They come from Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America: 25 young university managers are currently taking part in the 15th year of the UNILEAD continuing education programme. An experience that not only helps them advance their academic appointments.
Bad weather? After more than two weeks in Oldenburg, they have already got used to it, say Mac Thi Dieu Trang and Pierre Atallah with a laugh. The two of them are not only united by the humour they have developed in dealing with the bad weather in northern Germany. Rather, they are part of what they themselves describe as a "big family": a group of 25 young university managers from 15 countries who have been taking part in the UNILEAD (University Leadership and Management Training Course) programme since the beginning of the year. In February and March, the participants met in person for the first time during a three-week attendance phase.
The C3L - Center for Lifelong Learning at the University of Oldenburg has been offering the English-language further education programme funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) since 2018. More than 500 young managers from over 50 countries have since completed the nine-month training programme.
The programme includes seminars and lectures on topics such as leadership, project management and personnel development. A large part of the programme takes place online. The participants also come together twice on site in Oldenburg - to consolidate what they have learnt, to exchange ideas and, above all, to work on specific projects. "We want to support the participants in developing their own projects and designing them in such a way that they can later implement them at their universities," explains programme coordinator Christine Vajna.
Recognising your own strengths
Mac Thi Dieu Trang, for example, is a project coordinator at the Department of Cooperation and Development at the University of Economics and Law in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Her university, which is still quite young, will operate more independently in future and initiate the necessary digital transformations in university management, study programmes and services for students. Dieu Thrang is involved in drawing up a corresponding roadmap.
"What I'm learning at UNILEAD is helping me to recognise my own strengths and make good use of them," she says. At the same time, she is gaining the tools to convey the right messages to the right people - for example, to create new connections for her university or to attract funding bodies outside her own country's borders for her project.
Pierre Atallah is also concerned with getting the right messages across. He is head of the student secretariat at the American University of Science and Technology in Beirut, Lebanon. "Many students don't graduate or drop out of university," he explains. His aim is to set up a programme that helps students to find their way and stick with it - and thus improve their academic success.
Learning from each other
In order to realise this, he wants to train his team and, above all, needs resources - both human and financial. The training shows him ways in which he can adequately present his proposals to the university administration and convince them to tackle the project, he explains.
But it is also the exchange with the other participants and the mutual support that helps them to develop a positive vision for the future, emphasise Dieu Trang and Atallah. Despite the major cultural differences between all participants and language barriers, they quickly grew together as a group, a family, during the three-week presence phase in Oldenburg. "A special bond developed between us," says Atallah. Dieu Trang also describes their time together in Oldenburg as a "wonderful experience". "We learnt new things every day - not least from each other," she says.
Dieu Trang and Atallah also gained valuable experience beyond the group and the actual programme content. The good organisation, many helpful people and punctual buses have given them a positive image of Germany. However, despite their enthusiasm for the host country and for Oldenburg - unlike the weather, neither of them could really get used to the local food.
More information at https://uol.de/unilead