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2006 Welcome Party

In the warm, late afternoon of Monday, July 3rd, the Budapest Room in the CEU Residence Center hosted the initiating event for the CEU Summer University program of 2006.

This year, fifteen CEU Summer University courses gather more than four hundred participants from sixty-seven different countries. Eva Gedeon, the SUN Executive Director, opened the event with an introduction of her staff: the people who had made the initiation of this year's CEU summer program possible.

Ms. Gedeon's warm welcome gave a dynamic and encouraging start to an exciting four weeks in Budapest, for the new arrivers as well as the veterans of the Central European University. She was followed by the opening remarks of Dr. Sophia Howlett, Dean of Special and Extension Programmes, CEU, and Dr. Lela Love, course director of Mediation and Other Methods to Foster Democratic Dialogue, present in the University's history for nearly a decade.

Each speaker connected with her audience uniquely. Dr. Howlett approached the professional levels of the Central European University, its current projects and developments, the grounds upon which the institution stands, while Dr. Love turned to the university's ideological paths with a mythological story of justice and communication. Where they came together was the heart of the institution: its ability to unify students, professionals and academics from all over the world.

Dr. Love emphasized the importance of the Central European University as a safe space of communication, learning and understanding upon the grounds of education which enforces diplomacy and tolerance even among cultures currently at war in the outside world. For an eleventh consecutive year, the CEU program has created a place where an open mind and love for knowledge will open the possibilities for a more peaceful means of resolving our differences.

With these remarks and a thunderous musical performance, the CEU Summer University 2006 program officially began. Vodku v Glotku, a Hungarian band with a style rooted in Central and Eastern European folk, hard rock and jazz, provided the entertainment for the evening. The group tempted its audience with only a taste before a pleasant candle-lit reception in the garden of the CEU Residence Center. The band's heartfelt performance left the guests applauding, humming and anxiously tapping their feet in eager anticipation of its return on the stage an hour later.

In the pleasure of company and true, panting European entertainment, this event left its guests with joyful spirits.