The conference “Excellence (also) at feminine in UB. Towards an inclusive history of UB personalities” reunited over 40 participants

Between July 8^th – 9^th 2024, in the preliminary stages of the anniversary of the 160 years since the founding of the University of Bucharest, the institution organized the conference  Excellence (also) at feminine in UB. Towards an inclusive history of UB personalities.

The event, hosted at the Ion Mihăilescu amphitheater of the Rectorate of the University of Bucharest and available online, on the Google Meet platform, aimed to identify themes and relevant actions for the inclusive recovery of the history of excellence in the university and to contour the arguments regarding the need to recover and revalorize the excellence (also) at feminine in the current context, of a feminized  university, as was mentioned in the productive intervention of professor Bogdan Murgescu, PhD, vice-rector of the University of Bucharest for budgeting and Human Resources and teaching staff of the Faculty of History.

Feminine excellence in research was highlighted and sustained with actual examples through the intervention of professor Carmen Chifiriuc, PhD, vice-rector of the University of Bucharest for Research and teaching staff of the Faculty of Biology.

The conference was organized by an interdisciplinary team coming from the Faculty of History, the Gender Equality Plan of the University of Bucharest (PEG-UB) and the Museum of the University of Bucharest.

On this occasion, the organizers were joined, in hybrid format, by approximately 40 participants from various UB faculties, among which the Faculties of Letters, History, Sociology, Foreign Languages and Literatures, Journalism and Communication Sciences, Psychology and Education Sciences. At the same time, researchers from other institutions took part in the event.

Excellence was approached through the lens of performance, but not exclusively. It was pleaded, with arguments, the need for a re-conceptualization and extension of the concept of academic excellence.

The conference showed the existence of research projects in various stages and in various areas and persons interested in this area of research.

The presentations recalled names such as Amita Bhose, Nina Facon, Matilda Gusti, Ștefania Mihăilescu, Elena Pușcariu, Zoe Dumitrescu Bușulenga (and others), but the participants also pleaded for the recovery of a different type of excellence (often anonymous!) – in the context where 3 out of 4 employees from the administrative UB staff are women.

Thus, the secretary, the librarian, the porter, the janitor, the administrator have become main characters based on statistical date or incipient quality studies.

Also, the conference provided information on the actions regarding this field taken within the UNESCO National Commission, as well as those of other NGOs profiled on cultural recovery and publishing houses.

The conference also discussed about university ranking from the perspective of gender equality. The participants pleaded for the importance of oral history in recovering the contribution of women and the inclusive approach of the theme from an ethnic perspective, but also for the need to finance archive, documentation and research endeavors and to involve young students in interdisciplinary research projects.

The conclusions of the conference included the projecting of feasible future plans, among which: publishing a volume of the conference; initiating, in the near future, a publishing project regarding feminine academic profiles; identifying financing resources for future interdisciplinary projects; making the dialogue of this group of specialists a permanent activity; a new conference timed for March 2025.

More information about the event is available here. Also, the agenda of the conference Excellence (also) at feminine in UB. Towards an inclusive history of UB personalities is available here.