Javad Gholami
Aktualizēts 23.09.2019 10:17
Name and surname: Javad Gholami
Age: 46 years
Gender: Male
Sending higher education institution and country: Urmia University, Iran
Receiving higher education institution and its country: Daugavpils University, Latvia
Study subject: Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Urmia University
Mobility period: 2019/08/20 – 2019/08/26
Given my cooperation with Daugavpils University for over five years and my involvement with the Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability, I was very eager to visit this university and meet a good number of people whom I worked with over this long period. I also looked forward to running a two-session interactive seminar with the staff and PhD students on this university on scholarly publishing and academic writing and got very pleased to see the active participation and enthusiasm of the participants in it. Moreover, the presentation by Dr. Anita Pipere entitled “Envisioning complexity: Towards a new conceptualization of educational research for sustainability” was very insightful and relevant to me and my colleagues on envisioning a bigger picture of education and research for sustainability. Dr. Dzintra Iliško also gave us a very informative lecture on the two journals published in the Faculty of Education and Management, Center of Sustainable Education at Daugavpils University. The meeting with the chancellor of Daugavpils University was very fruitful and definitely it would lead to further joint projects and initiatives between the two universities. I felt much honored to pose for a picture with the chancellor with reference to my entitlement to the Honorary Doctorate degree from Daugavpils University in recognition of my cooperation with this university. I think Urmia University has gained more recognition and opportunity for cooperation with an outstanding European University and what we gave and received through this event could help my university to grow and progress further and internationalize it further.
Throughout this trip, we lived through Latvian culture, traditions, history, and education system. The visit to the Aglona Bread Museum with its, unique, vibrant, and living environment built and run by a single family was very eye-catching and exciting. I got very moved by the visits to the War Museum and the Garden of Destiny where I learned about the Second World War and the history of Latvia. The whole program went very smoothly apart from visa hassle. As for the presentation challenges, English language proficiency of some of the participants was not good enough for interactive activities and tasks. I hope similar programs occur with other universities in Europe. For future Erasmus participants, I advise them to consider joint presentations with the staff from the hosting university.
Finally, I feel obliged to extend my appreciation to all those figures from Daugavpils University, namely Dr Dzintra Iliško, and Ms. Velta Dilba for all the arrangement, planning and hospitality. Special thanks go to the Rector of Daugavpils University, Prof. Irena Kokina for her support and encouragement.
