They Have Spirit, How About You?

CityU Slovakia student leaders and faculty talk plans
to boost university participation

Interviews have been edited and formatted for English translation and style.

A new crop of student leaders at City University of Seattle in Slovakia hopes to recruit more peers for the business university’s campus activities.

More than 1,600 students attend the Vysoka Skola Manazmentu (VSM) or Higher School of Management, at two campuses in Bratislava, the country’s capital, and Trencin, a city north of the capital on the border with the Czech Republic.

VSM became Slovakia’s first private school in 1993 shortly after the fall of communism and the country’s transition into a sovereign state, says Jan Rebro, CityU’s European Vice President of Operations.

Two student parliament groups in Trencin and Bratislava plan for more community volunteer opportunities, student parties, and language classes this spring. Other students say they’ll contribute by operating their own independent Web sites dedicated to VSM campus news.
 
Velocity writer Melissa Hoyos recently spoke separately with student parliament members, faculty, and a student Web site founder about campus life and future projects they hope to launch.

Velocity: What would you like people to know about student parliament? Describe your organization and why you got involved.

Peter Rigo, newly elected Trencin parliament president: We are a dedicated group of people who are here to help students and cooperate with other schools and people. Our power is in our passion and love that we have toward people and the environment. We are here to listen to everybody and to work on every idea and need that the school or the students have. We are eight members in the student parliament body — a president, vice president, financial manager, public relations manager, cultural and sport activity planner, and the other three alternate members.

Richard Kolozsi, Bratislava student parliament president: I wanted to make some changes happen. For me, the important thing is that we can bring change and make the school more enjoyable. Also, I see some problems the school should face and being in the parliament gives me an option to do something about it. We start with a kick-off meeting before the term starts to plan a calendar of events. During the term, we meet every Wednesday to coordinate our activities and distribute tasks.

Velocity: What type of new projects are you working on for the next trimester?

Peter Rigo: There are a lot of projects that we are currently working on. The most important one is to hold a new election for the college senate. We need the whole school to elect two students who are going to represent the school in the senate.

Second, we're putting together a French class. It is going to be a simple tutoring class on French. People who want to know a little bit French will have the opportunity to do so in the next trimester.

Third, we want to get the City University of Seattle Olympic games rolling again. A few years ago, these Olympic games were organized by the student parliaments of Trencin, Bulgaria, and the City University of Seattle in Greece. But for two years nobody has held anything. Now we have our contacts back, and we want to start the tradition again.

The one volunteer working program (we organized) was Green Day. Students of our school volunteered and cleaned the university grounds around the school and the streets of Trencin for more than three hours. It was a success. I just hope that in the future we will have more projects like this. It's not that easy to organize them… but we can make it happen I believe.

Richard Kolozsi: Currently, we are mainly focused on organizing various events. Some past parliaments have had complicated relationships with school administration but these days we have improved it significantly. We've been cooperating on the traditional welcome ceremony for freshmen and are co-organizing and marketing the event. Every year we help to promote a blood drive. We organized a toy drive for a local orphanage. In addition we organize “City Parties” for our students and sporting events, such as the summer and winter olympics.

We are trying to cooperate with Trencin. However, so far, we haven't been very successful. We expect this to change because of the recent election. I already made some contacts with people who initiated the change. We would like to make the summer Olympics a joint event so we can get more familiar (with Trencin members) and increase the cooperation. Also, since I got involved in parliament two years ago we have our own Web site, www.cuparliament.sk.

Velocity: Describe your role with student parliament or related student groups. Why is it important for students to have a sense of pride and ownership in their university?

Bozena Gajdosova, Trencin campus site director: I have assisted with student parliament and student groups in the past. We do like to support student-initiated efforts when we can. For example, we helped students to organize or sponsor some sporting activities and events, job fairs, blood drive days, and guest lectures. As a current example, one of our instructors of project management has enlisted the help of school management to act as ‘clients’ of her project management students as they work on the community-related projects. They presented their projects to us; we gave feedback, and also provided a small budget for each group. In addition to teaching practical project management skills, these projects have created a very positive feeling about the school, and we hope to develop this activity further in the coming terms.

Feeling a sense of pride and ownership in the school has been one of our greatest challenges over the years. Many of our students come from a distance and return home every weekend. They often consider themselves students between Monday morning and Thursday afternoon when classes take place. It's difficult therefore to instill such a pride since school is only a part of their lives.

Velocity: Describe your involvement with the student-run e-magazine/Web site Cukrik.com and your future plans. What is the English translation of "krik" in Cukrik?

Skuta Frantisek, Web site founder: Three years ago, when I started to attend the University, there wasn't a place like the Cukrik photo gallery. No place where photos of parties or events could be posted. Then, in 2006, I met student Filip Jerga who used to work in high school as editor-in-chief of his school magazine. I kind of persuaded him to create a similar thing here at CityU in Trencin. I knew how to a create a web site and he was editor-in-chief. Together, we formed Cukrik. I've been out for a year in Ireland so Cukrik was a bit forgotten (neglected) but I'm back now and trying to run it again. All of the articles are written by students.

Krik means screaming but Cukrik means candy/goody. We had been brainstorming the Slovak words that contained CU (for CityU). Then I stumbled upon the word ‘cukrik,’ and we agreed that such nonsense might actually be a fine idea.
 
My plan is to cooperate with student parliament and get the freshest stories posted on our Web site. I've already contacted Peter Rigo. Since I finish CityU in about a year, I've asked him if he wants to take Cukrik under the student parliament's wings. He agreed. A first priority is to keep Cukrik.com alive.
 
Norka Shedlock, Trencin BSBA/European MBA programs faculty member: I am the faculty liaison for the Trencin students who manage this online e-magazine. I help the students edit (the site) for accuracy and the correct the English grammar. Since I teach professional writing and public relations, I am the perfect fit for what they need in an advisor. I also like this link to student activities.

For those who know about it and use the site, I think it is an extra bonus for them to find out about what is going on beyond the “official” CityU sites they must access for administrative or instructional needs. Because the information is in English, it helps our students in both our English language-based degree program as well as our Slovak-language based program. Plus, it is always fun to see what topics students are currently interested in or to view the student photos that they take at their events.

Velocity: Skuta Frantisek has started to update the Cukrik Web site. What would be your advice to get students more involved in their university?

Norka Shedlock: I would tell them, ‘Don’t be lazy and look at the site.’ I know there are plans on the part of the e-magazine students here to get the site launched again and that they will be promoting it here in Trencin. I certainly promote it in my professional writing courses as well as in my public relations class where we look at it as a PR example for the City University of Seattle European site.

Bozena Gajdosova: The Web site has been a valuable communication forum among students. Students need a place to go to express themselves, and we can help them develop their approach to this kind of feedback. To explain further by way of example, here in Slovakia it is not typical to have things like end-of-course evaluations where students can give feedback about their classes and instructors. So they are not used to it at first. Often they express themselves inappropriately early on. We coach them and over time their feedback becomes more meaningful. The same may be said of Cukrik. Some of what is expressed there in the past was perhaps not appropriate or constructive but over time students are using this forum more effectively and it is becoming more beneficial.

By Melissa Hoyos, CityU Alumni Relations

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