Good news for language programmes: enrolment records show that, once again, more students are choosing to study languages, literature and culture at Ghent University. After a number of years of declining interest in the subjects, we seem to have passed a turning point.
Four alumni look back on their education and the direction they eventually took. What started on the same road led to other places. Alexander, Nikki, Bart and Eline all studied applied language studies. The passion for languages is still there, but each of them expresses it in a different way in their jobs.
Most students at university, at least at Ghent university, are female, but higher up the ladder men still dominate the academic world. The glass ceiling is still very real, but the cracks are starting to show. What obstacles do we need to tackle to create equal chances for everybody? We gather four women around the table to share their views: vice-rector Mieke Van Herreweghe, dean Gita Deneckere (Faculty of Arts and Philosophy), professor Lieve Van Hoof (Department of History) and Ghent University honorary doctor Dame Mary Beard, professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge.
It has created inhuman situations and brought appalling scenes of destruction and barbarity, but the war in Ukraine has also had an unexpected effect that even the Russian president himself could not have predicted. “Putin has always considered Ukraine to be an artificial country. But with this war, he has singlehandedly succeeded in giving Ukrainians a new and very strong sense of national identity. And it’s a sense of identity that is decidedly anti-Russian”, explains Ghent University professor Aleksey Yudin, who himself has Ukrainian roots.
After the First World War, tens of thousands of soldiers remained missing in the earth in the Westhoek. Some are now recovering their identity at the In the Flanders Fields Museum. Ghent University archaeologist, Birger Stichelbaut, teamed up with Ghent University alumnus, Simon Verdegem, to lay the foundations for the captivating exhibition. The result of excavation work and archaeology from the air.
Do you recognise this Ghent University location? One of the many doors that the university offers. Maybe you can deduce something from the lion's head? Or is it the weathered blue stone that gives it away? The checkerboard motif?
The equal opportunities policy for education is currently under fire: does it really provide equal opportunities? Doesn’t it lower the bar in education? Dirk Van Damme, Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division at the OECD and Ghent University alumnus professor helped to formulate it. Now, although still behind it in principle, he is taking a critical look at its drawbacks. Ghent University professor Piet Van Avermaet, Director of the Steunpunt Diversiteit en Leren (Learning and Diversity Support Centre) defends the choices made, despite the disappointing outcomes.
Conspiracy theories thrive well on the internet and are not always innocuous. In his second opening lecture as holder of the chair 'Etienne Vermeersch', philosopher of science Maarten Boudry delves more deeply into the pitfalls of conspiracy thinking.
These days it is mainly a tourist attraction, but Bruges was once an international world city, like London or Shanghai. The reason? Its many outer ports in the Zwin channel. New archaeological, historical and geological research has now made it possible to reconstruct that past in an unprecedented manner.
Summer schools help children and young people with learning disadvantages. But because of the corona crisis, pupils are struggling with more intense learning problems, and on top of that their mental resilience has been weakened. How can summer schools respond to this?
What is feminism? Ask feminists of different generations and you will get a different answer. Equally, the way feminists are viewed has also evolved. A conversation about the importance of gender, inclusiveness and the future of feminism.
As soon as the pandemic is over, the climate crisis will come back into focus. “We have to aim for zero CO2 emissions. Not ‘a bit less’, but zero”, says philosopher of science Maarten Boudry. And that requires a global debate, moving away from the oversimplified visions that currently dominate the debate.
