05-30-2022

New Project Manager: Christiane Hoth de Olano

Since May 15, 2022, Christiane Hoth de Olano has been the new project manager of the Uniservitate Hub for Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East. She studied German studies, history, and Hispanic studies for teaching at high schools at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and the University of Salamanca. After a year at the Central Institute for Latin American Studies (ZILAS), she decided on an academic career in 2016 and took a position as a research assistant at the Chair for the History of Latin America.

In 2018, she, together with Dr. Johanna Umbach, received the prize for good teaching in the category "KU profile." The goal of the project was to design an exhibition that includes 20 images of the Capuchin mission in Araucania, a region in southern Chile where the largest indigenous group of the country, the Mapuche, still lives. The subject of the project is the glass plate collection of around 1600 photographs from the mission of the Bavarian Capuchins (1896-1935), which is in the holdings of the Eichstätt University Library. The university library had the holdings digitized and fully integrated into the KU.media database in March 2018. The 15 students had the opportunity to develop the complete collection, create categories, and prepare it for a photographic exhibition. They gained insight into the work of archivists and librarians, were able to assume the role of researchers themselves, and were allowed to present their results to an interested German and Chilean audience. The competencies and skills promoted in the seminar, the close cooperation with university institutions, as well as the transfer and preparation of the results and the interdisciplinary design made the research-oriented seminar a successful teaching event, in which service learning played an important role. The exhibition was on display at the KU in the summer of 2018 before also being shown in Chile in 2019.

"When I decided to get involved in an educational project in Argentina after graduating from high school, I didn't know how deeply this experience would shape me! The willingness and conviction to get involved and engage in different contexts has accompanied me ever since. Besides research, teaching and transfer are two essential pillars of a modern and future-oriented university at the KU. Therefore, as the new project leader of Uniservitate, I want to further strengthen learning through engagement at the KU and make the KU more visible as a companion and multiplier of service learning worldwide. The Uniservitate network offers the best opportunities for this!"