🎓 Cultural Activities

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Iniciatives that help in the personal and intelectual growth of our students
Cultural activities

CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

University life represents an essential period in a person’s education. At the Office of the Vice-Rector of Students, we encourage all initiatives that help foster our students’ personal and intellectual growth.

Participation in cultural activities are an opportunity to cultivate relationships between students from different programmes, teachers and service staff.

book club

The shared experience of reading is at the very core of Western civilisation. The Abat Oliba CEU University Reading Club hopes to bring together students, teachers and PAS staff around selected literary creations, whose analysis will help us to grow as people and strengthen the bonds that bind together our educational community. The Reading Club is open to everyone, and meetings are held regularly, providing participants with plenty of notice.

A volunteer at each session begins the group commentary and invites participants to express their points of view and share their experience with the book in question. In recent years, we have read works by Cervantes, Kafka, Chesterton, Charlotte Brontë, Hoffmann, C.S. Lewis, among others.

More information: [email protected]

communication workshop

This workshop offers students the chance to improve their communication skills in a practical way. Through drama-based exercises, students will be able to overcome difficulties with public speaking and master control of body and voice to improve their communication skills. 

Director: jcasass@uao.es

university choir

Would you like to participate in the choir, performing at academic and public events, obtain technical voice training and perform classical and modern choral works?

Join the university choir! No prior musical knowledge is necessary; all you need is an interest in music.

For more information: [email protected]

theatre

theatre group

Want to do theatre? Want to get into drama? Interested in learning how to act? Already have acting skills? Do you like the stage? A lover of communication?

If the answer is yes, then you should consider joining the Abat Oliba CEU University Theatre Group!

Our theatre offers a practical course whose main goal is to help students improve their communication skills, a fundamental tool both personally and professionally. To do this, we prepare a play that we perform on several occasions throughout the year.

For more information, please contact the Director Joaquim Casas at [email protected]  

theatre workshop

The aim of the Theatre Workshop is to learn communication techniques by performing dramatic art exercises to overcome difficulties with public speaking, mastering control of body and voice to improve communication skills.

The Workshop is two hours a week and may be counted towards credits. It is free for all first- and second-year students. To participate, students must first pass an interview with the workshop director.

For more information, please contact the Director Joaquim Casas at [email protected]  

prizes and competitions

 
Abat Oliba CEU University Literature Award

In its work to promote the creativity and education of its students, we are proud to announce the Abat Oliba CEU Literature Award.

Check the terms and conditions.

For more information: [email protected]

UAO CEU Photography Competition

The UAO CEU Photography Competition is open to all students at Abat Oliba CEU University.

Check the terms and conditions.

For more information: [email protected]

Ángel Herrera Awards of the San Pablo CEU University Foundation

The San Pablo CEU University Foundation is proud to announce the Ángel Herrera Awards to mark the Feast of Saint Paul.

Abat Oliba CEU University Best Sportsperson Award.

Through the Office of the Vice-Rector for Students and the University Sports Service, Abat Oliba CEU University offers an award for the best sportsperson.

Check the terms and conditions.

For more information: [email protected]

Contest POSTIREO: Creative Travellers 

International Office opens the 13th Call for Promotional Poster: POSTIREO: Creative Travelers. The objective of the call is to create a poster promoting the UAO CEU International programs for the academic year 2023-24. The poster should encourage students and recent graduates to study and do internships abroad. The only requirement is to be enrolled at the UAO CEU during 2021-22 academic year or to be an exchange student at the UAO CEU during one or two semesters. The author of the winning poster will receive a prize of € 200 (gross). Submission deadline is Sunday May 1st before 11:59 pm.  

Check the call for proposals here

For more information: [email protected]

International Video Award

INCOMING - The International Office of Abat Oliba CEU University has announced the second edition of the “International Video Award - Share your International Experience” for Erasmus/temporary students enrolled at UAO CEU during the 2018–19 academic year.

Terms and conditions

For more information: [email protected]


OUTGOING - The International Office of Abat Oliba CEU University has announced the first edition of the “International Video Award - Share your International Experience” for students who want to share their experiences studying or on work placements abroad.

Terms and conditions. 

For more information: [email protected]

 

debate society

The Debate Society of Abat Oliba CEU University was founded in 2005 by Dr Adolfo Lucas Esteve, Director of the Department of Law and Political Science and Professor of Rhetoric, among other subjects. The goal was to offer students a space where they could train and improve their communication skills, fundamental in their professional development.

After observing the model used in other Spanish regions, UAO CEU was the driving force behind university debating societies in Catalonia, where the tradition was less entrenched. After participating, year after year, and organising several national debate tournaments, the Society has grown from an activity in which only a small group of people took part, to become one of our oldest, most popular extracurricular activities.

The Debate Society is now a consolidated activity, respected institutionally and highly valued by the students who take part in it. As an enjoyable practical activity that touches on no end of interesting issues, the Society is happy to welcome dozens of students every year.

All UAO CEU students are welcome, and it is completely free. The activity is open to students from any and all academic disciplines.

Sessions are completely practical and thoroughly enjoyable. All students actively participate in an environment based on respect and comradeship. Sessions are held weekly (during the day) and are divided into two groups: one for beginners and one for advanced students.

Throughout the course students learn and practise techniques of expression for public speaking, persuasion, controlling one's nerves and emotions, time and space management, body control and ways to develop irrefutable discourse through the application of the ARE technique, among other skills.

Students who demonstrate commitment to the activity and have sufficient capacity may apply to represent the University in national debate tournaments. Among them is the prestigious National InterCEU Debate Tournament, organised by the three universities that make up the CEU Foundation. Likewise, all students at the university can take part in the internal InterUAO league that is organised every semester at the university.

If you would like to join the Debating Society or request information, please write to [email protected]

 

interceu tournament

The InterCEU Tournament has been running for 12 years and is one of the most important university debate events in Spain given the large number of participants it brings together each year and the quality of the interventions by the different teams. It is held annually at one of the three CEU universities, but other universities invited by the organisation may also participate. A total of five universities participated in the first edition, held in 2004 at Cardenal Herrera CEU University. This initiative has become a firm favourite, and this is reflected in the high number of participants every year, and the quality of the debate has increased with each new edition.

The university debate tournaments have been organised throughout Spain for years, and although it is not a particularly well-known activity in our country, it is a discipline that is very much encouraged in other universities around the world, since it develops students’ communicative abilities as well as their competence for research and study of the proposed topic.

The dynamic during these tournaments consists of a direct confrontation between two teams, each of which is assigned to defend a position for or against a given topic. Turns to speak are organised in an introduction, in which the arguments must be briefly presented and the subject must be put into its context; two rebuttals, in which each team tries to defend its ideas by contrasting them to those of the opposite team and demonstrating them with evidence; followed by a conclusion round, in which all the arguments and evidence provided during the debate are compiled. The winner is chosen by decision of several judges, usually experts in public speaking, according to criteria ranging from use of time and space to the thoroughness of quotations.

online registration

interuao tournament

The InterUAO Debating Tournament is the internal league of the University. It is held every six months and participation is open to all students of the UAO CEU community regardless of whether they are part of the Debate Society or not.

Each team is made up of two or three participants. The registered teams are distributed by drawing lots in different groups for the qualifying phase. Once this round is over, the best teams in each group go through to a knockout phase where they face each other.

The winner of the tournament receives a cash prize and a diploma.

Debate topics have so far included:

  • I InterUAO (qualifying stage): Should the state and Autonomous Communities cut education spending?
  • I InterUAO (knockout stages): Is education in Spain of a high quality?
  • II InterUAO: Is dation in payment the solution to the mortgage problem?
  • III InterUAO: Should employers and unions receive public money?
  • IV InterUAO: Is PODEMOS a solid alternative to traditional bipartisanship?
  • V InterUAO: Does the 3+2 model improve the current university system?

For more information on how InterUAO works or on future tournaments, please write to [email protected]