Two days of program on diversity in an international context
The International Days offer an opportunity for anyone interested to get to know more about the international activities at KIT and in its surrounding area. People from various professional and personal backgrounds talk about the experiences with diversity and interculturality and develop new ideas together with the visitors.
In a number of talks and discussion formats, women and men from science, culture, and politics get a chance to speak. Seminars and workshops offer visitors of the International Days opportunities to receive active further education and to learn directly from intercultural competence and antidiscrimination experts.
Another highlight of the event is the exclusive performance night at the Badisches Staatstheater. With the International Days, KIT wants to demonstrate how research, teaching, and innovation benefit from cultural diversity and present people who drive and live diversity.
22 and 23 June 2022 at KIT
Program
A wide range of talks, discussions, and workshops took place in the Senate Hall of the KIT Executive Board (building 11.30).
PROGRAM
Noomi Arndt is a sociologist and Africanist with a focus on anti-racism and intercultural education. Besides her work as consultant and coach at the Anti-discrimination Agency, she is a political educator in schools and is self-employed as a coach in the field of discrimination-sensitive education. Since 2019, she has been volunteering in the Migrant’s Advisory Board of the city of Karlsruhe.
Judith Blumberg has grown up bilingually in Atlanta in the United States. Born in Heidelberg, she returned there for part of her school education and the following degree program “Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Communication” before moving to Istanbul for an ERASMUS stay and a scholarship. Since then, she has been involved in a cultural platform campaigning for a new narrative and vision for the future in a (post-)migrant society. Judith Blumberg completed her master’s program “Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy” at Goldsmiths College in London. After the first steps of her career had taken her to Brussels and Heidelberg, she started to work with the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe in 2019 as an agent for diversity in its diversity-oriented organizational development.
After growing up in Columbus, Ohio, where she got her dance education early on at the BalletMet Dance Academy, Bridget Breiner moved to Munich, then to Stuttgart, Dresden, and Gelsenkirchen, before finally arriving in Karlsruhe. She received the most prestigious German theater price Deutscher Theaterpreis DER FAUST two times for her choreographic work: In 2013 for “Ruß – Eine Geschichte von Aschenputtel” and in 2015 for “Charlotte Salomon: Der Tod und die Malerin”. Even before becoming director of Ballett im Revier Gelsenkirchen – a company with 14 international dancers – Bridget Breiner worked in various countries with a number of internationally positioned companies. Since 2019, she has been director of ballet and head of choreography at Staatsballett Karlsruhe which includes dancers from 15 different countries.
Lisa Jürgens has a master’s degree in intercultural education, migration, and multilingualism, and her work focuses on intersectionality and discrimination-sensitive education. Currently, she organizes symposia and empowerment trainings for socially disadvantaged students at the Anti-discrimination Agency. She also works as a self-employed educational consultant and as a coach at the State Center for Political Education, and she organized the International Weeks against Racism Karlsruhe 2021.
Prof. Dr. phil. Yasemin Karakaşoğlu, M.A. born in 1965, who has two children, studied Turkology, recent German literature, and political science in Hamburg and Ankara. She did her doctorate in the field of educational science in 1999, and in the following year her thesis was awarded with the Augsburger Wissenschaftspreis für Interkulturelle Studien, a science prize for intercultural studies by the University of Augsburg. This thesis became the basis for her expert report in 2003 that lead to a significant ruling on headscarves by the Federal Constitutional Court. Since October 2004, she has been Professor for Intercultural Education at the University of Bremen. As vice principal from 2011 to 2017, she was responsible for the language policy of “academic multilingualism” as well as the internationalization and diversity strategy of the university. She is researching, teaching, and publishing about schools, teacher training, and universities in the migration society.
Professor Markus Klute was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship in 2022 and is working in this framework at the Institute for Experimental Particle Physics (ETP) of KIT. He has been a Full Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA since 2020. He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Bonn and completed research stays as a PhD student at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, and at Fermilab near Chicago, USA. In 2004, he earned his doctorate in Bonn. As a post-doctorate, he went to MIT, became a Research Scientist there, and received a professorship at the University of Göttingen in 2008. In 2009, he returned to MIT, first as an Assistant, then as an Associate Professor. Among other things, he is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, an expert reviewer for the National Science Foundation, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board in the PRISMA+ Cluster of Excellence at the University of Mainz.
As consultant for diversity and human resources development, Ines Köhler designs concepts for diversity in teaching and is involved in the topic of diversity competence at KIT. She is offering several workshops and trainings on topics like Unconscious Bias, Gender Training, and Diversity-fair Teaching.
Dr. Birgid Langer is academic director at the Institute of Organic Chemistry (IOC) and Equal Opportunities Officer for KIT’s scientific division. Since 2007, she has been executive of the Chair of Biochemistry at the IOC in the University Sector and at the Institute for Biological Interfaces in the Large-scale Research Sector. For more than ten years, she has been supervising, advising, and supporting various topics as Equal Opportunities Officer, including the promotion of gender equality, the reconciliation of work and family life, and the protection against sexual harassment at the workplace. Birgid Langer represents KIT at the Federal Conference of Women and Gender Equality at Universities, at the GEx14 network of the universities of excellence, and the TU9 network of Equal Opportunities Officers. She is also spokeswoman of the Conference of Equal Opportunities Officers at Universities and Academic Institutions in Baden-Württemberg.
After having completed his studies, Martin Lenz began his professional career at the Stadtjugendausschuss e. V. Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe’s municipal youth committee, where he had been volunteering since 1979. In 1992, Norbert Vöhringer, then head of the Department of Social Affairs, piloted him to the Social and Youth Affairs Department of the City of Karlsruhe to draw up the city's first Poverty Report. This report formed the basis for further concepts, such as the Overall Concept for Housing Assistance '97, which were developed under his leadership. Martin Lenz received his doctorate from the University of Karlsruhe in 2006 and has been Mayor for Youth and Parents, Social Affairs, Schools, Sports, Baths, and Migration Issues of the City of Karlsruhe since September 1, 2009. His main areas of expertise are the networking of sports-related and social fields of work, the fight against poverty, social district development, and social, housing, and sports policy.
Dr. Farnaz Mahdavian, KIT alumna and STEM researcher, was born in Iran. For her bachelor’s, she stayed in her homeland and studied computer technology at Tehran Azad University. For her master’s, she went to the Kyoto University of Japan. She wrote her dissertation in Karlsruhe and Cambridge and became an academic employee at KIT before switching to the non-profit organization “DIALOGIK”. This research company observes complex communication and participation processes in the interplay of politics, civil society, economy, and science. Dr. Mahdavian’s work focuses on risk communication and management as well as disaster analysis, risk perception, and protective action.
Jonas Nees is director of the Children’s Office, and since 2016 has been child representative of the city of Karlsruhe. He studied educational science, outdoor and experiential education. Now he is committed to the participation of children and sees great potential in the combination of city development, society, and participation, allowing the design of cities with the people and children in mind.
Born in Piedras Negras in Mexico, Eleazar Rodríguez was “Plácido Domingo” scholar of the Sociedad Internacional de Valores de Arte Mexicano, Mexico’s most renowned program promoting young artists, and won the “Carlo Morelli National Competition“ in Mexico City. He studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, obtaining a Bachelor of Music. Eleazar Rodriguez was a member of the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program and the Theater Heidelberg’s ensemble. Since the 2011/12 season, he has been part of the ensemble of Staatstheater Karlsruhe. During the INTERNATIONAL DAYS 2022, he will discuss the topic of “diversity in everyday working life: Chances, tensions, experiences” together with representatives from science and art.
Oliver Schmidt studied languages, economics and cultural studies in Passau and Cairo. After working in international university marketing, he joined the International Affairs Business Unit at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 2014. There, he was initially responsible for the development and monitoring of scientific cooperation as a referent for the Arab region and Asia. Since 2019, he has been the head of the International Cooperations and Projects department with a focus on Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Eastern Europe.
Ulrike Settelmeyer has been working in the Cultural Office of the city of Karlsruhe since 2001, mostly in the area of project work. Since 2019, she has been the responsible educationalist for the city’s model project ”Bunte Stadt“ (colorful city), which aims to enable participation with art and cultural methods.
Dominika Szope studied fine arts, philosophy/media theory, and architecture at Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe. After a three-year academic collaboration at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe from 2003-2006, she took on a teaching position at the Department of Media Studies at Universität Siegen. In 2010 followed the founding of the communication agency “relationales” in Karlsruhe, in the context of which she took over, among other things, the expert consultation for the economic development of the state of Lower Saxony. From 2011, Dominika Szope headed the Communication & Marketing Department at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe and, together with her team, was responsible for ZKM's communications at both national and international level before taking over as head of Karlsruhe’s Office for Cultural Activities in 2021.
Michael Zacherle war ab dem Jahr 2000 an der Universität Karlsruhe (TH) wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter der Fakultät für Informatik und wechselte 2008 als Antrags- und Projektmanager in die Dienstleistungseinheit Forschungsförderung. In 2011 und 2012 arbeitete er als Persönlicher Referent des Chief Science Officer 4 im Präsidium des KIT. In den Folgejahren wirkte er zeitweise auch als EU-Referent sowie in der Helmholtz-Koordination des KIT. Nebenberuflich arbeitete er 6 Jahre als Wahlkreisassistent eines Europaabgeordneten und kandidierte auch mehrmals selbst für das Europäische Parlament. Seit 2020 ist er Projektleiter „Europäische Universität“ (EPICUR), seit 2015 auch gewählter Senator des KIT.
Prof. Dr. Caroline Y. Robertson-von Trotha studied sociology, philosophy, and history in Heidelberg and Karlsruhe. Born in Scotland, she obtained a Doctor of Philosophy with a dissertation on the topic of ethnic identity and political mobilization, before writing her habilitation thesis at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) on the dialectic of globalization. She was managing director of the Interfakultatives Institut für Angewandte Kulturwissenschaft (interfacultative institute for applied cultural studies) at the University of Karlsruhe and then, after 2002, founding Director of the successor institution, the Center for Cultural and General Studies (ZAK) at KIT, which she headed for almost 20 years. Her main areas of research are cultural change and globalization, multiculturalism and integration policies as well as the theory and practice of public science.
During the INTERNATIONAL DAYS 2022, she will moderate the panel discussion on the topic of “Diversity in everyday working life: Chances, tensions, experiences”.
Priv-Doz. Dr. Jens Rudat, born in 1975, completed his biology studies at Universität Bonn, directly followed by his doctorate in microbiology in 2000, for which he received a scholarship from the graduate funding program of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Jens Rudat has been working at KIT for more than fifteen years. He was group leader for Biocatalysis at the Institute of Process Engineering in Life Sciences BLT-2 - Technical Biology from 2006 onwards, before being appointed as a temporary academic councilor in 2012. Since 2022, he has been a private lecturer with a venia legendi for the subject of technical biology. His research focus is on molecular biology and process optimization of enzyme reactions, being part of international research collaborations with China, South Africa, and Iran.
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Born in 1965, Dr. Klaus Rümmele studied German and English Literature and Politics at Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg and University of Ulster at Coleraine/Northern Ireland. He worked as a journalist, before he did Public Relations at University Karlsruhe, which later merged with the National Research Center Karlsruhe to Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In 2011, he did his PhD in Literature at KIT. Since February 2019, he is Head of the International Affairs Business Unit at KIT.
At the INTERNATIONAL DAYS 2022, he will moderate the panel discussion on the second day of the event on the topic of "Cross-sectoral diversity: structures, measures, instruments" with panel participants Dr. Birgid Langer, Dominika Szope, and Martin Lenz.
Exhibitors
Spread about the Ehrenhof location, different KIT groups representing interculturality and diversity in their composition and activity will present themselves and invite to information, help, and discussion at their stands.
ESN Karlsruhe, as part of the Erasmus Student Network, which is represented throughout Europe, offers international students in Karlsruhe a contact point during the first period of their stay and beyond. The approximately 40 German and international student members organize, for example, the International O-Phase twice a year together with the International Students Office (IStO). ESN makes a great contribution to the international community in Karlsruhe by making city trips, parties, or even a weekly “Stammtisch” (regular get-togethers) possible for the foreign guests. In addition, ESN offers counseling for German students who are planning a stay abroad. Support with Erasmus forms, access to experience reports, or other assistance are offered by ESN during its weekly office hours.
The student group Engineers Without Borders (EWB) in Karlsruhe has the goal of jointly realizing engineering projects to create new perspectives for people in economically, socially, or politically disadvantaged regions. In its numerous projects, EWB applies an integrated approach, independence of their project partner organizations, and a complete integration of local structures, which has led to several successfully completed development collaboration projects in their history. Through partnerships with the people at the project locations, EWB wants to raise awareness for global interrelations and intercultural understanding among its approximately 200 active student members.
The international buddy program of the business unit International Affairs (INTL) at KIT is a meeting platform between local students and those from around the globe.
It offers a community that embraces the welcoming culture at KIT. The intercultural exchange takes place in small buddy groups between like-minded people and there are regular events for all registered buddies, offering opportunities to extend their social networks. Additionally, there are public events celebrating diversity. The main goal of the international buddy program is the intercultural peer-to-peer exchange.
The KIT university sports team with its full-time and student employees pursues the goal of planning, organizing, and realizing an attractive range of sports for all university members. Students and employees of KIT are offered a diverse range of over 70 different disciplines. 340 courses allow participants to balance their work and study life with a compensatory sports program. Additionally, university sports present a platform to meet international students and employees. Following the motto of “Sports unite and build bridges”, university sports are trying to contribute to this utilizing the extensive potential of sports.
ROCK YOUR LIFE! is an education and consulting company working in five countries with the goal to develop undiscovered potentials for more equality in education. One of their most important projects is the mentoring program R!EACH. A student association has been implementing this program in Karlsruhe since 2012. In an individual mentoring process, volunteering students support teenagers from disadvantaged families in their challenges in school, daily life, and career choices, improving their self-esteem, academic performance, and chances on the job market. The effectiveness of the program was confirmed last year in a multi-year study by the ifo Institute in Munich.
The working group on how to deal with discrimination was founded “bottom-up” in the spring of 2020 by INTL staff members to make problems relating to discriminatory language, unequal treatment, and stereotyping more transparent and to raise awareness for them. Especially racism as a form of discrimination is a central topic in the WG – the status quo at KIT was explained in a reflection paper. The WG has an impact on all of KIT by initiating and organizing trainings, workshops, and contributions in KIT-wide bodies and events as part of their portfolio.
Popice
A culinary delicacy will be offered by Popice, an ice cream manufacturer from Karlsruhe. On the first day of the event, Popice will be providing guests at the INTERNATIONAL DAYS 2022 with regional coffees and handmade popsicles.
Popice stands for a tasty and healthier alternative to conventional ice cream. The ice cream manufactory relies on seasonal fruits in its production to achieve optimal taste without using any flavor enhancers, preservatives, and colorants. "Real fruits, real taste" is its motto.
