Carolina Alfano from AEGEE-Salerno decided, after organising four Summer Universities (SUs), to run for Project Manager of Summer University Coordination Team (SUCT). The AEGEEan interviewed her to find out more about her and her candidature.
The AEGEEan: First of all, tell us some things about you. What do you do apart from AEGEE?
Carolina: I am an ordinary girl from the south of Italy, very active, who has lately realised what to do in her life. In fact, after studying history of art, having been in Spain for the Erasmus programme, studied cinema, this year I enrolled again at university with much clearer ideas. I am a freshman of Economics and Management and I am very happy to have gone down this road. I love my town, Angri, very much! For this reason, I am a member of a new association “Randoom” in my town, and with a good team of friends we are trying to give space and opportunities to young people.
What is Summer University to you? What was your best SU experience? What was your worst SU experience?
Good question! For many years I thought that the SU was “Hard work” because organising the SU in Salerno means dealing with various municipalities, university, other associations, youth forums and it is never easy. Months of emails, phone calls, meetings, and then comes the big day of the beginning. Anxiety soaring, participants to meet, and 15 days to spend together. This year, however, I joined the first SU as participant and my idea has changed. For me, the SU means to test myself during 15 days of extraordinary magic, it means to discover new places, an unknown reality, it means meeting new friends with whom to spend days, evenings, unforgettable moments.It is a unique experience, hard to describe and you can only live it intensely.
The SU, I think, is always a wonderful experience characterized by good and bad episodes. More than episode, a beautiful moment for me was one 
evening at the Welcome Party of “Not Just the Sun – Silver Edition” in 2013. We had spent the afternoon to prepare the castle for the welcome party, a spectacular location. I was destroyed to make that evening perfect, tired and out of energy and it was great to see the participants and organizers having fun, dancing, laughing all together. a great moment of personal satisfaction: my hard work had achieved its objectives.
A very bad moment was last year, during the summer when I was SU Coordinator. We organized a strange party in the gym, only for organizers and participants. And almost at the end of the evening I realise that my mobile phone was gone. It was charging it on the table, and it disappeared. I fell upon the world, I did not trust in anybody anymore, I left the gym for that night. Someone had been in the gym and had stolen my phone. I lost all the numbers, all the images of the summer, all the contacts. I was very disappointed because it was a private party and a stranger had ruined the moment.
Why did you decide to run for Project Manager? Why would you like to work on this project? How did organising four SUs prepare you for the task?
I evaluated my position very well beforehand: I have considered the things I can do, the years that I have dedicated to SUs and my motivation. AEGEE has given me the opportunity to get into the game, help me in my personal growth, learn, improve, and now it is time to give back what I have learnt. Manageing the SU project would be a real honor for me. In these five years in AEGEE I devoted most of my time at ‘NON SOLO SOLE’ SU and I think that now I have the necessary skills to take on this new challenge. The SUs as organizer in Salerno were my school: I learned to make mistakes, to accept it and learn to improve from it. So I learned to manage my role as team leader while remaining part of the group, to remain calm in face of difficulties, managing deadlines. I think I have passed the practical test with merit, I am ready for the next one!
What do you want to change from the current SUCT?
It is not easy, not being a member of the SUCT, to understand the dynamics that influence the strategy of the SUCT towards the locals. However, I believe the approach used to manage the project is somehow not considering all the difficulties and problems that each local has, such as available funding, relationship with institutions, number of active members, etc. All these factors put the local in an uncomfortable position which would discourage them in organising a SU. It would be beneficial for the project if there would be a much closer relationship between the SUCT and the locals. Understanding their issues, listening to their concerns is the way the SUCT should take when setting up a new strategy.
In your application you mention that you want to understand why a lot of antennae cannot organise SUs. How do you think this can be implemented?
As a first step, I would start defining the issues each antenna has in organising the SU. There may be common issues among the locals that could be addressed with a better strategy. Other issues would instead require a more targeted approach. Once the issues are defined we need to understand the causes and which could be the actions to take in order to tackle the problems. Finally I would propose some individual actions that each local can take in order to ease the organisation of an SU.
You also refer to a collaboration with Commissions and Committees. Explain to us how this collaboration can work.
As I wrote before I would try to understand the problems of the antennas in organizing the summer, try to find solutions and help and support them. It may help to write a manual of organization, management and promotion of the SU, an “How to Manage a SU”. A cooperation with the AEGEE committees, such as HRC or PRC, and the involvement of the Audit or Netcom commissions could help in supporting the SU organisers. The HRC and the PRC could support and help SUCT, sharing expertises and strategies, or collaborating to edit the manual. And Network Commissioners could organize more workshops about SU, or sharing best experiences and good advises during Network Meetings.
Is there anything else that would you like to focus on during your term?
The evaluations form could be implemented, with more details, it should be a very useful tool for locals. It should treat many more aspects. But I would like to compare my opinion regarding evaluations with the future members of SUCT, I think that working hard together we can do a great and good job. I can’t wait!
Written by Lia Tuska, AEGEE-Sofia/Thessaloniki
You can read her full candidature here.