Education as a Space for Collective Work: Evaluating a University Partnership between the University of Belgrade (Serbia) and Northeastern University (USA)

• In Event: Building peace through Higher Education

Proposal

During the Summer of 2023, I served as an external evaluator of a University Partnership between Northeastern University in Boston and the University of Belgrade Faculty of Economics, funded in part by the US State Department in Belgrade.

The program objectives formalized what had been informal collaborations and consultations, through Northeastern University’s student mobility program Serbia and The Balkans Dialogue of Civilizations Program, a short-term faculty-led program running for five weeks. This University Partnership had the following goals: strengthening the connections between American and Serbian scholars, including doctoral students and faculty; establishing meaningful and ongoing connections between American and Serbian university students; and institutionalizing these connections and collaborations by creating annual events (gatherings, conferences, workshops), primarily in Belgrade as well as in Boston.

While the partnership involves several components: faculty mobility, student mobility, and program development, the centerpiece of the partnership was what the organizers refer to as “Belgrade Summer School..” Belgrade Summer School was a week-long session that took place at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Belgrade. The school focused on regional economic cooperation, security and stability for Serbia and its neighbors, and with an eye on Serbia’s accession and integration into the EU.

During this session, Northeastern University and University of Belgrade undergraduate students came together in a classroom at the School of Economics and Business on the campus of University of Belgrade for five days. During that time, the course modules (developed collaboratively between faculty and administration at the two institutions) were delivered by both University of Belgrade and Northeastern faculty members as well as visiting faculty from Rotterdam University and other European institutions. The final day wrapped up with a talk given by the US Ambassador to Serbia, Christopher Hill and a set of presentations from the students.

This presentation will focus on the possibilities of using the Belgrade Summer School as a space where students and faculty from the US and Serbia could put aside differences to work collectively to problem solve potential solutions to some of the world’s most challenging situations.

Given the recent history of the Balkan Wars, the NATO bombing, and the Bosnian genocide, people from the USA and from Serbia have often had misperceptions and apprehensions about one another. This university partnership has created a structured space - a classroom - where students and faculty from both countries could come together to work, discuss, and “dialogue” to build meaningful relationships with the goal of reducing and eliminating these misperceptions and apprehensions.

This University Partnership between the University of Belgrade Faculty of Economics and Northeastern University was created to tackle these misperceptions through a series of faculty and student exchanges, student conferences open to an international audience (especially Serbian, American, and European), collaborative faculty research, curriculum development and sharing best practices in pedagogy.

The University Partnership was designed to build and sustain in-person and virtual relationships between and among students and professors in Belgrade and Boston. By putting students and faculty alike at the center of this partnership, the partners intended outcomes were to: establish meaningful and ongoing connections between American and Serbian university students; strengthen connections between American and Serbian scholars, in both teaching and research; and, most importantly, institutionalize the University Partnership by creating annual events (gatherings, conferences, workshops), primarily in Belgrade as well as in Boston.

One of the main goals of the program was to break down barriers and create a space for dialogue. Creating dialogue between two sets of students and faculty from countries with strong authoritarian (pro-Trump and pro-Putin) factions in a former Soviet bloc country during the Ukrainian war was a tall task. However, in this university space, the faculty and students were able to create a space for dialogue where one could witness a glimmer of hope for a better tomorrow, witness students and faculty putting aside disagreements and working together to brainstorm solutions to some of the most difficult challenges facing our shared global future: climate, corruption, free media, SDG, security (NATO), and cooperation/stability (EU accession).

On day one of class, students were placed into mixed working groups of 4-5 with representation from both universities and asked to work collaboratively on a short research project. Four days later they were asked to present a 10-minute summary of their work, following the talk given by Ambassador Hill. The students appeared undaunted. Perhaps the topics were so urgent that they were able to rise above any nervousness and stage fright to give their presentations. We could see the amazing growth that had happened over the course of a week. From day one when they sat as strangers, perhaps wondering how the others felt about Trump, Putin, Ukraine, the NATO bombings of Serbia, the Bosnian genocide, wondering if the person next to them was a friend or foe to day five of their presentations was a phenomenal process to bear witness to. Each day, the students and faculty ate lunch together in the faculty lounge and each afternoon, they shared coffee break time together. Over the course of the week, one could see the students and faculty from the US and Serbia mixing in the classroom, at lunch, and during the coffee breaks. By the end of the week, one could barely tell them apart.

While this is not the vision we might typically have of “protest,” this collaboration across country differences is a profound form of protest and one that we will need to solve the challenges of today and tomorrow.

The presentation will give an overview of the program, the problems posed, the challenges faced, the actions taken, and the results achieved. The presentation will conclude with recommendations for future actions to be taken by the current partners and lessons learned for other university partners interested in working across country conflicts.

Author

• Mary Churchill, Boston University