AUA Delegation Visits Central European University
3 min readVIENNA, Austria — During the week of April 15, a team of American University of Armenia (AUA) staff traveled to Austria to meet with counterparts at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna. The objective of the trip was to exchange knowledge and best practices for each institution’s respective media lab, as both universities have received grants from the Office of American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for the development of their media labs. AUA was represented by Chief Communications Officer Narek Ghazaryan and Media Lab Operations Manager Stepan Sargsyan.
The AUA Media Lab was established through a $813,135 grant from the USAID/ASHA that was awarded in October 2021. Construction is underway, with the Lab opening forecasted for June 2024. The Lab aims to strengthen democratic culture, promote the development of a civic press, foster citizen engagement in social media, and advocate for the proper discernment of information. In 2023, the CEU Library Media Hub was upgraded and expanded thanks to a generous award from USAID/ASHA. The Media Hub is the home of the Mirabaud Media Lab and Audio Lab (recording studio and mixing suite), a resource for students, faculty, and staff to produce and edit multimedia projects such as documentary films and podcasts related to their scholarship and research interests.
The AUA delegation’s visit was facilitated by Lauren Chitty, Program Analyst at USAID, who had visited AUA and toured the Media Lab site in October 2023. Following her travels to CEU that same month for the CEU Library Media Hub upgrade ribbon-cutting ceremony, she put both institutions in touch in order to facilitate a productive exchange of experience.
Indeed, the AUA team’s visit to CEU proved a fantastic opportunity for colleagues to network from different parts of the world to discuss common challenges and solutions, as well as identify avenues for growth. The AUA delegation participated in a number of on-campus meetings with CEU colleagues, including Media Hub Technology Specialist Adam Hushegyi, who warmly welcomed and hosted them, as well as Jeremy Braverman, head of the CEU Library Media Hub and media and visual education specialist, and Tara Stone Medina, development officer at CEU. This allowed the AUA team to see their colleagues in action and understand the various facilities and tools at their disposal. A key finding from the meetings was how to utilize the AUA Media Lab as a student resource, integrate it into the academic curriculum, and develop workshops accessible to the broader community beyond AUA.
“Building the AUA Media Lab has been a truly rewarding experience, and the visit to CEU helped affirm our vision for AUA’s Media Lab. At the same time, we acquired much useful knowledge from our colleagues’ experience that we will surely implement into our local Media Lab’s structure. This visit was organized at the perfect time as we are in the construction process and can still make final adjustments,” said Ghazaryan.
During its tours of CEU, the AUA team met with Thomas Aichinger, audio education specialist at the CEU Library Media Hub who also runs his own professional sound studio, to discuss the acoustics of AUA’s Media Lab. He offered useful advice for configuring the acoustics in the University’s Lab, which has been shared with Gravity LLC, the company carrying out the renovation works. Ghazaryan and Sargsyan also met with students, including one Armenian student, who shared their experiences using the CEU Library Media Hub and the procedures that enabled them to make the most of what the lab has to offer.
“We were very pleased to host the AUA representatives,” said Braverman. “It was a great learning opportunity for us at CEU as well, especially given the common characteristics of our institutions. AUA is building a great facility with their Media Lab, and we were happy to share our experiences to help with that process. And, of course, none of it would have been possible without the generous support of ASHA and the connection facilitated by Lauren Chitty.”
AUA is grateful to USAID/ASHA for providing financial support for the University’s important Media Lab project and to its counterparts at CEU for their warm hospitality and sharing their expertise and best practices.
Founded in 1991, the American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia, affiliated with the University of California, and accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission in the United States. AUA provides local and international students with Western-style education through top-quality undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs, promotes research and innovation, encourages civic engagement and community service, and fosters democratic values.
