AUP Highlights On Campus

Technology and the Human Future

How can we use technology for good? From algorithms used in hiring practices to new roles for AI in psychotherapy, humanity’s use of technology poses complex ethical conundrums. Can an algorithm calculate human worth? Does data stifle or accelerate creativity? Have technological solutions to the Covid-19pandemic eroded our civil liberties?

The Presidential Lecture Series, organized by the Office of the President and coinciding with theUniversity’s 60th anniversary, sought to respond to such questions, covering topics as diverse as higher education and drone warfare.The series took a forward-looking approach, engaging with emerging and evolving questions of technology and ethics. Speakers included former CMP of Spotify Seth Farbman; AssistantDirector-General for Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO, Gabriela Ramos; and French mathematician and politician Cédric Villani.

The series coincided with the initial intake of graduate students for the MSc in Human Rights and Data Science and strengthened a universitywide initiative to engage with the challenges surrounding the ethical use of evolving technologies.

Global Explorers Go the Distance

At AUP, community matters – not only do global explorers support each other, but their compassion extends across the City of Light. Shortly after Heather Strassel ’22 arrived atAUP for an MSc in International Management, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. “At any other university I would have had to drop out,”she says. “The fact that I was able to stay inFrance speaks volumes about how much AUP community members care about each other.”

Heather received radiotherapy treatment at the Institut Curie, one of the world’s leading cancer research organizations. Following her time in the hospital, she worked with breast health educator Madeleine Bell and the AUP CARES club to ensure community members had the opportunity to participate in the institute’s France-wide athletics initiative, La Course des Lumières. The 2021 event took place on November 20 and saw participants either walk four kilometers or run ten kilometers along the banks of the Seine.

Team AUP arrives for the Course des Lumières

The response from the community was overwhelming; students, staff and faculty members came together in solidarity with Heather and other cancer survivors across France. “There was this great energy on the day,” says Heather. “I really hope we can make it an annual AUP event.”

Alumna Leads Community Collection for Ukraine

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, alumna Eleonora Balkina ’20 quickly organized. She spearheaded, along with student Stefan Levchenko and alumna Anita Maksymchuk ’20, a university-wide collection of funds and resources to help those crossing the Ukrainian border into Romania. Eleonora teamed up with the Office of Physical

Activity and Self-Care to provide three donation boxes in the lobby of the Combes Student LifeCenter: one for medication, one for clothes and one for canned food. She also organized an online fundraiser, which raised over €2,500 for further medical supplies and protective gear.

Donations collected in the American Church in Paris

Elsewhere, the Office of the President organized a roundtable discussion in support of Ukraine, where AUP faculty presented different disciplinary and geopolitical understandings of the war. The event also saw an AUP professor and student speak directly from the border in Poland about their work with refugee relief efforts.

Six Generations of Global Explorers Unite

AUP stays with you for life – and alumni are always welcome back on campus. To celebrate the 60th anniversary, graduates from across six decades returned to Paris for AUP CommunityWeekend. The four-day event, organized at theUniversity, was the largest on-campus reunion inAUP’s history. It consisted of workshops, lectures and evening soirées designed to celebrate 60 years of our global community.

One highlight, the “AUP Then and Now” panel, saw members of the Founding Classes meet with current students to discuss what has (and hasn’t) changed about the AUP experience. Alumni from the ’60s who attended the panel spoke fondly of study trips to the French Alps and Mont Saint-Michel. “Sitting side by side with the first generation of AUP students was very refreshing,” said Sandra Lefaure ’21 and G’22, a current student who spoke on the day.“It helped me see how AUP has changed, while always keeping its original essence.”

A huge thank you to all who attended or volunteered at this fabulous reunion event.You can stay up to date with our alumni event calendar by visiting the AUP Global events page.

Share Your Spirit

Time to cheer for the home team. During Founding Week in March, our on-campus community celebrated Spirit Day – a new, university-organized annual event giving everyone a chance to wear their AUP colors with pride. Students, faculty and staff wore AUP blue and red and could stop by the Spirit Day booth in the Combes Student Life Center to take fun snaps in the AUP photo booth or participate in a campus-wide scavenger hunt to win gear with AUP’s bold new logo. Meanwhile, alumni hosted 13 different Founding Week events in cities around the world, uniting in celebration of what it means to be part of the AUP community.

Alumni Give Human Rights Talks

One of the key components of the AUP master’s curriculum is the opportunity to engage directly with experts and practitioners working to address global challenges. Those experts often includeAUP alumni. As part of the MA in Diplomacy andInternational Law and the new MSc in HumanRights and Data Science, students now have the option to take part in AUP’s Summer Institute forHuman Rights – an exciting new annual capstone program, which includes a lecture series hosted by practitioners in the field of human rights.

Speakers with diverse specializations addressed students on topics such as religion and human rights, global plans for eliminating gender based violence, and rights-based approaches to digital services. Boriša Falatar ’00, Caroline Klaeth Eriksen ’08, Alex Phuong Nguyen G’12and Charlotta Blomqvist ’17 all spoke as part of the program. Graduate student Ilka Rodriguez’22 said the lecture series was an enriching academic experience: “The speakers’ input undoubtedly helped us see things from new perspectives and discover the ways in which human rights intertwine with other fields.”