SAFAA students familiarizing with the results of International cooperation and exchange
Information days held by the initiative of External Relations department of SAFAA aimed at presenting in a very interactive way the recent years’ achievements and projects in cooperation with International HEIs. Head of the department Mary Patvakanyan and a staff member from the same department Naira Stepanyan during the meeting sessions with the students of Fine Arts and Decorative Applied Arts faculties held on 19th and 21st of November made a detailed presentation on the achievements of recent years, the exchange programmes with over 26 HEIs in different countries, particularly Erasmus+ ICM and related issues.
Since 2007 the studio in Paris, in famous “Cite՛ Internationale Des arts” (International Art Residence) obtained for 25 years duration of use, has served as a good opportunity not only for the artists-professors but also for students to work and create under its premises. It was for the lack of financial means that only one student had benefitted from the opportunity so far. Of course the grant projects are more preferable as stated Mary Patvakanyan, among them Erasmus+ has enabled the mobility with granted scholarships to students and staff to the universities of Czech Republic (Masaryk University in Brno), Italy (University of Bologna), Hungary (Eszterhazy Karoly University, Eger), Romania (University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca). In general within the frames of exchange programmes the number of students and staff mobility has reached to more than 70 in total. The mobility itself took a raise when actually the Eramsus+ programme drew its attention to art institutions as well, putting the filed in its priority list.
SAFAA also has links with Russian universities: it actively cooperates in particular with Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design and this is actualised outside Erasmus+ as it doesn’t work from Armenia to Russian and vice versa. Our students also participate in sculpture festival held annually in Moscow, in sculpture and painting exhibitions held in Kirgizstan for the students of CIS countries. The department of External Relations regularly cooperates with the Embassies of Italy, Switzerland, France and Poland to Armenia organising various exhibitions, meetings, competitions and master classes.
Naira Stepanyan made a detailed presentation on the student and staff exchange results of the recent and current years.
About a month ago Istvan Eros from Eszterhazy Karoly University, Eger, Hungary was invited to SAFAA within Erasmus+ to deliver lectures and presentations on arts. Earlier in April, a lecturer form SAFAA Arthur Hovhannisyan had paid one week visit to Eszterhazy Karoly University with the same purpose. Another successful example of cooperation was with one of the oldest universities of the world, the University of Bologna, Italy that was anticipated to be continued. It is generally planned to enlarge the scope of cooperation, the dimensions of cooperation involving new institutions and new countries. The students were informed that the cooperation within Erasmus+ ICM was actualized based on credit mobility, as the name spoke itself, which assumed that outgoing students gain the majority of ECTS at the hosting university. The priorities for the selection are given to those with high academic standing with high GPA and of course proficient in a foreign language which is mainly English (for Erasmus+ mobilities). Any call for participation in the mobility is spread among the chairs that convene a meeting and select the outgoing candidate; the announcements are put in the Academy website and official FB page.
The aim of those meetings was the raise of motivation and awareness of the above mentioned programmes among the students. Moreover, the programme not only provides the opportunity to familiarize with the educational system, environment and methods applied in the partner institution but also enables the establishment of new acquaintances, links and last but not least, the communication with new culture and new reality.
Melanya Badalyan
Translated by Naira Stepanyan
