Student welcome speech at the Bruges campus by Rector MOGHERINI

On Tuesday 8 September 2020, Rector Federica MOGHERINI welcomed the students of the Mário Soares Promotion on the first day of their academic year with a very inspiring message. Some of the students followed the welcome speech live in Room E of the Paul Henri Spaak Building at Dijver, others did so from different classrooms spread over both our Dijver and Verversdijk sites, or from their room in the student residence. 

 © Stéphanie PARMENTIER

"You made it … in many different ways”, said our new Rector Federica MOGHERINI. "And together as a team, with the due respect, responsibility and solidarity, we can make this very special year the best of our lives. Because the difficulties of these days can be turned into elements that strengthen our shared sense of belonging to a family, our solidarity, our responsibility towards each other and towards this beautiful, amazing city that welcomes us in times when welcoming can be complicated. 

Many will refer to you as 'future leaders'. Don’t fall into the trap. Don’t wait for the future – start now. Be bold! The journey we start today is not only an individual learning process – it is a collective one, enriching each of us, and the world out there, not just you. This unique mix of competences, profiles, backgrounds, languages, cultures, this extraordinary diversity we represent, can contribute to the shaping of our common future much more than we realise. Because you (we) all come from – and will go to — different places. But there’s one thing we all have in common, and that brought us ALL here (students, professors, staff, myself): the passion for the European project. The determination to shape a better, more integrated, more functional Europe, from the inside, and from the outside, no matter what passport you have.

We are not only a laboratory of living together in times of pandemic, but are called to be the laboratory of the European Renaissance and most of all a laboratory for the future of Europe", stated Rector MOGHERINI during her welcome speech for the Soares Promotion. 
 

 

Rector's Welcome Speech, Bruges Campus.8 September 2020