Ceu students
In memoriam prof. Dragan Klaic
on behalf of Raluca Pop, Diyana Yosifova, Marta Lis and Rania Salah Seddik
We greatly regret the leaving of Dragan Klaic and would like to share our thoughts about the way his teaching approach and the curriculum of the cultural policy stream contributed to our way of understanding policy and the cultural realm.
As he said in the video made for the CEU, his vision of culture was a transversal one, and cultural policy was not an isolated domain, but one which reached out to many different ones, like urban and rural regeneration, education, human rights and gender equality. This was made visible in all the courses he had taught. Based on his thorough professional experience and reflective, theoretical apprehensions, he challenged us to think beyond the strict limits of the arts and heritage fields. The courses shared with the History and the Sociology and Social Anthropology departments prove even further his commitment to a deep embedding of a sound understanding of the cultural dimension within other societal aspects, and thus the need for grasping other facets of policy in culture. Although for many this would be considered the normality, his approach was genuinely innovative within the academia. Cultural policy education is a novel terrain in Europe, most so in the diverse and unified Europe resulting after the fall of the Iron Curtain, with so many differences and situations in the cultural realm and society at large. It is a great merit of CEU and Dragan Klaic to have decided to challenge both cultural professionals interested in public policies, and their peers, to share impressions and research interests in the way this MA was thought-out.
From our experience, this proved quite a healthy and nurturing thing to do. As we moved forward outside of the academia, we realize that culture indeed is not an independent and autonomous realm, but an horizon deeply connected with the rest of society, and that the policies affecting the arts and heritage are as many as anyone can think of: from health policies to energy and rural development, to urban planning, education and youth policies, culture matters, both as an object and as a subject of implicit or explicit presence. Dragan Klaic realized that and, although, deeply concerned for the state of arts and heritage, and the status of artists and cultural professionals, he always provoked us to think about the relation between the arts and other areas, such as, to use other example, sustainability, accountability or the innovations brought by the new technologies.
We would like to express our gratitude to his personality and teaching, and also support the continuation of the cultural policy stream at CEU from 2012 onwards, as we believe that it provides an added value both to future culture professionals enrolled in the Public Policy MA, but also to the students, exposed to another side of policy, perhaps more fluid and challenging for research, but essential for the nurturing of social bonds and personal happiness in societies.
In the end, we would like to add our personal testimonials about Dragan Klaic, his approach and the cultural policy stream within the Public Policy MA at CEU.
Diyana Yosifova
When I came to study at CEU I did not have any particular aspirations for cultural policy, but was rather open and curious to all the nice surprises this institution has to offer. My encounter with the late Prof. Dragan Klaic and cultural policy was the best surprise. The Cultural Policy Stream was unique in so many ways – first and foremost, of course, his inspiring vision and personality, but also the practical policy viewpoint combined with the collaboration and perspectives of the other Departments (History and Sociology), as well as all the students in the stream, very few, but extremely enthusiastic and passionate about it. As a teacher and as a supervisor, he was very demanding, but supportive and inspiring in the same time, which really made you go beyond the already written in reports and articles, do your own high-quality research and choose carefully each and every word in each and every paper. As an FDI Scholarship holder I covered the Decentralized Governance Stream as well and can tell that even from this standpoint, Dragan Klaic welcomed the idea of combining the two and supported my intention to elaborate my thesis on decentralization in cultural policy. I believe that this is a perfect example about his transversal vision of culture and ability to look at it from all the possible policy perspectives. Because of all that I can certainly say that my encounter with Dragan Klaic, with cultural policy and the other students taking the classes, was my most cherished experience at CEU.
Marta Lis
I met Dragan Klaic first in CEU when he was teaching a course "Key Concepts of Cultural Policy", certainly one of the most demanding (in terms of amount of contribution demanded from students) but also the most though-provoking and interactive of all the CEU courses I have attended. Having had no previous cultural policy experience I've clearly seen then during this class how needed is the cultural policy dimension among the plethora of others. Prof. Klaic has thought me to critically think about the connections of cultural policy to sustainability and climate change, my main areas of interests, the cultural policy stream I perceive the best organized both content-wise and in it's practical dimension of the available Public Policy streams.
Raluca Pop
I first met Dragan Klaic in 2009, during the CEU summer school he led together with Milena Dragicevic-Sesic. Back then, I was working as a consultant for the Romanian CCP, a position that was bringing me both great satisfactions and frustrations. Always demanding, but also extremely sensitive to my experience, interests, personality and aspirations, he lead me to think at culture and cultural activism in a critical and more substantial way, pointed out resources where I could get more inspiration and information and encouraged me to carry on. Later, in 2010, when I had finally decided to apply to the MA at CEU, his vision and personality were the main reason for the choice. The choice of courses and the embedding of culture within other spheres of interest were completely overlapping with my own observations and intuitions from the work I had previously done working with the Romanian public administration, EU institutions and cultural operators. The experience of the MA did not prove least disappointing. Indeed, it was a wonderful time, with much to learn and get inspired. Furthermore, my final thesis that he was also so much excited about, was a thrill and much needed reflective and theoretical exercise. I am deeply thankful to all his work and inspiring personality and the fact that he pioneered another vision of cultural policy at CEU, and that I was a part of it.
Rania Salah Seddik
One of the main reasons I applied to CEU was the Cultural Policy stream. I believe it is a great value add to the department of public policy and the continuation of such a stream is a great asset to the future of the department and proves its uniqueness and the diversity of the specializations it is offering.
When I received an offer from CEU and before I accepted it, I checked the faculty profiles and I checked Prof. Dragan and although I was really surprised and impressed by the great profiles I checked, I just wished Prof. Dragan becomes my supervisor since he was the only one I thought that have expertise in what I’m interested in and that proved correct. When I met him and asked him to be my supervisor and told him about my business in exporting Egyptian crafts at risk and my future NGO in the field of crafts, identity and heritage and that I want to write my thesis in the topic of crafts but at the same time, I have no interest in writing and it is really hard for me to write. He was very supportive and understanding and wanted to make it easier and more doable for me and suggested that I write an action plan about crafts which is more practical and closer to what I want to do in life. I loved his confidence and how he supported me and how he was flexible and cared more to help me do something I’ll benefit from later rather than to just fulfill an academic requirement. And when my arm was broken and when I went back home for the revolution, he really showed me love, care and support that I’ll never forget, he really did.
I also loved how he managed to excel in both academic and policy field; he was really a master in both. He had a huge experience running and supervising and designing different cultural institutions and policies and plans and yet he also had great passion for teaching and research and creating new generations of cultural policy practitioners. He had a mission and he lived all his life making it true. His legacy will never die with the tons of students he left behind but yet it has to continue with the recruitment of new highly qualified faculty that will carry on. There are so many talents in the world and I trust the selection of our faculty.
