"HAW goes USA" – Finally back in the USA!

Workshops, exchange and excursions in Long Beach

The various visits to California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), reflected the diversity of the existing cooperation. In Computer Science, the focus was on credit transfer of courses as well as the recruitment of CSULB students for a semester abroad in Hamburg. The departments would like to exchange ten Bachelor students each per year. As a result of Prof. Dr. Zhen Dai's visit, the first three students have registered for the summer semester 2023. "Prof. Mehrdad Aliasgari and his colleagues are very enthusiastic about the new exchange programme with Hamburg and really motivated their students to participate," Prof. Dai reports.

As part of the strategic DAAD ISAP project in the field of media technology, the focus of a second visit was on teaching. Under the motto "Innovative Media", Prof. Dr. Eike Langbehn and academic staff member, Martina Hentig, brought HAW Hamburg's special expertise in virtual reality and 360° media to Long Beach. In workshops and lectures, they not only discussed film, but also story telling for games and spatial audio. Plans were also made for new workshops with CSULB colleagues in Hamburg in June 2023.

In the area of social work, Prof. Dr Daniela Ulber was on site with a group of Master's students. This was the second time she had led this type of excursion with the goal of enabling a professional exchange on topics such as child and youth welfare as well as equality in social work and an insight into social institutions and projects in Long Beach. At the same time, the joint Summer School planned for June 2023 in Hamburg and Berlin was discussed and approved. 'It was an extremely successful, multi-faceted and instructive excursion from which we all took a lot away. I am very proud of our students, who were very committed and open-minded. They benefited greatly from the excursion in terms of their professional self-image,' reports Prof. Ulber enthusiastically.

The cooperation with the USA should not only be in person, but also include virtual elements to enable a larger group of students to have a USA component in their studies. The Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) model has already been successfully introduced in International Business and Prof. Dr. Natalia Ribberink was in Long Beach with DAAD ISAP funding to deepen the strategic partnership with the Business School. At the same time, Prof. Tor Hovind was in Hamburg to plan a new COIL module in Brand Design with Prof. Sven Vogel. It will start in the summer semester of 2023 with a kick-off workshop in Long Beach. 'This will be an exciting pilot project, and I expect it to lead to an even more intensive exchange through the intercultural student teams,' explains Sven Vogel.

Research exchange at the University of Rhode Island

As part of the strategic partnership between HAW Hamburg and the University of Rhode Island (URI), student research projects were the focus of a visit in October 2022. With funding from the DAAD "HAW.International" (Module A) project, Prof. Dr. Natalia Ribberink and research assistant, Jan-Hendrik Schünemann, organised an interdisciplinary research day with their URI colleague, Prof. Dr. Natallia Katenka. Under the title "Advancing Data Analysis in Interdisciplinary Studies: Deciphering the World's Black Boxes", Master's students and faculty from the fields of economics, statistics, computer sciences and pharmacy came together to discuss research results and to network. The research collaboration between the URI and HAW Hamburg colleagues is based on the annual collaborative workshops on quantitative data analysis that have taken place since 2017. The visit to Rhode Island was also used by Prof. Dr. Nuran Fazlioglu-Adal and Dean Lohrentz to meet colleagues from the College of Business and discuss ideas for the strategic development of the partnership.

Design cooperations with MICA

In October and November, four professors from the Department of Design visited the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore with travel funds from the International Office "HAW goes USA" budget. Prof. Renata Brink and Prof. Patrick Kugler from the Department of Textile Design, together with other colleagues from the Department of Design, were invited by the German House of Science and Innovation (DWIH) in New York to present their research at the Future Forum "Fabricating the Future". They took advantage of their stay to make a side trip to Baltimore to learn about fibre at MICA. 'It was very gratifying that the on-site visit enabled us to secure a MICA lecturer, Rosa Chang, as a speaker for the HAW Hamburg "Green Cycles Online Symposium" on 18 November 2022,' Prof. Brink tells us. 'Ms Chang spoke about her project seminar "Mindful Colours - Sustainable Balance" and the link between MICA and the Baltimore Natural Dye Initiative.'

Prof Bernd Mölck-Tassel and Prof Mareike Ottrand with academic staff member, Aileen Hagen, from Illustration used their visit to MICA to network with colleagues and recruit students. 'After two years of the Corona pandemic, it was very important to be back on site and introduce Hamburg to the new MICA cohorts,' says Prof. Mölck-Tassel. 'In the past there was a lively exchange with MICA and this should take place again as soon as possible.' Prof. Ottrand introduced an HAW Hamburg department that is new to MICA, "Interactive Illustration". 'The welcome was incredibly friendly. The visit was very inspiring and a lot of fun. We networked with Sam Sheffield from the Game Lab and Jason Sloan from the Interactive Arts Department and now have a lot of plans to move forward with an exchange.'

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"HAW goes USA" strategy: The USA has been a strategic region of HAW Hamburg since 2006 and a beacon of the internationalisation strategy. There is now a network of fourteen HAW Hamburg faculty members in a total of 37 US-German network. The faculty exchange is supported by ISAP third-party funds, the "HAW goes USA" budget of the International Office and faculty travel funds: www.haw-hamburg.de/hawgoesusa

"HAW goes USA" strategy: Ingrid Weatherall, International Office