Internationale Kulturwissenschaften International Cultural Studies Etudes culturelles internationales
Sektion III:		Neue wissenschaftliche Institutionen
Section III:		New Scientific Institutions
Section III:		Nouvelles institutions scientifiques

Penka Angelova (Rousse) [BIO]

German

French

Interdisciplinary Studies: Teaching and Research
The Experience of 'Europe Studies'in Rousse

                          Ex tempore, ex necessitate
                          Immediately, by necessity

The subject "Europe Studies" at the University of Rousse is a course of study directed toward a multicultural and interdisciplinary eduacational model. It was established according to the example of European institutions such as European Studies in England and America, in order to train qualified people for contacts with Central and Western Europe with a knowledge of two foreign languages. At the same time they were designed at a time when processes were being restructured throughout Europe, so that education and research had to, and still has to be, accountable in a continually developing and changing Europe. With this, I make my first thesis: that for the new cultural and economic management in Europe a new education for academics, who can take account of the European processes of retructuringis in demand. In the wake of the changes in the European Union, academics are in demand, who know the latest processes in a Europe made up of regions.

Europe Studies at the University of Rousse was established in 1993 when the Agreement for the association of Bulgaria with the EU was signed.It was the need of the moment. The founding of this new area of study was encouraged by a few young lecturers from the University of Rousse, who had attended lectures and undertaken some courses of study at English universities and who had been encouraged by European Studies in England, to also introduce a similar course of study in Bulgaria. With their enthusiasm and positive visions, they also won over the university staff. The greatest achievement for structuring the courses and curricula for the course in Bulgaria was attained by the Lecturers Mimi Kornazev and Juliana Popova, who did what was necessary and in co-operation with partners in England, worked out a structured curriculum oriented toward the new situation in Bulgaria. What was meant at the time, was the ousider postion of Bulgaria with regard to Central and Western European processes, a part of the earth that according to common usage, was called Europe, but on the other hand, the putting into place of precedures of expansion, which were supposed to also lead to internal European restructuring and demanded new intercultural and interdisciplinary knowledge from future academics. The intercultural experience, not oriented toward particular philosophies, but within a broader framework, appeared to be in demand, and so the University reacted very openly and conscious of the future to this idea, especially at that time the universities had, in their autonomy, opened up new fields of study. By means of time projects, the experience of English universities was mainly evaluated, that could look back on a 25 year tradition of European Studies. Curricula and programmes were adapted to Bulgarian conditions and completed over six years.

The Approach

The general aim in this endeavour was also the design of a field of study that facilitates integrated interdisciplinary teaching and leads the students beyond the boundaries of narrow specialization which was, and still is, characteristic of the Bulgarian specialized training system. Europe Studies offers interdisciplinary teaching, not only conveying knowledge and skills, but also a set of values, which in the situation of a post-totalitarian crisis of values, offers an alternative model.

One can conditionally speak of two levels of plan in this approach: an external and an internal plan. In the external plan, the idea and experience of European integration is envisaged, understood as a process of the present, directed toward several disciplines and multiculturalism: Culture and history, economics and politics, as a dialogue that creates the foundation for the choice of civilization in the development strategy. In the internal plan, it is communcations management in theory and praxis, as well as the function of the present administration subject to the changing conditions of the marketplace. Built on this foundation of democratic, pluralist thinking, it describes a vision for overcoming the "command-administratve" way of thinking and offers positive image strategies. These two levels of the plan are only conditional, separate from each other, because the intregration and communication procedures within Europe are engaged in rapid change and continually demonstrate new side-effects.

The Structure

The five year course of study is structured as follows: The students are accepted by means of an examination in one of the three languages taught: English, French and German. Although German does not belong to the official languages of the EU, in about one third of the EU states, however, German is spoken as an official (mother-tongue) language and this foreign language has a long teaching tradition in Bulgaria, so the German language was taken up as one of the components of Europe Studies teaching. During the course of study, students acquire a second of the other two languages on offer. The five year course connects the following four teaching components: European integration, to which the following general subjects belong:

• European economic geography with a course building on this on the folowing language regions (English-,German or French-speaking regions);
• European social history with a course building on this on the indivual language regions.
• Ethno-cultural and religious traditions in Europe with cultural history and Cultural Studies on the individual language regions building on this.
• The European Union with the accent on the development of the idea of Europe and its institutionalization;
• European law, which is directed toward the foudations and problem areas of legislation in the European Community;
• Political Science (European Politics) with a view on the European political system and the politics of the EU;
• European business and marketing - the effect of integration processes on economic activities in Europe;
• European integration - independent long essay with consultation that can serve as the prerequisite for a diploma disseration.
• About 70 - 80% of the teaching is conducted in the foreign languages, also to a considerable extent by Guest Lecturers from abroad.

Communications management

• Introduction to the basic terminology of communications management as a social practise;
• Interpersonal, group and mass communication as the context/field of communication with organizations and the techniques and strategies belonging to this.
• Communication between organizations together with the adminstration of human resources, conflict management and conflict research.
• External organizational communication with the accent on the arranging of contacts with partner organizations and the development of organizational and intercultural negotiating skills. Communications strategies oriented toward the language regions (English, German, French) building on this.
• Public relations and advertising communication that aims at the work of organizations and their target groups; communications planning in the language regions building on this.
• Communications management - communications administration within the context of organizational strategies and image leadership.
• Adminstration.
• Foundations of the market economy.
• Book-keeping and financial analysis
• Marketing
• Management
• According to choice: Marketing management or project management.
• European intercultural management - the European regional map in the hands of the Pan-European manager.
• Personal effectiveness
• Information Technology, including Multimedia and Internet culture
• Audio-visual technology.
• Statistical methods for research into public opinion and the appropriate software for Bulgaria (SPSS)
• As a research project, the working out of context analysis methods is envisaged that is appropriate for the language situation in Bulgaria.
• Development of creative methods of decision-making and lateral thinking.

Teaching

Since the founding of the Department of Europe Studies at the University of Rousse in 1994, teaching is undertaken, apart from the lecturers in the Department, also by external Professors and experts from other Bulgarian universities /Sofia University, The Economic University, from the University Veliko Tirnovo), from the Bulgarian Academy of Science, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, as well as external Professors and Lecturers from England, America, France and Germany via University projects or organized through the organization "Civic Education project". In all these cases, highly qualified lecturers are involved, who work with younger scholars, supervise doctoral dissertations and take over the supervision of Masters dissertations. So far, two doctoral dissertations and one senior doctorate have been submitted in the Department.

Students from Europe Studies do their practical according to the direction of the Masters dissertation at different cultural institutionsand firms; since 1999 also in the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry.

Achievements

As a unique course of study in Bulgaria, Europe Studies has had a remarkable development. While, through the years, continued and cumulative experience came to fruition and its reputation grew in the public eye, so that there are 10 to 15 applicants for every place. Europe Studies together with about three hundred other subjects was struck from the register of the courses of study approved by the Ministry. Essentially, the situation was no longer tenable as, through the autonomy of the universities, there was an explosion of many new courses of study, sometimes courses of study split to the point of senselessness and the Ministry had to put an end to this splintering process. But what was decided was just as outrageous: only the old, traditional courses of study (about 169) were left and of all the innovations remained only the replacement of the Marxist -Leninist disciplines by general philosophy and political studies. The old teachers of ML retrained themselves very quickly as political scientists and market economy scientists. Inter/ or multidisciplinary studies were not to be achieved in such a shortened register in a system reduced to single headings of disciplines cleanly separated from each other. The traditional thinking of the body of professors fearful of the demise of their subjects or of the innovations were victorious for a certain time. The pre-established thinking seemed in 1997 once more and yet again to have entrenched itself and the battle commenced again, to save and confirm the chances of Europe Studies. All were actually convinced, from the press to the ministers that Europe Studies should have its place in the register and that it had only been affected in the wake of the rigorous scratching of everything new. It would soon be included in the new register. But from the discussion of this register until its acceptance by the Ministers' Council, three years have elapsed and this new register still awaits acceptance by the Ministers' Council.

In the meantime, however, reality has altered so much that now the subject Europe Studies is planned at several universities. Europe Studies subjects are planned in different courses of study as a foundation course or as part of a course of study, in the place of the former ideological subjects. But at a national educational conference of the Education Ministry, the school and university education section on Europe Studies had been planned as if it didn't belong to the other studies.

One conclusion urges itself on me in the face of these considerations that I would like to formulate as a further thesis:

Second thesis: The new scientific institutions that co-operate with the demands of the most recent changes are a challenge for science and scholars, but especially for the universities and the Ministry, where old models of thought still predominate. The academic market exists as a challenge to university studies as it exclusively co-operates with market-oriented planning and with integrating teaching strategies which also strive toward and call forth integrated research.

Here the personal factor also plays a part, because I, as a Germanist and researcher of the German language cultural orbit, joined the Department in 1994 and since 1997 have assumed the headship of the Department. But much more important is the longterm conviction that Bulgarian contacts with the German-speaking countries has an established tradition and the German language as a language of culture and civilization will have its importance in the EU.

		Internationale Kulturwissenschaften International Cultural Studies Etudes culturelles internationales
Sektion III:		Neue wissenschaftliche Institutionen
Section III:		New Scientific Institutions
Section III:		Nouvelles institutions scientifiques