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Like their European peers, UW-L students deal with concerns about sustainability on campus, affordable education and student involvement and diversity.
“Now that we are here, we can say that it is true — we have a connection on these topics,” said Johannes Bellermann, one of the German students.
The student government of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and UW-L’s student government decided to declare a formal partnership after Fred Ludwig, president of the UW-L Student Association, Bjorn Bergman, vice president of the Student Association, and Jay Lokken, UW-L’s director of international education, visited the German school during a tour of several European universities in November.
The partnership is about continuing to visit and maintain an international dialogue, Bergman said. The hope is to work together in the future on common issues, he said.
“We hope the small steps we are taking will pay off some day by creating the same network on an international level that we are already involved in on the state and national level,” Ludwig said.
While the student governments deal with similar issues, they also have separate issues and different styles of dealing with them, said Anja Engelhorn, another German student.
The German students have been taking to the streets in their country protesting a law that was passed last year that imposes study fees at universities, Engelhorn said. There is more willingness to listen to the student voice at UW-L than at her school in Germany, she said.
It is useful to see that a high level of communication between administration and students can work well here, Engelhorn said. And, it is good to see students here are just as concerned about social process and government policies as they are, Bellermann said.
The students arrived April 8 and spent four days of their 10-day visit in Madison. They attended the UW System Board of Regents meeting, had a tour of La Crosse and met the mayor, among other activities on and off campus.
KJ Lang can be reached at (608) 791-8226 or klang@lacrossetribune.com.
joe student wrote on Apr 17, 2008 3:18 PM: