Heads' Meetings 2002
EAAE/ENHSA Meeting of Heads of European Schools of Architecture September 2002:
"Towards a Common European Higher Education Area"
The EAAE Council invites the Heads and the Academic Programme Coordinators of all European Schools of Architecture to the Fifth Meeting of Heads of European Schools of Architecture, which will take place in Hania , Greece from the 4th to the 7th of September 2002 . The Meeting will be hosted, as in every year, by the Center of Mediterranean Architecture and will take place in its newly refurbished listed building at the city's Venetian harbour. The Heads' Meetings were initiated by the EAAE four years ago and have constituted an important milieu for communication and dialogue between Heads and Programme Coordinators of Schools who manage and decide upon academic issues concerning Schools of Architecture in Europe .
The Fifth Meeting of Heads opens up a new era as this time it is supported by the European Commission through a Socrates funded programme. The Thematic Network has been called ENHSA, which stands for European Network of Heads of Schools of Architecture. The participants of the Third Meeting of Heads in 2000 had suggested that the EAAE had to attempt cooperation with the European Commission so that the outcome of these Meetings could be close to the European decision making centers, and could influence the respective national ones. In response to this suggestion, the EAAE took the initiative to schedule the creation of this Thematic Network in the framework of the EC Socrates Programmes. Officially for its first year the network has as partners the Schools of Architecture from the eligible countries for the Socrates programme which participated in the Third Meeting of Heads (9.2000). The Network is open to all Schools of Architecture that wish to join in.
ENHSA started its operation at the beginning of 2002 with the aim to support European Schools of Architecture in the light of their accession to the common European Space for Higher Education. According to the Programme, this support consists of the collection and dissemination of information related to the state-of-the-art in architectural education and the undertaking of initiatives for the development of dialogue between Schools of Architecture. In this context, the Fifth Meeting of Heads is an EAAE event, which is complemented by the actions of ENHSA.
It was indicated in last year's Meeting of Heads in Hania that the perspective of Schools accession to the Common European Space for Higher Education is a particularly complex undertaking which confronts Schools with new basic academic issues and questions in relation to the education of the architect, but also to new ways of managing such issues and questions. A great number of schools of architecture encounter the perspective of this accession with optimism, perceiving it as the streamlined liberation from already worn out educational practices, while others are sceptical, understanding it as an adaptation process, and, therefore, as a commitment to an unfamiliar and imposed decision. In any case there are common and urgent issues such as: the compatibility of studies and the respective Diplomas, the formation of a broadly accepted set of criteria for the definition of quality in architectural studies; The facilitation of student, staff and ideas mobility between schools; The preservation of the identity and the unique characteristics of each school in its given social, cultural, academic and legal context. All Schools of Architecture are, therefore, invited to offer innovative insights by suggesting new programmes and pedagogic practices, as well as new administrative initiatives and policies.
The issues to be discussed at the Fifth Meeting of Heads are described in the agenda included in this issue. Heads and programme Coordinators are kindly asked to contribute to its finalisation by adding and suggesting more issues to the existing sections (contact us)
