“This international partnership is a testament to our vision for the College and our efforts to create opportunities for an exceptional student experience,” Flagler College President John Delaney said.
Both institutions made plans for collaboration and exchange on multiple fronts upon entering into the agreement.
This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) expressed a mutual commitment and “intention to facilitate the development of scientific and educational cooperation, to foster advancement in teaching and research, and to enhance educational and cultural understanding.”
"The cooperation between Ansbach University of Applied Sciences and Flagler College is an important step towards global education and promotes intercultural exchange,” Ansbach University President Sascha Müller-Feuerstein said.
Ansbach University’s main campus is located in its namesake city of Ansbach, Germany. The University also has satellite campuses in four other German cities. Of these, Ansbach’s Rothenburg campus is already the focus of Flagler’s plans for academic exchange.
Established in 2016, this satellite campus offers “practical studies with a regional focus” in the concentrations of Gastronomy & Tourism, Trade & Services, and Production & Crafts.
These concentrations complement several programs that make Flagler College so special. Namely, plans for collaboration through Flagler’s Strategic Communications, Marketing, Hospitality & Tourism Mangement, and International Business programs are front and center of this partnership.
The MOU underscored several keys areas this partnership will concentrate on including joint research and programming, student and faculty exchange, and the sharing of academic materials.
During Fall 2023, the College will welcome five Ansbach University students to campus along with Ansbach Professor Johannes Hahnlein who will instruct courses in Digital Marketing, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Ahead of the formal MOU signing, the College also sent Business Administration Professor Allen Barclay as Flager’s first visiting faculty member at Ansbach where he taught International Business and Strategy.
“Students will have the opportunity to learn from highly qualified faculty and develop their skills in an international environment,” President Müller-Feuerstein said. “The exchange of professors also creates an interdisciplinary dialogue and an exchange of expertise.”
Much like St. Augustine, Rothenburg is not your average college town. This German town, which was established in 1274, is historically rich and culturally vibrant.
An academic partnership with this satellite campus is a natural fit for Flagler with academic programming that similarly capitalizes on the benefits of living in a hub of tourism and commerce.
“The idea of Ansbach University is to be an international campus and to seek relationships with other countries,” Mayor of Rothenburg Markus Naser said.
The roots of this fitting MOU emerged out of a different German academic partnership with the University of Würzburg.
Rothenburg’s Mayor Naser is a former professor of History at Würzburg where he participated in a 2016 faculty exchange with Flagler College through the partnership. It was a pattern of exchange established through personal connections of Flagler’s Professor Timothy Johnson, who lived in Germany for his graduate work and time as a Fulbright scholar. This eventually emerged into a thriving student exchange program.
One element of Flagler’s partnership with Würzburg included the development of a virtual interdisciplinary course called “Monuments and Memories,” that could be instructed synchronously across continents to students from both institutions. The course was created amid pandemic travel limitations but has proved valuable to make global collaboration more accessible.
“Monuments and Memories,” which dives into the cultural intersection between historical monuments and the memories we associate with them, is taught by a rotating set of professors from each school with varying areas of expertise.
“What developed was fascinating, and very quick,” Johnson said.
Johnson said Flagler and Würzburg students responded very well to the collaboration they could achieve through the breakout room discussions which followed the weekly presentations.
“Students began to make connections with each other,” he said. “And this, of course, is absolutely fundamental when you’re trying to promote international understanding and dialogue.”
Johnson said these unlikely connections that the students formed made the summer 2022 trip to Germany more than just a capstone to the course. It was a chance for the students to meet their new friends in person.
“Imagine how exciting it was for everyone when we arrived in Germany because they already knew each other,” he said. “This is much different from other study-abroad trips where you just arrive in the country without any prior knowledge.”
During the trip, Johnson and his students were also able to visit Rothenburg. Thanks to his Flagler connection, Mayor Naser gave the group a personal tour of the town, “opening all kinds of doors” for their day of exploration.
As mayor of Rothenburg, Naser has a close working relationship with the President of Ansbach University. Because of his affinity for Flagler College and desire to support Ansbach’s goal of establishing more institutional partnerships, Naser played a significant part in opening the door for Flagler’s newest relationship of academic exchange.
“Würzburg is the cornerstone of how this new relationship is emerging over time,” Flagler’s Dean of Tallahassee Campus and Continuing Education, Wayne Riggs said. “We learned how we want to partner and structure a new relationship with Ansbach.”
In addition to partnering as one of the lecturers for Professor Johnson’s “Monuments and Memories” course, Riggs participated in a Würzburg faculty exchange during the Fall of 2021 where he met Naser and had initial discussions of the potential for a partnership between Flagler and Ansbach University.
Focusing on new programs, Flagler’s partnership with Ansbach University differs from its partnership with Würzburg University which focuses more so on the Humanities and Social Sciences.
“We haven’t had that type of University to interact with in the past,” Riggs said.
With an Ansbach partnership, Riggs said there are plans to mirror the flexible faculty and student exchange relationship we currently have with Würzburg and find programs that might be well-suited for courses conducted in a similar format to “Monuments and Memories.”
Reflecting on the development of this exciting new relationship, Naser said he wasn’t aware that a simple trip to Flagler College for a faculty exchange program would plant the roots for what’s developing today.
“In 2016, I didn’t think this would be the start of a long-time relationship,” Naser said. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance that turned out to be just the first step in a lot of future visits to St. Augustine.”
