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The Pilot Course “Cultural Studies in Business” experience

August 14, 2020

Contemporary universities not only have to give students education in their chosen fields of studies but as well enable them to be a responsible part of society, to help them critically evaluate various issues in the rapidly changing contemporary world, enable them to indicate and solve various problems in their life and professional development. The pilot course “Cultural Studies in Business” at Vilnius Gediminas Technical Universities was addressing the topics of  “Managerial Communication”, “Creative Society”, “Social Responsibility”, “Everydayness Aesthetics”, “Cultural Studies” and “Leisure Studies”. The pilot course was bringing together the best experiences of professors in different although related fields. As the general introductory course “Cultural  Studies” and other subjects in humanities (such as Ethics, Philosophy, Aesthetics, Creative Writing, Sociology, etc.) are taught at university and in most cases are mandatory for freshmen’s it was important to create a new course which would bring cultural studies and business together.
 
The pilot course was taught by four professors from the Faculty of Creative Industries including prof. dr. Tomas Kačerauskas, assoc. dr. Jolanta Saldukaitytė, assoc. dr. Živilė Sederevičiūtė-Pačiauskienė and assoc. prof. dr. Viktorija Žilinskaitė-Vytė. All of these lecturers come from the project partnership. Each of them presented their own topics in the field of CSB.  Besides this, a guest lecturer assoc. prof. dr. Edvardas Rimkus was invited for the discussions about the relationship between technologies and culture. He does not come from the project partnership. In general, it is not a common practice for a course to be taught by few professors (although it does occur) but all coordination was smooth and clear. 

In addition, the structure of the course was inspired and encouraged not only by the close collaboration of local professors from Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (Vilnius Tech), but as well, and especially, by colleagues from partner universities. The critical approach to Cultural studies, in general, was brought up by Euro College Kumanovo (North Macedonia) and La Sapienza University (Italy) while issues in business and economics were constantly raised by colleagues from Wisdom University (Albania) and University of Split (Croatia). In addition, professors from UBI University (Portugal) many discussed questions put in the context of contemporary art and architecture. 

Overall the different experiences, different approaches to the same questions, intense discussions during the multiplier events consistently led towards the concept of the course introduced in spring semester 2020/2021 at Vilnius Tech. 

The course itself was very rich and broad. That was a big challenge for students as well. They had not only to get familiar with the material and topics presented by the different professors but to see the different, complementary as well as conflicting interpretations and approaches as well. Students were encouraged to form their own views and their own opinions. In this course, the enrolled students are from the study program “Entertainment Industries” in the Faculty of Creative Industries (group PINf-17/1, IIIrd course, 28 students). In the beginning, the meetings with students have been physical from 03.02.2020 to 27.02.2020. Later from 28.02.2020 to 29.06.2020, all classes had to move online (Zoom platform) because of the Covid-19. The course was mandatory, in total it had 40 hours, out of which 20 hours was lectures and 20 hours of practical work (seminars). 

During the semester students had to present the presentations. The course ended with the final exam, which included questions from each topic. At the end of the course, students were awarded with certificates and 6 ECTS. 
Overall, it was a positive experience for both, professors and students. It is possible that the course will continue and might be introduced to other students as well. At this moment there is no plan to change the structure of the course but if necessary, it can be made longer or/and offered not only for the Bachelor's students but also for Master's level students as well. 

 

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