From the 10thto 13th of December, 2015 National Forum for Young Leaders in International Education COMMUNITY was taking place in the city of Tyumen. The Forum was organized by Tyumen State University with support from the Ministry of Education of Russia, Rossotrudnichestvo and the Government of the Tyumen region in the framework of the realization of the Program for Development of the Student Union Activities.
The work of the Forum was aimed at the creation of conditions for the formation of professional community of young leaders and youth organizations in the field of international education. The motto of the Forum was the following phrase: “We build bridges where others make walls”, which characterized an international spirit of the participants in the best possible way.
The event was organized at the highest level, everyone had an opportunity to make reports in “Pecha-Kucha” format, Training sessions and Poster presentations had been held.
A youth coordinator of the Department of Management of International Cooperation Ekaterina Balueva and coordinator of academic mobility programs of the Institute of International Education of SUSU Daria Zima represented South Ural State University and took part in the Forum.
Employees took part in 2 tracks: “Formation of intercultural competence in the university environment” (expert - trainer of the pool of the Europe Council Anait Minasian, Yerevan) and “Organizing International Youth Exchanges Erasmus Student Network» (experts - Lucas Oppermann, Vienna and Michal Sikora, Prague).
The Forum can truly be called the largest youth interregional event, focused on the role of integration of Russian and foreign students in the internationalization of the educational process. Total number of attendees who participated in this unique forum was 110 young people from different countries: the leaders of student associations and the heads of projects with international themes, prospective teachers of Russian as a foreign language and foreign languages, university specialists who work with foreign students.
Leading specialists from 8 countries in the field of international education performed as speakers of COMMUNITY forum. Leading Russian and foreign experts were invited as key speakers. Among them were Timothy O'Connor, Vice-Rector for Education of MISIS (Russia), Leonard Bo, a student at Autonomous University of Barcelona at the program of Erasmus Mundus (Spain), Julian Schuster, Vice-Rector of Webster University (USA).
The panel discussion of the forum “The internalization of higher education in Russia: the role of students and student associations” was performed by Andrew Tolstikov, Vice-Rector for Science of Tyumen State University, Sven-Olov Carlsson, Deputy Head of the European Union Delegation in Russia, Joel Erickson, Director of the Fulbright Program in Russia, Yurii Trupiakov, Deputy Director of the Russian Student Center under the Ministry of Education of Russia, Adu Iao Nikez, President of the Association of Foreign Students in Russia.
Community Forum was the first event of the federal scale, completely focused on the integration of Russian and foreign students in the international campus.
