Fourth Annual Conference, 5 to 7 November, 1992
Berlin, Germany
‘The Atlantic Link’ was the special theme of this conference, which concentrated on cooperation and exchange in higher education across the Atlantic. This theme was given particular focus by holding the 4th Annual EAIE Conference back-to-back with the annual conference of the Council on International Educational Exchange. Joint sessions on the Thursday afternoon gave delegates from each conference the opportunity to meet and learn about specifically European/American issues.
Of course Germany also played an important part in the conference with Berlin as the conference venue - a choice which proved to be highly symbolic. In his welcoming speech during the Opening Plenary, Manfredt Erhardt, Senator für Wissenschaft und Forschung, spoke of Berlin as a model for the process of growing together throughout Germany and all speakers addressing the plenary session stressed the role of education in overcoming divisive attitudes. The conference consisted of seven pre- conference workshops and 41 conference sessions, and the programme included a timeslot within which Professional Sections could meet. A new Professional Section, for European Educational Programme Coordinators (EEPC), was also founded.
On 8 November 1992, the day after the conference, a demonstration was held in Berlin against xenophobia and racism, issues which were addressed by several speakers at the conference. In the Closing Plenary, Dr Allan Boesak, Director of the Foundation for Peace and Justice and Chair of the African National Congress, Western Cape, said: “There is in many places an upsurge of a narrow kind of nationalism, an ethnicity, which is a decidedly dangerous phenomenon. Europe all of a sudden has to begin to learn again what Nelson Mandela tried to teach South Africans way back in 1961: There is no easy road to democracy”. Hans de Wit (University of Amsterdam), EAIE’s president-elect that year, closed EAIE’s fourth conference by appealing to conference participants to join the demonstration, because educating young people in a multicultural environment is the first and most important step in acknowledging the inviolability of human rights.