Between June 25 and July 14, 2022, the second edition of the CHANCE Program in Romania took place at the University of Bucharest, organized by Penn State University and the University of Bucharest in collaboration with the CIVIS Consortium, of which UB is part.
Entitled “Global Conservation: Environmental Challenges Facing the Danube”, CHANCE 2022 brought together 10 students from the University of Bucharest and 10 students from Penn State University in the USA and meant, both for the young people and for Romanian and American professors who guided them during the three weeks of activities, an opportunity to learn new things on the Danube and water management, but also to establish close ties, which they are convinced will lead to future collaborations in the field.
Having a unique and complex format, CHANCE 2022 took place on several stages and included, on the one hand, theoretical activities and courses organized and hosted by the Faculty of Biology of the University of Bucharest and, on the other hand, a series of applied activities, carried out in the areas of Danube and the Delta. At the same time, the students traveled, in the last days of the event, to the Sinaia Zoological Station of UB and to the archaeological site of Sultana, in Călărași.
Divided into five mixed groups, the 20 Romanian and American students worked around five major themes as follows: Environmental Chemistry – Nutrient Overload, Ecology and Taxonomy – Aquatic Biodiversity, Land Use Changes, Water Quality and Microplastics and Microbiological Indicators of Water Pollution. More details on the complexity of the activities included in the program, on their day-by-day activities and on the professors involved are available here.
About all of this, about intercultural connections and exchanges, but also about how much these days influenced them both in terms of professional training and personally, we talked with six of the participants in the CHANCE Program in Romania, 2022 edition: Dr. Jacqueline McLaughlin, Professor of Biology at Penn State University and CHANCE Founding Director (since 2004), and professor Carmen Postolache, PhD, dean of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Bucharest and director of the CHANCE Program in Romania, as coordinator of the event, as well as with students Brooke Goggins, Samar Latefa and Austin Gaydos, from Penn State University, and with student Ana-Maria Arsene from the University of Bucharest. The video of the discussion with CHANCE 2022 participants can be accessed here.
As it can be seen in the video, given the success of the program, it will not only continue, but will also be expanded by joining several universities within the CIVIS Consortium. Thus, the 2023 edition of the CHANCE program will bring together students from the University of Bucharest and Penn State University and students from Aix-Marseille University, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Université Libre de Bruxelles, CIVIS member universities.