Developing an intercultural competence programme at an international cross-border university.

The European University Viadrina located on the German-Polish border, with a high number of international students, was founded to promote the 'growing-together' of Europe. Despite those aims, it is becoming more evident that international institutions must develop special strategies to sensitize their members on an intercultural level and to encourage intercultural communication. The case of Viadrina University serves as example of how a course programme can be created in order to promote intercultural competence. One of the programme's main aims is to give students the possibility of experiencing, discovering and discussing the diversity of values and worldviews in special workshops. Today, the training programme, which at first had not been considered necessary by many university employees, has turned into a success story which can be transferred to other international academic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]