GEMINI’s UAlg Team joins forces with the EQUNI project

2024 Summer School on Emotional Intelligence

By Alexandre Condeças, August 29 2024

Concurrently with GEMINI, the University of Algarve is active member institution regarding project EQUNI – “Implementation of Effective Practices for Developing Students’ Emotional Intelligence with a Focus on Anti-Discrimination in European Universities”. Co-financed by Erasmus+, this initiative seeks to enhance emotional intelligence as a tool to combat discrimination and promote inclusivity within European academic environments. By empowering students, educators, and staff to become advocates for equality, the project strives to create a more inclusive university culture.

One of the project’s highlights was the “Empowering Academia for an Inclusive University” Summer School, held at UAlg from July 8th to 14th, 2024. This initiative attracted a diverse group of participants, including students, researchers, and staff from various universities. This mix of backgrounds fostered a multidisciplinary and international collaboration environment, enriched by the expertise of trainers from UAlg, Groningen (The Netherlands), and Lodz (Poland).

Due to the synergy between GEMINI and EQUNI’s objectives, both teams worked closely together with GEMINI’s team playing a crucial role in the planning and execution of key aspects pertaining to the event’s logistics and structure.

Thus, GEMINI’s UAlg team was actively involved in the development of the “Boxes in Our Mind” workshop, designed to explore the concept of categorization and stereotypes. This activity was firstly primed with a presentation on the underlying processes regarding stereotyping and discrimination, by Dr. Alexandra Gomes, during the opening session.

Following this, and over the duration of the Summer School event, in rotation with other planned workshops by the experts of the different universities, the group was subdivided into several smaller teams, with GEMINI’s and EQUNI’s UAlg teams in charge of the “Boxes in Our Minds” workshop.

Figure 1. Exercise 1. For this activity, the group was asked, while in pairs, which gender each profession would be more suited to. Following this they were prompted to discuss with colleagues.
Figure 2. Exercise 2. For this activity, each pair was asked to assign a profession to each of the people pictured. Afterwards they were inquired about the reasoning behind their choice and the overall group’s agreement/disagreement was noted.
Figure 3. For the final exercise, everyone was asked to reply to some questions (as pictured) individually. Following this, volunteers were asked to come forward with their ideas/experiences and these were discussed with the group.

This workshop consisted of a 90-minute contact period in which Dr. Alexandra Gomes, Dr. Joana Santos and fellow member Alexandre Condeças, conducted a series of interconnected exercises to consolidate acquired knowledge and incite discussion regarding stereotyping and its consequences. To do so the concept of gender roles regarding professions/jobs was explored:

Thus, harnessing the diversity of the group, this workshop made use of interactive exercises to highlight the impact of categorization and promote discussions on its effects both at collective and individual levels, facilitating the exchange of diverse perspectives, and contributing to the overarching goals of both GEMINI and EQUNI.

In conclusion, the Summer School was a resounding success, with participants remaining engaged throughout the week. The “learn while you play” methodology ensured that knowledge was applied to real-life contexts, fostering long-term understanding and encouraging change in areas such as discrimination, sustainability, and the state of academia. Additionally, the event fostered new connections and collaboration opportunities, sparking healthy debates and curiosity about various fields, including the role of the GEMINI project at UAlg and across Europe.

Read more about the project EQUNI on the project website: https://equni.eu/.