Aix-Marseille University celebrates its 10 “socially committed” years
The light of knowledge in the darkness of discrimination, ignorance, rejection of others. The formula is well chosen to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Aix-Marseille University, which has become the largest French-speaking university in the world during the merger of three universities Provence (U1), Mediterranean (U2) and Paul-Cézanne (U3) in 2012. The “Lights on AMU” event invites some 500 staff, students and partners to Cepac-Silo on November 22 to look back on the past decade. An opportune moment for Éric Berton, son president, who reaffirms the signature of a university “socially engaged”.
At the entrance to the Silo-Cepac, the blue and gold “Lumières” poster invites you to enter the Mamelles room of the former industrial building. Several groups formed, people met and shared a coffee. The walls are lined with photographs, taken for the occasion by Céline Ravier. Attentive students, researchers in their laboratory, gazes, reflections, creeks in the background. “I really wanted to put people at the heart of their environment”explains the journalist.
At 10 a.m., the guests join the performance hall, where comedians and singers usually flock. Eric Berton enters the scene first, with a serious and benevolent approach. For the president of the university, which brings together 80,000 students, he wants to retrace 10 years of history, which he presents as a play, but in five acts.
Act 1 : “we laid the foundations in 2012 to bring together knowledge and build a common destiny”
Act 2 : “in 2016 we anchored ourselves in the heart of a singular territory”
Act 3 : “In 2020, the time to awaken minds and get involved”
Act 4 : “Sharing knowledge in 2021”
Act 5 : “the obvious need to make the best use of our knowledge to contribute to making the future possible by youth with our socially committed signature”
A new service of respect and equality
Throughout his speech, the president emphasized a few strong actions. First, the creation ofa service dedicated to respect and equality to fight against discrimination in May 2022. “We recruited three professionals externally and full-time in order to create a one-stop shop to free speech, release it and solve problems”, Explain Isabelle Regner, the vice-president for gender equality and the fight against discrimination. In six months, the service made 92 referrals, compared to 20 per year with the previous service, effective since 2016 and which was based on the work of a lawyer for the entire university.
CIVIS, an alliance to make students travel
International exchanges during studies are a “real more” for employability. Or, “some young people censor themselves because they think international mobility is not for them”, explains Jean-Marc Pons, adviser to Éric Berton in charge of the Civis European civic university project. The goal of the Civis alliance, of which AMU has been one of the partner universities since 2019, aims to achieve 20% mobility among its students with a “short” mobility that can already put a foot in the stirrup for students who are allow them to travel.
The “Social lift” system for science baccalaureates
These questions of brakes are also present in the very idea of going to university. During the day, an alumni from “social elevator” system took the floor to share his experience. In high school, he was accompanied by an AMU team with a handful of other students. The goal is to support high school students, for six hours a week, to give them confidence and allow them to catch up with certain academic difficulties in science subjects. In the long term, the teams push to apply to the university and integrate a scientific license.
Useful links :
> AMU: The Faculty of Economics organizes its first forum on student entrepreneurship
> Eric Berton (AMU): “We place people at the heart of our policies” (4/4)