Hellenic American University President Leonidas Phoebus Koskos announced last Thursday the appointment of Dr. Themis P. Kaniklidou as Provost, effective July 1, 2021. Kaniklidou will replace Interim Provost Dr. Christine Niakaris, who will be retiring at the end of June after many years of service to the University.

Kaniklidou, who has served as Associate Provost and Director of General Education since January 2020, joined the University as a lecturer in 2008 and was appointed Assistant (2012) and then Associate Professor (2017) in Translation and Communication Studies. While continuing her teaching and her research interests in discourse analysis and communication, she held several key administrative positions at the University. For the last decade, she has been Program Director of the M.A. in Translation and Associate Director of the Ph.D. program in Language and Communication and has served as Chair of the Institutional Review Board and of the Academic Committee.

In addition to her broad experience in academic administration, Kaniklidou brings to the position first-hand knowledge of higher education in the United States. For several years Kaniklidou was visiting and part-time (2016-2017) lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and visiting scholar at Rollins College (Florida). She also chaired the standard on educational effectiveness and student success in preparation for the University’s 10-year reaccreditation by the New England Commission of Higher Education in 2017.

In his letter to the University community announcing the appointment, President Koskos noted that “Dr. Kaniklidou has proven herself to be a highly respected academic leader whose support and loyalty to all constituencies of the Institution have been evident in her everyday activities.” He expressed his confidence that in her new role as member of the University’s Executive Administration she would contribute to the institution’s growth and help “achieve its goal of being a leader and innovator in higher education.”

In describing her vision of higher education today, Kaniklidou speaks of the need for “a student-focused education of creativity, with opportunities for innovation and self-actualization” and underscored the importance of “equipping students with relevant, expert knowledge but also helping them cultivate ethical values and critical reasoning skills that will never grow old.” Among her priorities for the coming academic year are faculty development, curricular planning, and the institutional self-assessment that the University will conduct for the fifth-year Interim Report it submits to its accreditor, the New England Commission of Higher Education.

Read President Koskos’s announcement of Dr. Kaniklidou’s appointment.

Hellenic American University bids farewell to Dr. Christine Niakaris, Interim Provost and Professor in Applied Linguistics, who enters retirement at the end of June 2021 after many years of service to the institution. President Leonidas Phoebus Koskos announced Niakaris’s retirement in a letter to the University community on June 24th, in which he praised her commitment to student learning and faculty development, adding that “she laid the groundwork for Hellenic American University to solidify its educational footprint.”

Niakaris has been part of the University since its founding in 2004 while still Director of the Center for Applied Linguistics and Language Studies at Hellenic American Union. She played a key role in the design and launch of the M.A. in Applied Linguistics program, one of the first degree programs the University offered, and later served as its Director after joining the faculty in 2011. During her tenure as Director she spearheaded the redesign of the program to a fully online delivery mode. Since January 2020 she had been leading the University’s academic affairs as Provost.

A passionate advocate of in-service training, Niakaris has been committed to raising the professional standards of English-language teaching in Greece through her long career—and not only through her classes at the University. Many in the English-language teaching community came to know her through the popular EFL course books she authored and the countless training seminars she led for public- and private-sector teachers.

Image: Dr. Christine Niakaris, University President Leonidas Phoebus Koskos, and newly appointed Provost, Dr. Themis Kaniklidou. Photo by James M. Lane.

Hellenic American University is excited to partner with SAS Institute, a worldwide leader in business intelligence and advanced analytics in an innovative training project that aims to enhance students’ skills in areas such as big data, machine learning and predictive analytics.

Through this joint venture, SAS will share with University faculty and students modern teaching resources and learning materials and will provide them with free access to the SAS Academic Hub web platform and other relevant software.

The instructional content made available through the partnership has been incorporated into three new graduate-level University courses under the guidance of the Directors of the University’s Informatics and Business programs—Drs. Panagiotis Kalozoumis and Stavros Sindakis, respectively. The new courses are Text Analytics and Machine Learning, which has been added to the M.Sc. in Informatics program; Forecasting, a new MBA course; and Visual Analytics, an interdisciplinary course addressed to both MSI and MBA students—all areas of expertise in growing demand. The new courses will be offered starting Spring 2022.

As Kalozoumis points out, the courses offer realistic hands-on experience in business analytics. He says that “incorporating SAS courses in our MSI program will have a very positive effect on the professional development and career choices of our students as well as on the reputation of the program itself.” Part of the added value are the clear pathways that SAS has to certifications and badges, which he calls “important, additional micro-credentials that will enrich the CVs of our students.”

The 2022 Spring launch date gives faculty ample time to become acquainted with the SAS learning platform and instructional materials through the AI Minds Academy, a recent joint initiative between SAS Institute and the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV), Greece’s largest business network, whose members include 400 of the largest corporations in Greece. The AI Minds Academy seeks to accelerate the digital transformation of the Greek business ecosystem by educating students in the latest AI and data science technologies and by linking them with high-caliber job market networks.

The partnership idea grew out of discussions between Dr. Damian Giannakis, Associate Professor in the HAUNIV Business Programs, and Yiannis Papatsiros an HAUNIV alumnus, PMBA ’13 valedictorian and SAS’s Regional Lead for Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria. The concept was further developed with input from Elpida Kallia SAS’s Regional Go to Market Head.

Students, faculty, and staff members from the Athens and Nashua campuses came together on June 2nd to celebrate student research and excellence at the Annual Student Achievement Day. The umbrella event, now in its 10th year, includes the Annual Student Conference and the President’s Award Ceremony.

The first part, which is organized by the Research Institute, serves as a forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their research. This year’s program featured four undergraduate and six graduate presentations (program attached).

At the end of the session, the Research Committee announced the awards for the best presentations. Eleni Plemmenou, Sasa Rajicic, Ioanna Katsianaki and George Kassimis, all students in the B.S. in Psychology program, received the undergraduate award for their paper “The Psycho-Social Effect of House Tagging on Residents and Neighborhood Health & Safety Risks of Sign Tagging”. Eleni Kalpia Ilia (MAAL '19) received the graduate award for her research on “Designing and Using an Intercultural Awareness & Sensitivity Checklist to Evaluate Selected Greek EFL Textbooks”.

In the second part, the University celebrated the 2020 and 2021 award recipients for the Newman Civic Fellowship, the NH Campus Compact Presidents’ Awards for Leadership, Good Steward, and Community Partner, and the President’s Awards for Academic Achievement.

New Hampshire colleges and universities celebrated the recipients of the 2021 Campus Compact NH Presidents’ Awards at an online ceremony on April 14, 2021. Among this year’s recipients were Hellenic American University’s honorees for Leadership, Eleni Plemmenou (BSPsy ’22) and Good Steward Award, Miriam Siwale (BSBA ’12, MBA ‘15), and the humanitarian organization FAROS, which received the Presidents’ Community Partner award.

Campus Compact for New Hampshire (CCNH) is a consortium of New Hampshire college and university presidents dedicated to civic education and engagement. The annual Presidents’ Awards are just one of a diverse range of initiatives that CCNH and its member institutions, Hellenic American University included, pursue in promoting civic engagement and community service on campus. CCNH’s activities include student leadership training to advocacy and legislative outreach.

Eleni Plemmenou, the recipient of the Presidents’ Leadership Award, is president of the Hellenic American University Marketing Club and co-president of the Art Club, while also part of the editorial team running the Titan Chronicles newsletter. In 2019, she launched the Business Talks series, creating a mentoring network between HAU students and successful businesspeople. In 2020, she helped strengthen the social connection between the Athens and Nashua campuses through club events and in 2021, help introduce the “Boroume” organization to HAU and the Politis Civic Engagement Program.

University Registrar Miriam Siwale has been at Hellenic American University since 2006. She recently worked with Dr. Sofia Protopapa, Director of the Career Development Office on the EU-funded project Advancing Migrant Women and helped revamp the training material for a younger target audience. Since then, Miriam was able to work with youngsters from her church. Her goal is to be able to work with any youngster that might feel stuck and might need a gentle nudge to move forward.

Faros is a Christian humanitarian organization that helps unaccompanied children and refugee youth find safety, discover their worth, and build a future perspective. Believing that education is key to the integration of unaccompanied minors, Faros partnered with the Hellenic American Union and the Hellenic American College in March 2020 in order to give Faros’ youth access to higher education. The beneficiaries have free access to educational material, free registration for all English language proficiency tests administered by the Hellenic American Union, and free-of-charge tuition for classes leading to a General Education Degree (GED) through Hellenic American College/Hellenic American University.

Image: 2021 Campus Compact NH Presidents’ Awards

It is with deep sadness that we learned of Jan Blommaert’s passing on January 7th, 2021 at the age of 59.

Jan was an tireless educator, researcher and advisor and throughout his life gave numerous plenary talks, organized conferences and taught as visiting faculty in Universities all over the world. He published hundreds of academic papers in academic journals and gave our scholarly community books that fundamentally impacted the field of sociolinguistics: Discourse (2005), Grassroots Literacy (2008) and The Sociolinguistics of Globalization (2010). Jan was committed in uncovering the complexities of globalization and superdiversity and weaved in his analyses the critical role of language and discourse. His theoretical explorations were not without practical foundations and applications. Jan literally unearthed and analyzed data that he retrieved from various contexts and used it to explore issues like margins, immigration, diversity, minorities and above all inequality and power. Jan was an educator with immense enthusiasm for new ideas and projects, he was an social activist putting his knowledge into good use for society and an invaluable source of knowledge for anyone interacting with him.

Jan was an exceptionally brilliant mind and wonderful educator, who made significant contributions to his field and to Hellenic American University. Jan’s role in the PhD program in Language and Communication was outstanding, and his legacy will continue to live through his academic work, personality and educational achievements. Jan also played a leading role in our Europe in Discourse conferences. His memory will be kept alive by all his HAU students and colleagues. Months before his passing, Jan wrote on what is important in his scholarly life and reminded his students, colleagues and friends of the endless possibilities that learning with passion gives us. We share Jan’s account here (https://alternative-democracy-research.org/2020/04/20/what-was-important/). It is, we think, a wonderful tribute to Jan as a scholar and a human being.

Image: Professor Jan Blommaert at Europe in Discourse Conference

The Office for Language Assessment (OLA) of Hellenic American University is pleased to announce that its test centers in Europe and the US will soon be able to offer online test administrations, in addition to their administrations onsite.

The University prides itself on its close collaborations with leading international companies specializing in technology in education, as well as with its local test centers. Through these collaborations, online versions of its examinations are currently being piloted.

Online sample tests, as well as details concerning the format and technological requirements, will be made available to local test centers in 2021. The online versions of the examinations are designed to be the exact equivalent of the paper-based tests in terms of content and level, so that candidates can freely choose between the two formats.

Once the online tests become available, potential candidates should contact their local test center for more information.

A Message from the President of Hellenic American University on Fall 2020 Reopening

Update November 13, 2020

Dear Members of the Hellenic American University Community,

I am writing to update you on the University’s operations during this Fall semester and guide you through how we deliver classes and offer our academic and student support services. I also want to share updated information on our new services and resources that will help support and enhance your studies at Hellenic American University and aid in your personal and professional development.

Delivery of classes

In September 2020 the University welcomed new and continuing students with a main focus on safely delivering the best educational experience to our student body. We proceeded carefully to schedule classes in a way that de-densified our campus; while some classes took place online, others started on-site. As of November, however, the evolving pandemic forced our Athens campus to switch to a fully online modality. All classes are now being delivered online through live synchronous video session, supplemented with asynchronous sessions to support research and writing-intensive assignments. In delivering our courses and services, we comply fully with government directives and policy recommendations, as we have done since the outbreak of the health crisis. For the Nashua instructional location our Fall 2020 semester ended on November 8th and we are gradually preparing for the winter and spring sessions of our small-sized MBA classes.

Delivery of student services

Even before the outbreak of the health crisis, many of the services offered by units such as the Writing Center, Career Development Office and Registrar could be delivered online, and we encourage you to continue taking advantage of this opportunity.

Library

The Library’s digital collections of e-books and subscriptions to periodicals databases are accessible online for both locations. The Library at Hellenic American College (Athens) reopened at the beginning of the fall semester yet had to close for onsite visits in early November in accordance with regulations of the Hellenic National Public Health Organization. Our academic support system and library staff are working to make available textbooks for the winter and spring 2021 semesters.

Registrar’s Office and Financial Services

All student documents, except for official transcripts, can be requested and provided via email. For the Athens site, fees can be paid via e-banking or through direct deposits at the bank.

The Writing Center

The Writing Center will continue to offer online tutoring sessions (both synchronous and asynchronous via Blackboard and Teams) to all stakeholders on both sites. Onsite tutoring sessions are provided for the Athens and Nashua sites upon request. Students will need to inform the Writing Center beforehand when they plan to come to the Center’s premises to avoid crowding.

Office of Student Affairs & International Programs

The Office of Student Affairs in Athens continue organizing team building events in association with our 10 clubs. We are still investigating how these will be delivered, and decisions will be made in light of instructions from the public health authorities. Last semester, however, demonstrated that many student activities can be offered virtually, as witnessed by the success of the online workout sessions, master classes, seminars, and club meetings/events that were held in Spring 2020.

Career Development Office

All CDO services, including career counseling, CV feedback, and workshops, can be delivered remotely via emails, Teams and phone calls. You will need to book your appointment in advance. The CDO is now implementing? a new 4-year employability plan for all undergraduate students.

Counseling Center

The Center continues to offer members of the Athens community its services, including individual and group counseling, as well as monthly psychoeducational presentations and workshops, online.

Enhanced academic support

The University completed a major upgrade to the latest version of the Blackboard eLearning platform. As part of this upgrade, we have subscribed to Blackboard Collaborate, a web conferencing/webinar platform designed for use in online teaching. This allows us to set up and deliver synchronous video sessions, much as in Microsoft Teams and Zoom, and together with the resources in Blackboard, offer students a single-platform, integrated learning environment with all the tools and resources in one place.

In another development, the ACES peer tutoring program is now up and running. Following the selection and training process in February, we now have 6 peer-tutors, ready to offer their services to the student community. ACES tutoring will be available online for Nashua students.

Undergraduate Employability Plan

A new program of interactive workshops, presentations, career development projects is being launched for undergraduate students. Each of the four years of undergraduate study is devoted to a stage in the career development process, bringing students from self-assessment and career discovery to skills development and the practicalities of resumes, jobs searches and hiring interviews.

New Student Internships

Recent changes in the portal of the Hellenic Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (ERGANI) now allows firms and organizations to announce internships for students of private colleges as well. This is excellent news, as it allows us to leverage our network of business and professional partners to develop more internship opportunities for students—a long-standing student request that surfaced again during the recent Student Satisfaction Survey (SSS). Work is already underway to create the initial slate of internships for the B.S. in Business Administration and the B.S. in Informatics degree programs. We will also be expanding the range of clinical internships for M.S. in Psychology students.

Inquires for graduate internship opportunities in the US should be made to Nashua Student Services.

The Fall Town Hall Meeting

Apropos the results of the Student Satisfaction Survey, we have identified a set of high-priority issues that we will focus on addressing in the coming academic year. As you may recall, we intended to discuss the results of the survey and the action items for the academic year with you at a Town Hall. However, under the current circumstances we cannot hold the Town Hall on-site and are looking into alternative ways of sharing and discussing this information with you.

In the meantime, we remain vigilant to developments and draw strength from faculty and students who continue delivering high-quality teaching and learning while upholding our core institutional values.

Sincerely,

Leonidas Phoebus Koskos
President

Image: Leonidas Phoebus Koskos, Hellenic American University’s President

On behalf of the Board of Trustees and the faculty and staff of Hellenic American University, I would like to extend our warmest congratulations to the graduating class of 2020.

The health crisis has prevented us from holding Commencement this year as we ordinarily do in June. However, the absence of an official public ceremony does not in any way diminish the accomplishments of our graduating class. On the contrary, their achievement is even more noteworthy in light of the challenges that they faced this past semester as we moved from in-person instruction to what was, for many, a new way of learning. These students, like the great majority of their classmates, demonstrated an ability to quickly adapt to the abrupt changes in their learning environment and to benefit from the opportunities these new modalities of learning offered.

This flexibility and resourcefulness is one of the hallmarks of an educated person. I am gratified that our students have shown they possess these qualities. I would like to believe that their education at Hellenic American University has been at least partly responsible for fostering them.

We hope to be able to honor our new graduates publicly at a ceremony later this year if conditions permit. In the meantime, we share the pride that their families and friends rightly take in this milestone in their lives and wish our new alumni all the best in their future endeavors.

Leonidas Phoebus Koskos, Esq.
President

Image: Congratulations to the Class of 2020

Digital technology is transforming the ways we work, communicate and connect, often in ways that are both innovative and disruptive. In the coming weeks, a series of four mini-conferences organized under the auspices of Hellenic American University will investigate trends and challenges presented by such digital transformation in areas of critical importance. The conferences have been organized by netweek magazine, Marketing Week magazine and Banker’s Review Conferences.

"Digital transformation must be a priority for any organization that respects its customers—something which has become more evident today with the COVID-19 crisis. As a University, we responded to this crisis in under forty-eight hours by shifting classes online and thus ensuring we could provide our educational programs without interruption. Given its fields of specialization, the University’s Department of Informatics and Engineering in particular has been an ardent advocate of digital transformation in education but in other sectors as well—which is why we are pleased to participate in quality conferences such as these", states Dr. Filippopoulos, Director of Informatics and Engineering Programs at Hellenic American University.

The University’s support of such initiatives is underscored by the participation of several University faculty members from the Informatics Department who will be presenting at these conferences, sharing their expertise in areas of increasing strategic importance such as cybersecurity, data privacy and protection, AI and blockchain technology. Among the presenters are Dr. Ioannis Filippopoulos, Director of Informatics and Engineering Programs at Hellenic American University, Dr. Dimitris Tolias, Director of e-learning and adjunct faculty members Spiros Christopoulos and Isidoros Monogioudis.

More information on the agenda, speakers and registration procedures for these events can be found on the conference websites:

June 17 & 18, 2020:

5th Data Privacy & Protection Conference 2020: Regulations, Transparency, Protection, Growth

Issues on data privacy and protection will be highlighted by experts and practitioners from around the world. Methods, policies, practices and innovative solutions that ensure the protection of data and its utilization for business viability and growth will be explored.

June 25 & 26, 2020:

Digital Business Transformation Conference 2020: Disrupt or Get Disrupted

Key areas of discussion include the importance of leadership in supporting and strengthening the digital transformation, cybersecurity and risk management, and choosing appropriate business drivers (CX, platform-based value) and cutting-edge technologies (AI, big data, IoT, robots, blockchain).

July 7 & 8, 2020:

Payments 360° 2020: The Changing Face of Payments in Normal & Extreme Conditions

Topics of discussion include how markets respond to changes, how new payments are conducted in view of PSD2, and the emergence of Fintechs, especially when faced with critical challenges and conditions such as the coronavirus pandemic, and how these changes can help us prepare for “smart payment services” in similar situations in the future.

Image: 5th Data Privacy & Protection Conference 2020