Written by Maylany Ika Putri
Semarang (4/6) – Indonesian Community for European Studies (ICES/KIKE) is organizing Workshop on European Studies as well as seminar on European Identity. This time, Universitas Wahid Hasyim serves as the host to the ICES scholars in following up the Workshop on European Studies that took place at Universitas Budi Luhur, Jakarta on November 2015. What draws the attention from this forum is the preliminary agenda, that is seminar on European identity, entitled “European Identity and Its Challenges”. This seminar becomes an expedient forum in order to add up the knowledge on more perspectives regarding how we (should) perceive European identity. Moreover, the discussion session went actively, especially due to having four distinguished invited speakers, those are Charles-Michel Geurts (Deputy Head of Mission, EU Delegation to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam), Dewi Gustina Tobing (Director of Intra Regional Cooperation of American and European Affairs, Directorate General of American and European Affairs, Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Muhadi Sugiono (Lecturer, Universitas Gadjah Mada) and Eric Gunawan (Lecturer, Universitas Pelita Harapan) and also Regina (Lecturer, Universitas Budhi Dharma) as the moderator of the seminar.
The seminar was attended by 46 participants that consisted not only the ICES scholars but also the students from various institutions in Semarang. The ICES scholars themselves come from 17 universities, most of them are from Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Malang.
After having the seminar, the agenda was continued with the workshop that lasts in two days, on 4-5 February 2016. This workshop is aimed to discuss about the teaching module for European studies subject for bachelor degree. This module is a collaborative work of the ICES members, which the number is currently increasing up to 40 scholars. The ICES scholars come from different background of study, mainly from International Relations and Communication, and not limiting the additional members from any background of study. The module, which is now in the process of revision, is supposed to be a resource pack for the lecturer to develop their own teaching and learning process on European studies at their home university respectively.