What inspired you to take on this year’s Staff Week? How does it connect to your own journey within Una Europa?
Melissa: The idea for the Staff Week emerged during the Una Europa Student Congress we organised in Helsinki in 2023. The Student Congress was a way to make Una Europa interesting and fun but also concrete for students, and break down some of the barriers that can exist in a university context. A key reflection afterwards was how important it is to also break down silos between students, staff, and academics to find ways of working together. From there, the idea developed to explore how pedagogical practices that are relevant for all of us could be brought into everyday work situations.
Thinking about my Una Europa journey, one of the things I find most exciting about the alliance is not just the intercultural and interinstitutional collaboration, but also the opportunity to look at our work in new ways. It’s been a really exciting way of rethinking my own role within the university. And I think this Staff Week reflects that journey.
Tomi: The Staff Week is very much tied to my Una Europa journey. I was responsible for coordinating the Vision and Action Plan for the Teaching and Learning Transversal Theme [which Helsingin yliopisto/Helsingfors universitet took the lead on]. I had already taken a somewhat daring route in putting students and the student perspective at the centre of the document and proposing what not just teaching but other university structures should consider in this line of thinking.
The opportunity to host the Staff Week provided a very fruitful way to reflect on the work we did for the Vision and Action Plan. It opened some gates in my mind: we were able to ask, again, this daring question – “How can we effectively include students in something called a ‘staff week’?”
" Students, professional services staff, academic staff…we have so many silos within universities. A transformative learning community is working across, outside of, beyond those silos to find the ways to do something together. "
Melissa Plath, Helsingin yliopisto/Helsingfors universitet
When you talk about a transformative learning community, can you explain to me what that means to you?
Tomi: First and foremost, I identify as a teacher – that's where my true passion lies. As a teacher and a lifelong student, for me the key element of a transformative community is that its members – regardless of their roles within the university – are actively motivated to look beyond their own perspectives and comfort zones. This means reflecting not only on what has enabled their own learning, but also on whether anything has been taken from others’. It involves a dual process: individuals examining and challenging existing structures and then acting on those reflections.
While the specific details of change may vary, at a broad level the defining feature of a transformative learning community is the willingness of its members to reflect and move beyond what feels comfortable. Learning isn't supposed to be comfortable – it's hard work.
Melissa: A specific element of what Tomi said that’s really important for me is the idea of transcending structures and boundaries. If you think about universities – and even more so an alliance like Una Europa – they have a huge number of the structures and boundaries that exist within.
Students, professional services staff, academic staff…we have so many silos within universities. A transformative learning community is working across, outside of, beyond those silos to find the ways to do something together.
" As a teacher and a lifelong student, for me the key element of a transformative community is that its members – regardless of their roles within the university – are actively motivated to look beyond their own perspectives and comfort zones. "
Tomi Kiviluoma, Helsingin yliopisto/Helsingfors universitet
The Staff Week emphasises learning communities 'for all'. How have you embedded inclusivity in the design of the Staff Week?
Tomi: For us, it’s about both inclusion and accessibility. We aim to bring together around 40 participants from diverse institutional and cultural backgrounds, as well as different ways of learning and being. At the level of the programme and workshops, we’ve already started this through the application form, and now that participants have been selected and confirmed, we do our best to incorporate their knowledge, expertise, and experiences into the content. This helps ensure meaningful participation and exchange.
We also try to avoid making the workshops too cognitively heavy. We were all adamant about not building a training seminar week of four days of sitting down, listening and taking in information. The structures of the individual days are accessible and inclusive for the individuals.
Our intern Candelaria, who joined the team this spring, also had a great idea: to include places beyond the university community but still within the wider city. This helps highlight spaces and opportunities where learning can happen across the whole community, of which the university is a part.
Melissa: We see inclusion here in the way we think about the university – not as the sole purveyor of knowledge, but as part of a larger community.
We want to situate the university within this broader context and view it as an inclusive space where the public can engage with it. At the same time, it’s important to note that early on in developing the idea, we felt it was essential to be inclusive in who we invited to take part. Students were an obvious starting point, but we also wanted to involve academics, so we could reflect the breadth our universities’ communities and of Una Europa. This way, we can make it community-oriented, rather than limiting it to staff.
What is the one principle or mindset you're hoping people will take away from being involved in the Staff Week?
Tomi: I hope participants gain inspiration and a sense of possibility for their future work – bringing both hope and flexibility into how they think.
Even though we work within institutions that carry historical baggage, friction, and rigid structures – which can often feel demotivating – I hope participants will feel that change is still possible. By engaging and putting in the effort, we can begin to shift those structures or at least find value in working toward that change.
More than anything, I hope people leave with an inspired and flexible sense of what the university can be, even if we can’t predict the future precisely. This feels especially relevant to the Una Europa journey: we’re in an ongoing process, and not always moving toward a clear or final endpoint can be frustrating. But being able to embrace that sense of possibility within the journey itself is powerful.
