Erasmus Policy Statement

I. STRATEGY, OBJECTIVES AND PRIORITIES

Our Academy has been established ten years ago as a private school of international relations and of law but it has developed a department of computer engineering and of architecture, as well. All our departments offer graduate master’s courses and we hope to be able to offer doctoral degrees very soon. We are the only one private school of law and of international relations in the North of Poland and we are proudly ranked as the best private school in that area in the entire Poland. We are the one and only school of international relations in our country that provides an opportunity for our students to major in China Studies and in Scandinavian Studies apart of the European Integration Studies. This broader focus which goes beyond European region is a good expression of our strategy in research and education: enhancement of both moral and intellectual sensitivity to global challenges and opportunities by commitment to academic excellence and by understanding of cultural richness of the twenty-first century humankind.

Our strategy is heading towards the following OBJECTives: 1. internationalization of cultural and theoretical perspectives in our curricula and assignments, 2.fostering the overall mobility of our students both across cultural and geographic differences, 3.encouraging our professors, first of all the younger generation of professors, to think and work in a globalizing and multicultural environments of post-modernity, 4.arranging for multilateral projects that are open both to our students and our scholars .

Gender equality is for us an obvious priority as we have about 65% of female students and among our top ten students seven are our young ladies, of course. The social cohesion of our academic community is enhanced by scholarships provided to the students from poor families by the R.Krauze Foundation which belongs to the same person who is a majority stake owner of the PROKOM S.A., the strongest computer company in Poland.

Visibility of Erasmus activities shall be guaranteed by a set of the following measures:

1. We will continue the Bologna procedures and requirements as we started two years ago the ECTS credits’ policy.

2. We will improve our pages on the web both in Polish and in English.

3. In our scholarly quarterly “The European Studies”/ appears since 1998 / we will show our commitment to the EPS and we will publish a guidebook to all EU common projects in science and education.

4. We will use our considerable network of international partnerships both to learn and to teach in the global community and for this purpose we plan to enter into Erasmus Mundus joint project as soon as we can.

5. We will be able to organize more international conferences due to our membership to the EU framework of the Lifelong Learning Programme. Thus the Erasmus University Charter is a necessary condition for our future development.

II. Quality of academic mobility activities

Our Academy provides masters’ degrees that are fully recognized in Poland and in the European Union, as well. The Bologna credit system is being implemented properly and our diplomas are issued with supplements required by the EU standards. Any diploma can be issued in English on request of the student and is duly certified by our academic authorities.

All subjects comprising our curricula are available on the website, and the syllabuses are sophisticated enough to give our students the taste and the smell of the complexities of social and political structures of the world. Imago mundi, as the Romans would say, is the subject of the critical scrutiny at all our classes and lectures.

The incoming freshmen are carefully guided by our tutors and junior professors and, last but not least, from their senior classmates organized by the freely elected officers of the students’ independent association. The students’ representatives take a due part in the management of our school.

Foreign language courses are mandatory for all students who take their final exams in each of two obligatory foreign languages after 240 teaching hours. We take pride in the fact that none of the tertiary education institutions in Poland gives as many hours of tutoring in languages as we do. English is mandatory for all, but the second foreign language (French, German, Chinese or Swedish) is optional. The students who choose the China Studies as their major are requested to take at lest 240 hours of Chinese, those who study Scandinavian Affairs should take Swedish as a second foreign language, and those who want to major in European affairs may choose between French and German.

We are unable to provide our students with dormitories, but our Student Services Center can guide them and help make a reasonable choice from what the accommodation market has on offer.

Our best students are eligible for a monthly scholarship regardless of their economic status, and this meritocratic bonus may help them continue their studies with success.

III. Quality of student placement activities

We have got a long and good experience in placing our students in institutions related to their field of studies. By permanent agreements we place our students of law in the courts or prosecutor’s offices, at law companies of attorneys and legal counsels. Our students of international relations are placed at the EU institutions and at the offices of the Polish Members of the European Parliament. Many of them serve as interns at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at consular or political sections of Polish embassies, and at the big private companies dealing with foreign markets. Placements for at least two months are mandatory and are an integral part of our curricula, and the grades obtained are included into the supplement to the final diploma. The special booklets of placements are given to the students that allow the CEOs of the above mentioned institutions to make description and an assessment of activities performed by our students. Our deans may monitor the performance of our students and the quality of the service provided to them by the host institution. The students have the right to choose where they prefer to be placed and many of them take their placements so seriously as to prolong it to five or six months.

Polish Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs granted our school the power of serving as an employment office for students that has the right to find them the first job after completion of their studies. This is considered by our staff a moral duty to do our best to assist our students to start a new professional career.