How We Get Involved

As an event pro­ject ma­nager, I serve as the bridge be­tween the or­ga­niz­ers – usual­ly depart­ments or uni­ver­sity staff, some­times ex­tern­al part­ners – and the many teams across the uni­ver­sity that are in­volved in mak­ing an event run smooth­ly. Tech­no­lo­gy, in­fra­struc­ture, co­or­di­na­tion: I know the pro­ces­ses, the res­pon­si­bi­li­ties and some of the stumb­ling blocks along the way.

Pro­jec­tors, mi­cro­phones, sound sys­tems – it might sound sim­ple, but it rare­ly is. Where should the speak­er stand in the lec­ture hall? How should a panel dis­cus­sion be staged? Is there enough power in the room for ad­di­tion­al equip­ment? Do we need high-vol­tage con­nec­tions or spe­cial set­ups? I co­or­di­nate all of this with the Event Ma­nage­ment team, which is part of Fa­ci­li­ty Ma­nage­ment on City Cam­pus. There are 14 of us work­ing across the City and Oer­li­kon cam­pus­es. We work in two shifts and are usual­ly the first to ar­rive in the morn­ing and the last to leave at night.

Be­yond the day-to-day busi­ness, I also work on va­rious con­cepts, for example seat­ing plans for dif­fe­rent teach­ing spaces. Ac­ces­si­bi­lity is another key issue. We’ve de­ve­loped a con­cept that we can apply when­ever need­ed. There are now good tools for auto­mat­ic live cap­tions dur­ing talks, for example. Another as­pect is the place­ment of wheel­chair users: we set up de­di­cated spaces for them at va­ri­ous places in the room, rather than put­ting them all in the back row.

What I like about my job? Every day is dif­fe­rent. I start at seven in the morn­ing, ans­wer e-mails, check event set­ups or work at our ser­vice desk, where we lend out equip­ment such as web­cams, head­phones, ca­me­ras and speak­ers. In the af­ter­noon, I work on con­cepts or look for ways to im­prove pro­ces­ses. When I’m sup­port­ing even­ing events, the day can be long. Still, com­pared with the pri­vate sec­tor, the num­ber of even­ing and week­end events is quite ma­nage­able. That’s some­thing I ap­pre­ci­ate as the father of two school-age children.

One of the chal­len­ges is that I some­times have to turn down ideas for safe­ty reasons. The fire di­sas­ter in Crans-Mon­tana has once again shown how im­por­tant these re­gu­la­tions are. My ap­proach isn’t to say “no,” but “no, but.” I try to sug­gest a suit­able al­ter­na­tive so that or­ga­niz­ers stay mo­ti­vat­ed. My job is to help make ideas hap­pen with­out los­ing sight of the rules.

When I re­ceive po­si­tive feed­back after a suc­cess­ful event, it means a lot to me. One example that stands out is the Una Euro­pa Ge­neral As­semb­ly held at UZH in 2024. It in­volved a great deal of co­or­di­na­tion both in the lead-up and dur­ing the event it­self, but in the end, every­one was happy, and par­ti­ci­pants from across Europe praised how well or­ga­nized it was. In mo­ments like that, I know exact­ly why I en­joy my job.

We are Aneschka and Chiara, both 22 years old, both Ba­chelor’s stu­dents – and both deep­ly in­volved in stu­dent life at the Uni­ver­sity of Zur­ich (UZH). We work at the Im­puls­fa­brik, the cen­ter for stu­dent en­gage­ment. That means we help stu­dents who want to build their own pro­jects or or­ga­ni­za­tions. When people ap­proach us with an idea, we as­sist in its im­ple­men­ta­tion, giv­ing ad­vice and help­ing with con­crete prac­ti­cal mat­ters such as book­ing rooms or rais­ing funds. We aim to be an ap­proach­able con­tact point where stu­dents can simply come and ask questions.

One of our key pro­jects is the Ac­ti­vity Fair. Twice a year, we turn the Licht­hof into a big plat­form where stu­dent or­ga­ni­za­tions can pre­sent their work to other stu­dents. Stands, con­ver­sa­tions, chance en­count­ers – this is where the things we want to pro­mote hap­pen. It’s all about peo­ple com­ing to­gether, mak­ing con­nec­tions and may­be try­ing some­thing new.

Another event we co­or­di­nate is the an­nual FV/Stud­Org Day. This is when we in­vite mem­bers of stu­dent or­ga­ni­za­tions and as­so­ci­ations to ex­change ideas and learn some­thing new. After all, stu­dent as­so­ci­ations are an im­por­tant part of cam­pus life.

The best part of our work is the peo­ple we in­ter­act with. Every week, we get to meet stud­ents who are truly pas­sion­ate about some­thing. There are as­so­ci­ations for all sorts of things, inc­lud­ing cod­ing clubs, cul­tur­al or­ga­ni­za­tions host­ing events show­cas­ing their home coun­tries’ he­ri­tage, and groups fo­cus­ing on spe­cif­ic in­te­rests – whether that’s avia­tion, cro­chet or dance.

Getting to see this va­ri­ety and the vi­brant cul­ture on cam­pus is high­ly mo­ti­vat­ing. When some­one ap­proaches us and says, “Thanks to your ad­vice, we were able to make this event hap­pen,” or “We found new mem­bers,” we’re pleased to see how our sup­port makes a difference.

It isn’t al­ways easy, of course. We’re ba­lanc­ing our own stu­dies, our part-time jobs at the Im­puls­fa­brik and our in­volve­ment in va­ri­ous vo­lun­teer pro­jects with­in and be­yond UZH. That re­quires good time ma­nage­ment and fle­xi­bi­li­ty. Luck­ily, we make a good team, not least be­cause of our dif­fe­rent fields of stu­dy: Chiara is a stu­dent of in­for­ma­tics, and Anesch­ka stu­dies geo­gra­phy and po­li­tic­al sci­ence. Our exam pe­ri­ods ty­pi­cal­ly don’t over­lap, so that means we can share the load when one of us has more on their plate.

Why do we care so much about stu­dent en­gage­ment? We be­lieve that it is cru­cial to have a space be­sides your stu­dies where you can try new things, un­wind and con­nect with others. Stu­dent or­ga­ni­za­tions are places for com­mu­ni­ty – and of­ten, friend­ship. At the same time, there is so much to learn: how to or­gan­ize, com­mu­ni­cate, take res­pon­si­bi­li­ty. And it all hap­pens vo­lun­ta­ri­ly, mo­ti­vat­ed by in­te­rests and pas­sions – not grades or exams. You don’t ne­ces­sa­rily have to form your own as­so­ci­ation or launch a ma­jor pro­ject; some­times, in­vest­ing a little bit of time is enough. There’s some­thing for every­body to do be­yond stu­dy­ing, and UZH has so much to offer.

“I consider myself a sort of hybrid. Per­haps that’s the best way to de­scribe my work at the Uni­ver­sity of Zu­rich: I work be­tween re­search and ad­mi­ni­strat­ion, be­tween stra­te­gies and se­mi­nars. Some­times, that puts me out­side of the pro­verb­ial box. But that is exact­ly what makes this role so ap­peal­ing to me.

I’m respons­ible for sus­tain­able de­ve­lop­ment in re­search and edu­ca­tion at the Sus­tain­abil­ity Hub. In ad­di­tion, I con­duct my own ex­ter­nal­ly fund­ed sus­tain­abil­ity re­search in the field of suf­fi­cien­cy. Sus­tain­able de­ve­lop­ment isn’t just a buzz­word, it’s an am­bi­tious ethi­cal and so­ci­etal guid­ing prin­ciple. Ul­ti­mate­ly, it’s about con­serv­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal re­sources and en­sur­ing equit­able ac­cess for every­one – as well as the eco­no­mic and so­ci­etal changes that this requires.

Higher education insti­tu­tions face chal­len­ges on mul­tiple le­vels. In the realm of re­search and edu­ca­tion, new con­cep­tual ap­proaches ge­ne­rate new con­tent, new for­mats and new skill sets for aca­demia. Another im­por­tant ques­tion is how high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions not only ge­ne­rate know­ledge, but can also ef­fec­tive­ly con­tri­bute to so­ci­etal change. These fun­da­men­tal ques­tions of sus­tain­abil­ity re­search and edu­ca­tion are at the core of my work. I ad­vise re­sear­chers and teach­ing staff and con­duct work­shops in order to pro­mote these con­cepts with­in the university.

This work relies on inter- and trans­dis­ci­pli­nary for­mats in which know­ledge is not only con­veyed, but in which peo­ple work to­gether to find an­swers to so­ci­etal ques­tions. On a so­ci­etal le­vel, so­lu­tions can only be found when dif­fe­rent dis­ci­plines work to­gether; trans­dis­ci­pli­nary so­lu­tions arise through dif­fe­rent forms of know­ledge pro­vid­ed by so­ci­etal stakeholders.

In the study week en­titled Sus­tain­able De­ve­lop­ment and Trans­for­ma­tion, which we de­ve­loped at the Sus­tain­abil­ity Hub and con­duct in part­ner­ship with the School for Trans­dis­ci­pli­nary Stu­dies, stu­dents from a va­ri­ety of dis­ci­plines come to­gether and work with ex­ter­nal part­ners to ad­dress the so­ci­etal chal­len­ges posed by sus­tain­able de­ve­lop­ment. I also care deep­ly about the Sus­tain­abil­ity Now pub­lic lec­ture series, which is co-or­gan­ized by the Right Live­li­hood Cen­tre. The se­ries in­vites speak­ers to the uni­ver­sity who bring their own ex­pe­ri­ence, know­ledge and world views to the table.

Another ex­cit­ing en­deavor is our Real­Trans­form pro­ject, which serves as an ex­pe­ri­men­tal plat­form across four higher edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions. It brings se­ve­ral dif­fe­rent per­spec­tives to­gether: stu­dents, re­searchers, ad­mini­stra­tors and stake­hold­ers from so­ci­ety. At UZH, 12 peo­ple par­ti­ci­pate in this group, work­ing on a spe­cif­ic topic: sus­tain­able nu­tri­tion. As an aca­dem­ic pro­ject ma­na­ger, I don’t make uni­la­teral de­crees along the lines of, “You’re go­ing ve­ge­ta­rian for a year now.” On the con­tra­ry – par­ti­ci­pants are en­couraged to find out what sus­tain­able nu­tri­tion means for them and what mea­sures they want to take. It’s a shared, open pro­cess that also ex­plores the role of the uni­ver­sity with­in society.

My role as an ac­com­pa­ny­ing re­searcher is ob­ser­va­tion­al and re­flec­tive – I want to un­der­stand what con­di­tions make these kinds of co­ope­ra­tions flourish. Will this re­sult in new in­sights, new ideas, new so­lu­tions? I’m ex­cit­ed to find out. It’s sort of an adventure.”

How can re­search be nar­rat­ed in a way that moves peo­ple? How can know­ledge not only be un­der­stood, but ex­pe­ri­enced? What role do aes­thet­ics play in en­abl­ing last­ing in­sights? How can know­ledge be trans­formed into an ex­pe­ri­ence? These are the ques­tions I deal with.

I head a small, ef­fi­cient ex­hi­bi­tion ma­nage­ment team with­in the of­fice of Cam­pus Cul­ture. We de­ve­lop ex­hi­bi­tions in which the ge­ner­al pub­lic can ex­plore re­search con­duct­ed at UZH. We’re also in­volved in events such as the an­nual Dies aca­de­mi­cus ce­le­bra­tions. Our great­est strengths are our uni­ver­sity-wide per­spec­tive, our long-stand­ing ex­pe­ri­ence and our abi­lity to pro­duce seam­less results.

I re­ceive the con­tent for each ex­hi­bi­tion from re­sear­chers at UZH. This in­cludes im­por­tant and of­ten com­plete­ly new aca­dem­ic in­sights which need to be pre­sent­ed to a broad audi­ence. I’m in­volved in every step of the cre­ative pro­cess, from the first ideas to open­ing day, and I handle the con­cep­tual and or­ga­ni­za­tion­al planning.

Once the con­cep­tual frame­work is es­tab­lished, ques­tions of stag­ing can be nar­rowed down. Where should the in­for­ma­tion pa­nels be placed? Where would me­dia ele­ments such as pro­jec­tions or spot­lights have the great­est im­pact? Which colors, ma­te­ri­als or tex­tures de­fine the at­mos­phere of the space? Thanks to the tech­nic­al in­fra­struc­ture in our work­shop, we can create de­tail-orient­ed ex­hi­bi­tions in an eff­i­cient man­ner. Most ele­ments are fa­bri­cat­ed in-house – in­clud­ing made-to-mea­sure dis­play cases and their fur­nish­ings, all color-co­or­di­nat­ed to match the over­all de­sign concept.

Details make all the dif­fe­rence. For our Be­nin bron­zes ex­hi­bi­tion, we used paint free from fumes that might harm the ar­ti­facts. For tex­tiles, we make sure the light­ing doesn’t bleach the fabric.

It’s im­por­tant to me that vi­si­tors ex­pe­ri­ence our ex­hi­bi­tions through mul­tiple senses. Some­times, I can spot vi­si­tors stop­ping in their tracks, ex­chang­ing thoughts or be­ing vi­sib­ly touched. Ex­hi­bi­tions not only trans­fer know­ledge; they can also form con­nec­tions – be­tween peo­ple and to­pics, but also be­tween the uni­ver­sity and the ge­ner­al public.