On the rationale behind Mobiliversity

Students, faculty members, rabbis, colleagues working in the administration Lauder Business School is a space, where people of different ages, professional experience and cultural backgrounds spend considerable shares of their lives. Lauder Business School attracts a significant number of students coming from abroad, very often outside the European Union, who speak languages other than German. This makes us quite unique in comparison with other institutions in the Austrian tertiary education sector. Yet this plurinational and plurilinguistic setting is but an example of increasingly globalised study and work relations.
The past two decades have seen two rivalling approaches, one might also talk of ideologies, to face the new realities of transnational mobility and migration. On the one hand, multiculturalism advocates the uncritical celebration of differences. On the other hand, the proponents of assimilation call people who differ from the majority population to forfeit their identities and fully blend with the host society. The former, multiculturalism, failed to establish a common normative ground, on which differences could flourish and conflicts emanating from differences be settled. Conversely, assimilationists seek to impose the norms of the more powerful group onto weaker minority members. It is safe to say that both multiculturalism and assimilation did not keep their promise.
The diversity approach offers a third way, by creating an inclusive environment where each individual with his or her peculiar identity can thrive. It should likewise promote a space, which is regulated by common rules of the game to tackle diversity-induced challenges and, if necessary, to solve conflicts.
The Mobiliversity project, which is co-funded by MA23 of the Municipality of Vienna, engages with the diversity of transnationally mobile students, faculty and researchers. We examine diversity challenges at the levels of the LBS campus (microcosm), the urban space of Vienna (mesocosm), and vis-à-vis Austrian public authorities (macrocosm). The project comprises teaching, research and outreach components (e.g. the workshops, the focus groups, Variety Fair). Our objectives are to further develop the Mobiliversity workshops, to facilitate the transition period for incoming students and thereby increase their quality of life and study output, to reach out to cooperation partners, and finally to produce a handbook and video tutorials on the most intriguing questions of diversity and academic mobility.
Diversity challenges our conventional wisdom. It can disturb and cause conflict. It enriches our minds and makes life more interesting. It needs thought and negotiation. Certainly, it calls for more sophisticated responses than blind celebration of difference or outright rejection of the other. (EK)

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