The project aims to sensitize university staff to the inclusion of international students, mainly refugees and migrants from third countries, and to maximize inclusion processes. Thus, the opening up of the university is promoted in the sense of an inclusive self-perception and also internal processes can be reflected in this sense and possibly modified. The employees (primary target group) can improve their intercultural and communicative skills, e.g. in the context of counseling or teaching. The focus of the teaching and learning concept developed in the project is on concepts such as fair treatment (irrespective of religion, origin and gender), which can be linked to the current discourse of civic/citizenship education and didactics of social sciences. Refugees and migrants are the secondary target group of the project. They will benefit from the improved skills of the staff in the start-up and counseling centers of the universities. The role of counseling for (international) students is repeatedly attributed great importance (see HRK, 2018). The concept is based on the experiences of intercultural and civic adult education. There are many years of expertise in working with heterogeneous learning groups in this field. And it was often institutions of adult education that created educational offers for newcomers as part of the so called "refugee crisis". Methods and exercises from inclusive adult education are therefore adapted for the concept. In addition, concepts and contents of civic education are included in the project. In order to determine the exact need for the specific contents of the modules of the curriculum and to develop corresponding offers and exercises for the further education, a needs analysis in the national contexts at the universitiesis going to be carried out. Based on this, the partners develop the modules of the curriculum by exploiting their joint, partly specific expertise. The curriculum is divided into different modules: 1. Self-reflection on (conscious or unconscious) assumptions of refugees / migrants (civic education) 2. Communication strategies in consultation as well as in everyday exchange 3. (Inter) cultural diversity and intercultural learning These three form the cross-section modules that are relevant for all employee groups. In addition, the professional groups addressed require group-specific offers. These specific offers (for example, only for university teachers) are the content of a fourth module, which is made up of target group-specific offers. At a joint, four-day workshop, the concept will be tested together and critically evaluated within the project consortium. Here, groups of people from different levels of the universities (administration, teachers, student groups) should participate. This is also the start of a comprehensive practice-oriented evaluation phase, which in turn is divided into: Local evaluation phase: The project involves a total of five universities that carry out the evaluation within their own institutions. The employees previously involved in the workshop now function as "practical consultants" who, on the one hand, continue to transfer and disseminate the developed content, and on the other hand are actively involved in the evaluation process. (Over) regional evaluation phase: Thereafter, a transfer is made from the local to the (above) regional level, by evaluating the program with one more university each in the nearby area of the respective partner institution. For this purpose, an online course will be developed in the form of a webinar, which will facilitate access to (over) regional universities and provide additional feedback. The webinar will also be further developed as an independent output and thus contribute to a sustainable continuation of the project concept. The collected evaluation results and feedback from the participants ultimately lead to a didactically concept, which is made available as a handbook and digital manual in all partner countries. The distribution is thus national and EU-wide.
The project addresses the challenges and needs described above by providing a teaching/learning concept that aims to sensitise those different groups of employees at the university to the concepts of cultural diversity and social inclusion and to optimise processes of inclusion at the university. In addition to strengthening intercultural and communicative competences as they are relevant in the context of counselling or teaching, the teaching/learning concept also includes the teaching of concepts of political education and inclusive citizenship.
The immigration to Europe that has been taking place for decades, but also the increasing internationalisation of universities supported by numerous initiatives, ensure that universities are confronted with a heterogeneous student body. This presents universities with specific challenges. The number of newly enrolled students who have fled to Germany alone "has almost tripled in comparison between the current and the previous winter semester [...]", states a 2018 survey by the German Rectors' Conference. With the rising numbers, the tasks for the complex university system are growing. This not only affects the teaching staff in seminars and lectures, but also other groups of employees - from administrative staff and members of student groups to employees of the student union and university sports. The resulting challenges and needs of the various actors were the motivation for applying for the MUSIC project. The needs were surveyed in the needs analysis conducted at the beginning of the project. The results of this survey made the following clear: the central actors who contribute to a positive, culturally diverse learning and university climate are, on the one hand, the local actors in administration, teaching and student life and, on the other hand, students with a refugee and migration background and international students. The needs analysis made it clear that the three biggest challenges for students with a refugee and migration background and international students are communication, understanding and adapting to different education systems, and the lack of information about social integration and cultural diversity programmes. As the project mainly addresses the first group, the curriculum focuses on building competences to cope with the challenges faced by students with a refugee and migration background and international students, as well as on supporting successful integration into the university. The university system must therefore improve (intercultural) communication skills and the transparency of processes and requirements in both administration and teaching. In addition, a welcoming and motivating climate free of prejudice promotes social integration and cultural diversity for all participants.