The UOC - Open University of Catalonia - the Global Online University - Hosted the Inauguration of the Academic Year 2009-2010 for the Catalan University System

Barcelona, Spain, September 25, 2009 --(PR.com)-- The event, presided over by the President of the Catalan government, José Montilla, also involved UOC - Open University of Catalonia - The Global Online University - President, Imma Tubella, the Minister for Innovation, Universities and Business, Josep Huguet, and the Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for the Open University of Catalonia, Josep Vilarasau. The inauguration ceremony for the academic year, which was attended by the presidents of the Catalan universities and included a musical interlude from Maria del Mar Bonet, began with the presentation of a retrospective on the UOC's fifteen years from the University's General Secretary and Vice President for Technology, Llorenç Valverde.

The inaugural lecture was given by philosopher and professor Mustapha Cherif. Cherif is to direct the UOC’s Arabic and Islamic Studies. He is Docteur d'État des lettres from the University of Toulouse and Doctor in Sociology from the Sorbonne. He is an internationally renowned expert in intercultural dialogue, and was President and founder of Algeria’s Continuing Education University, Minister of Higher Education and ambassador to Cairo.

Entitled The Challenges to Understanding: A Bridge or Drifting, Cherif’s lecture calls for the strengthening of the role of universities in their mission to teach people to be critical, open, independent and free to reinvent shared values that aid mutual understanding, that help make people aware that borders no longer exist and that highlight the need for models that let us understand the singularities and subtleties of other people’s cultures to help us live together.

The ceremony also included the naming of the winners of the Jaume Vicenç Vives Award for University Teaching Quality by the General Secretary of the Catalan Interuniversity Council (CIC), Xavier de las Heras. The awards were handed out by the Catalan President.

UOC - Open University of Catalonia - The Global Online University, offers online courses in the languages English, Spanish, Catalan and French. For more information about the online courses offered by UOC visit the website TheGlobalOnlineUniversityUocEdu. For individual questions or enquiries, contact the training advisor team at +34 93 326 30 00, or send an e-mail to: queries@uoc.edu

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