint International Week of Tampere UAS and Jyväskylä UAS in Finland. The foundation for the cooperation with the Japanese AGU was already laid in 2018 at the SIETAR Japan World Congress in Tokyo.

Top picture (from left to right): Prof. Dr. Renate Link, César Pancorvo Rosazza and lecturer Carmen Pilar Vila Silván