News

Открытие нового учебного года

On 2 September an opening ceremony of a new academic year took place at the St. Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation. As is the tradition, freshmen were welcomed by the University and School officials: Vice-Rector Sergey Goncharov, Vice-Rector for International Affairs Sergey Shilov, School Director Irina Alexeeva, as well as by the School’s trainers and graduates. In fact the students have had a taste of School training even before the ceremony: the school day started early, and they have already had a class in translation before hearing the words of welcome. The new academic year is special in the way that six Kazakh students selected by the MFA of Kazakhstan for intensive interpreter training joined the crew. We hope that this record number of students (25) will ensure a year of fruitful and hard work.

3 июля 2013 г: Церемония вручения дипломов выпускникам Санкт-Петербургской высшей школы перевода

On 3 July 2013 a Jubilee Diploma Awarding Ceremony took place at St. Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation. As the tradition goes, the graduates were congratulated by Rector Valery Solomin and honorary guests from Russian MFA, European Commission, the UN and the City Government.

Several members of the Government and international organizations were awarded HerzenUniversity signs of honors. Thus, Alexander Prokhorenko, St. Petersburg Government Member and Chair of the Committee for External Relations, Marco Benedetti, Director General of the DG Interpretation of the European Commission, and Noël Muylle, Honorary Director General of the European Commission received HerzenUniversity medals “In recognition of the services in education and science”. Alexander Gorelik, Director of the UN Information Center in Moscow, Wolter Witteveen, Head of the Interinstitutional Relations and International Cooperation Unit, DG Interpretation, the European Commission, and Kirill Kasyanov, UN Coordinator on MoU were presented with Honorary Certificates of Appreciation from the Herzen Academic Board. The rewardees warmly thanked the Rector’s office for the honor. Marco Benedetti appreciated the University’s decision to apply for membership in international educational institutions – EMCI (European Master in Conference Interpreting) and CIUTI (Conférence Internationale Permanente d’Instituts Universiteres de Traducteurs et Interprétes). Noël Muylle stressed the importance of introducing a programme of Conference Management, a unique educational module meant to meet the growing demand for specialists in event management in the Russian language industry.

11 School’s graduates received Herzen diplomas and St. Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation certificates and were greeted with a round of applause. The graduates of earlier years also gave a welcome speech. Grigory Khaustov read a letter from Egor Ovcharenko, a School Alumni Associaiton Captain and a 2010 graduate now working at the Russian Translation Service in the UN Headquarters in New York.

A boat trip over the Neva river crowned the festive events of the day. The newly-minted interpreters and translators thanked their trainers in a mock Award Ceremony «Gold Diaphragm».

Май 2013: учебные видеоконференции с вузами-партнерами

Two videoconferences organized by St. Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation jointly with the MoU partner universities were a final chord to the 2012/2013 academic year.

On 27 May the telebridge brought together the students from St. Petersburg, ESIT (L’École Supérieure d’Interprèteset de Traducteurs) and the experts from SCIC, European Commission. The speeches were interpreted consecutively by the trainees from each school, and this allowed to compare the quality of interpreting as well as learn not only from experienced interpreters but also from the peers at ESIT. The topics varied from shale production to recreational hunting and races. The SCIC experts were satisfied with the quality of interpreting done by the School students.

On the following day another team of young interpreters from St Petersburg took part in the videoconference with the colleagues from the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, Geneva University. The trainers from both universities prepared speeches which were interpreted consecutively at each school. At our side the students not engaged in the actual conference interpreting practiced the same speeches simultaneously in dummy booths. A speech in Spanish done by the Geneva trainer gave our student a rare opportunity to practice this language in the simulated conference setting. All reports came under the single topic “The changing paradigm of the family in politics and society”, and such thematic unity proved to be a productive principle to build a conference on.

Герценовский университет заявлен в качестве образца по сотрудничеству с ООН и принимает следующую сетевую конференцию университетов, подписавших МоД с ООН в 2015 году

On 22-23 April 2013, First Vice-Rector Sergey Goncharov, Deputy Director of the School of Conference Interpreting and Translation Angelique Antonova and Professor Liang Cuizhen took part in the Third Conference of the Universities that have signed with the United Nations Memorandums of Understanding on cooperation in preparing candidates for the United Nations Language Competitive Examinations (MoU-Universities). The conference New Technologies and Education in the Multilingual World was hosted by Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), China. The wide range of topics discussed at the conference included quality control in interpreter training, requirements for the UN competitive language examination and related evaluation criteria, the advantages of “blended education” which includes traditional teacher-led classes and innovative virtual classes with the linguistic services of international organizations and partner-universities, as well as opportunities for the UN External Studies Program offered by partner-universities. Good practices of cooperation with the UN was the focus of special attention, and the St. Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation, Herzen University, stood out as a good example of successful cooperation.

The School Deputy Director Angelique Antonova gave a presentation on quality control in training for the UN, which opened a lively discussion among the Heads of the UN linguistic services, directors and trainers of the translation and interpreting schools.

The MoU Universities Consortium Executive Committee held a meeting attended by Jean-Jacques Graisse, Acting Head of the UN Department for General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM), Franz Baumann, the UN DGACM Assistant Secretary-General, Igor Shpinev, Special Advisor to the Acting Head the UN DGACM, and the representatives of the six MoU Consortium universities, one for each UN language. The Russian language was represented by HerzenUniversity and its First Vice-rector Sergey Goncharov. The meeting resulted in choosing HerzenUniversity as a venue for the next conference, considering its status as a leading institution for training interpreters with the Russian language, and the first Russian university which signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the UN.

At the conference, the School Deputy Director Angelique Antonova held a number of meetings with the Heads of UN linguistic services, resulting an agreement to broaden the School’s cooperation with the UN structures. Thus, starting next year, the School graduates will have a possibility to have their internship in the UN Office in Nairobi, in addition to the existing internship bases in the UN Headquarters in New York, and the UN Offices at Geneva and Vienna. Similarly, the School trainers now may have temporary contracts at the UN services in New-York, Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi.

12 апреля 2013 г.: учебная видеоконференция с Европейским парламентом

On 12 April 2013, the School held the first in a series of planned videoconferences with the Directorate General for Interpretation of the European Parliament. Our European partners prepared speeches, and the students interpreted them consecutively using note-taking techniques. This was the first VC when the students were provided with the opportunity to practice interpreting in all four languages trained at the School – English, German, French and Spanish. The topics ranged from the Great Train Robbery to historical relations between the USSR and Latin America. European experts and the School trainers jointly assessed the results. This virtual interaction with the interpretation services of major international organizations proved to be an important extension to the school curriculum. The students received external assessment of their performance from skilled interpreters which in itself carries an added learning value.