EURAS Executive Board Meeting 2010

PROGRAM

22.05.2010, hr: 10:30 a.m
Dedeman Hotel, Şanlıurfa, Turkey

Participants:
1) Mr. Muzaffer Baca -EURAS General Secretary,
2) Mrs. Diana Gargano -EURAS Coordinator,
3) Dr. Hamlet Isakhanlı (Rector of Baku Khazar Üniversitesi)- EURAS Vice-President,
4) Mr. Agasi Mammadov (Head of International Relations in Komrad University)- EURAS
Vice-President,
5) Dr. Imran Akperov (Rector of Rostov University IUBIP)- EURAS Vice-President,
6) Dr. İsmet Zaatov (Vice-minister of culture of Crimea)- EURAS founding member.
Auditors:
7) Mrs. Zhanna Kashina (Head of International Relations of Kazan University)- EURAS
prospective member,
8) Dr. Timur Kozyrev (Senior Research Fellow in Taraz University)- EURAS prospective
member,
9) Dr. Aliya Rumansiyeva (Rector of Economic University of S.Petesbourg)- EURAS
prospective member,
10) Dr. Tansoltan Uzdenov (Dean of Economics in Circassian University)- EURAS
prospective member.

EURAS General Secretary, Mr. Muzaffer Baca, opened the EURAS Executive Board
Meeting 2010 and apologised for the absence of EURAS President Dr. Mustafa Aydin, due to
his adverse health conditions.

Using a Powerpoint Presentation, Mr. Baca proceeded to describe the main issues arisen in
the first half of 2010, being summarised as follows:

The need for member universities to cooperate in the framework of summer school programs, certificate programs, student exchange, training programs and the specific EURAS projects such as the Expert Roster, the Turkish language summer school and newsletter;

The need for member universities to keep in close contacts with EURAS Secretariat by exchanging emails, giving updates on their own conferences/events/activities, sharing proposals etc.;

The need for member universities to actively contribute to the website by submitting relevant information on their universities;

The importance of sharing contacts in order to expand the EURAS network;

The importance of paying the membership fee and to contribute to fundraising strategies.

Mr. Baca then presented the most recent accomplishments of EURAS: the submission of two
EU project proposals, the publication of EURAS catalogue 2010 and the second edition of
Turkish Literature and Culture Summer School program. He briefed the participants about the
new members of EURAS (the University of Naples the Oriental-Italy, the University of
Kwandong-South Korea, the Islamic University of Gaza-Palestine, Sapir College-Israel), and
about new cooperation opportunities with American universities (such as Johns Hopkins,
North Texas, Harvard, MIT) and stressed the need of intensify efforts in this direction. Mr.
Baca then brifed the partcipants about the next EURAS General Meeting that will be hold in
October in Bucharest at the premises of Christian University of Cantemir.

EURAS Vice- President, Dr. Hamlet Isakhanli then intervened in the talks. He declared to be
satisfied with the works that have been done so far and stressed the importance of including in
the Union as many European universities as possible. He also emphasized the urge of
promoting bilateral cooperation among EURAS universities in the framework of double
diploma programs in specific fields of study. Dr. Isakhanlı agreed with Mr. Baca on the
importance of strenghtening communication with member universities and proposed to
appoint a EURAS referent in each member university as to allow share of information with
EURAS Secretariat on a weekly basis.

After the intervention of Dr. Isakhanlı, Dr. Imran Akperov, Vice-President of EURAS
expressed his opinions about the recent developments of the Union. He stated that more
efforts need to be put on joint projects and that the communication system between EURAS
universities needs to be empowered. He claimed that the use of English as official language of
the Union constitutes a barieer for comunication, especially in those areas where the main
language is Russian. This is the main reason why communication may prove to be slower and
less efficient between EURAS and some Russian speaking universities. EURAS might then
consider to expand its working language to Russian in the future. Dr. Akperov then invited
EURAS Executive Board to join the annual Conference of Rectors of Private Universities to be held in the city of Soci on the 17th of July 2010. He also expressed his wish for Russian
Universities to strenghten ties with Turkish Universities.

Founding member, Ismet Zaatov from Crimean Pedagogical State University commented on
the current situation of EURAS, stating that remarkable progress have been accomplished in
the past year. He stressed the importance of research and development programs between
EURAS member universities and the necessity of uniting resources in order to generate joint
research projects on specific areas.

Mrs. Zhanna Kashina, Head of the International Relations office in Kazan University
(Russia), showed to the participants a Power Point presentation about Kazan University.
Kazan University was founded in 1804 and it is indeed one of the oldest and biggest federal
universities of Russia where honourable personalities such as Lenin and Tolstoy graduated
from. Kazan University holds close cooperation with Turkish universities and institutions
(such as TIKA – Turkish International Agency for Development) and every year around 40
experts from Turkey are hosted for academic exchange in different fields. Kazan University is
planning to organize activites in the framework of the Universiade 2013 in Kazan and most
likely will involve international partners from EURAS.

After Mrs. Kashina, Dr. Timour Kozyrev from Taraz University of Kazakhstan made a brief
presentation of his works. He is a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Strategic Studies
of Taraz University and every month the Center publishes a magazine (Central Asian Affairs)
in Russian, English and Kazakh and organizes conferences. Dr. Kozyrev declared to be glad
to share his publications with EURAS and to be involved in organizing joint conferences. He
said he will propose Taraz University to be a member of EURAS.

At the end of the meeting, the new EURAS catalogue was presented and distributed together
with the brochure of the Turkish Language Summer School 2010. The participants committed
themselves to disseminate the material in their universities and prospective members stated
that they will carry out EURAS membership procedures in their universities.