Blog Post 11

Berlin 2016

Well…I imagine you know that FIU reaches well beyond 8th street and West Miami Dade. I am sure that you know about the BBC campus or might even teach there. How about MBUS? I-75? Brickell? What about our campus in Tianjin, China? Have you heard that FIU now has a permanent office in DC? There was the official opening this week.  It seems hard to escape us and our ambitions.

But that is not all. We are crossing over to connect…we are expanding our global reach. We may be young, but boy are we creative, and light on our feet.  So look out Berlin, Germany, here FIU comes on June 18, 2016! Check it out on http://gps.fiu.edu or Facebook!

Now, you might say, and I understand the reaction, something like: “Why on earth are they spending money to go to Berlin when we are working so hard to teach more students, graduate them faster, publish more books, earn more research dollars and secure more donations?  Good question! Well, let’s just say that this mission does not derail those ambitions or divert attention from those goals. That is what the website says, and I am convinced. This trip is part of expanding FIU’s global reach, our international footprint, and it is designed to help faculty and students. And, maybe most importantly, the idea is that – assuming success is measured in tangible outcomes – perhaps your area of global connection could be next. The days of insecure chants of FIWHO are of the past, left in the dust, dying a definitive and permanent death. Ciao. So, see, if it works, it helps us all.

As summer A winds down and we gear up for Summer B or the new Pre-Fall term (as it is now called) we are packing our bags, gathering brochures, and admiring the 3D printed gifts with the FIU logo (thanks Jacek K. and MBUS!) to bring with us to Berlin. This will be the inaugural FIU Global Positioning Showcase (GPS). We are, in other words, embarking on a Mission Abroad, taking our show on the road, a matchmaking of sorts between German and European institutions, researchers, artists & students and FIU, our researchers, artists, and & students.

A diverse delegation of students, faculty members, directors, faculty-administrators and members of the staff will step foot in Berlin, Germany to recruit students, greet alumni, create research partnerships and get our name out there. Some of us will find our way to potential partner institutions in Poland and others will pursue leads in Dresden or Heidelberg, all meant to advance FIU’s research and creative mission around the globe.  A group of CARTA study abroad students will join in, coming from Bauhaus in Dessau to Berlin to share the fruits of their labor and their experiences in the premier design institution of modern design. Alumni from throughout Europe and around the globe have been invited to attend our events on the evening of Saturday June 18th and throughout the day of Sunday, June 19th. This showcase will begin with an exhibition of still and moving images by South Florida artists called YOU ARE HERE – MIA > WAW > TXL. After a day of speeches and discussion and recruiting, we will retire to a Jazz Club to listen to our very own School of Music colleagues, Gary Campbell and Michael Orta playing jazz and bringing FIU to the Berlin arts scene.

This multi-college university-wide effort engages us at each level, from a CARTA study-abroad group of students to a grad student in Geography presenting her work on Cuban immigration to Germany, to meetings with the German Research Foundation and other research foundations, the DAAD, research powerhouses such as federal institutes, national consortia and private companies, and existing and potential academic partners in Berlin and beyond. And also with the Jewish Museum Berlin.

While some of us are off to research match-make in Berlin and engage alumni in all that we do, I wish you each a happy June and perhaps…next summer in India? Genoa 2018?

FIU is on the move…

What do you think?
Rebecca