“Today is a fiesta day,” said the president of Freie Universität Berlin, Professor Günter M. Ziegler. The festive occasion was the fifth anniversary of the UNAM Germany office at Freie Universität. The Mexican university has renewed the contract for another five years to maintain the connection between the two institutions at the International House of Freie Universität.

A whole folder full of documents – three contracts in total – had to be signed to formalize the agreement and extend the student exchange agreement between UNAM and Freie Universität Berlin. “Yes, it’s very German. But once these are signed, the fiesta will get going,” said Ziegler. The social program started soon after in the lobby of the Henry Ford Building, with a Mexican buffet as well as singing by a Mexican singer accompanied by a guitar.

For the first time, the rector of UNAM, Professor Enrique Luis Graue Wiechers, was also a guest at Freie Universität for the signing of the contract. His visit was quite an honor, as UNAM is one of the largest universities in Latin America with around 369,000 students. Graue said, “It is a pleasure for me to celebrate today the first five years since the opening of the UNAM office in Germany. The plurality of ideas from different cultures is valuable for universities from both countries.” In addition to maintaining contacts at Freie Universität, Graue also met with representatives of other German universities and research institutions.

UNAM has had its office at the International House of Freie Universität since 2018, but formal ties have existed since 1988, when the first cooperation agreement was signed. This is largely thanks to Marianne Braig, professor of political science at the Institute for Latin American Studies of Freie Universität. Professor Braig got to know and love UNAM in 1977 during a student exchange and has been committed to expanding contacts ever since. “UNAM is one of the most important universities in Latin America. We can be quite proud that it has chosen Freie Universität as the host location for its Germany office,” she said.

The cooperation takes various forms: In addition to exchange programs, there are scientific collaborations, including with the Botanic Garden, where, for example, there was an exhibition titled “Chili & Chocolate. The Taste of Mexico.” Furthermore, UNAM and the Institute for Latin American Studies at Freie Universität cooperates closely within the framework of the DFG-funded International Research Training Group “Temporalities of Future.”

In the next few years, the liaison office will focus on intensifying the exchange of researchers and students.

Among the guests in the Henry Ford Building were graduates like Johannes Lindmeier. The twenty-eight-year-old research assistant at the Department of Law (Public Law) at Freie Universität has already visited UNAM twice as part of a teaching mobility program funded by Erasmus+. “The campus resembles a city, which is of course a different world than Dahlem,” Lindmeier said. “The ensemble of buildings with sports facilities and open spaces was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It even has its own theater and museum. I gave lectures there on European law and on migration law.” Since he is married to a Mexican woman, Spanish was no problem for him. However, fluency in Spanish is not a prerequisite for participating in an Erasmus+ exchange.

“The exchange programs should be made more visible and expand,” urged UNAM Rector Graue. He is thinking about long-term ties and friendship between Mexico and Germany: “A five-year contract was signed – but we are actually looking at the next fifty years.”

---

This article originally appeared in German in campus.leben, the online magazine of Freie Universität Berlin.