A comment by Volker Strauß
When we reported on the Aurora Annual Conference at UDE (https://akduell.org/aurora-annual-conference-an-der-ude/), it was the first time I had heard of the network. Just two weeks later, I found myself sitting in a seminar room in Essen working with students from all over Europe.
It felt awkward at first. The customary ice-breaker was probably one of the weirdest since asking people to match their first name with a dish. Instead, we were asked to talk to each other about what digital resilience means to us. That kind of felt like asking a stranger about their last doctor’s appointment or whether or not they believe in god.
The topic of the class was – who would have guessed – digital resilience, which probably also explains the ice breaker. The whole class was centered around how organizations and companies can become more resilient, meaning how they could absorb shocks in face of a crisis and then adapt under a new environment.
Because the lectures were taught by professors from different universities spread across Europe, the class was very interesting. One interesting case study that stuck with me was about how Ukrainian businesses adapted their way of working to stay in business during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We also discussed how American Big Tech might pose threats to European sovereignty and worked on interdisciplinary and inter-european group projects since not only the professors but also the students taking this seminar were from all over Europe. The tasks were presented by representatives of the City of Essen, which made them feel more relevant and hands-on. We also got a tour of the Zeche Zollverein, which –shame on me – I had never done, even though I’ve been living in Essen for quite some time now. But we also sat together and had lunch in the Mensa, took the tram to the Baldeneysee (where some of the internationals got terribly lost).
Learning from different professors and meeting all these students made this a very European week.
Feeling European for Once
Still, I have to admit that most of the time, I don’t feel very European. Usually the European feeling occurs only a few times throughout the year,when I cross a border to a different country and don’t need to wait at the border, when I can pay in Euro or when someone in the likes of Viktor Orbán doesn’t get re-elected.
But meeting students from all over Europe somehow changed my mind. For instance, I met Paula, an English student from Slovakia. She came to Essen because the course was billed as interdisciplinary and open to anyone and for once, an email about these opportunities had reached her faculty.
Her main takeaway from her week in Essen, though, had nothing to do with the topic of the course. In these five days of working together, the group has turned into something like a small community, and leaving again was actually the hard part for her. “I don’t want to be sappy”, she said, “but that’s my truth”.
And that may also be what makes Aurora so nice. For me, it was not about what I learned, but about meeting new people and seeing the city I live in through someone else’s eyes. Paula for instance told me that she was really confused at first, that Essen had no proper city square. It might just take a stranger from a few countries over to make you look twice at the place where you live. Just getting to meet all these people from all over Europe and being reminded that being European is more than just hassle-free border crossings and a shared currency.
If I got you feeling like you need a euro-summer, go check out the course catalogue (https://aurora-universities.eu/course-catalogue/). And apparently, the universities also pay students for accommodations and reimburses travel costs.
