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Counselling Ambassadorial Scholars
Jeanine Baumert is one of around 20 Ambassadorial Scholars who have been supported by Rotary International for study in the UK during the academic year 2003/04. Yet again, an Abingdon Rotarian has undertaken the role of Counsellor - in the case of Jeanine, her Counsellor is Rotarian Josephine Hunt of the Abingdon Vesper Club.
The term “counselling” is really a misnomer since these young people are the brightest and the best their country can provide and need very little actual counselling. What they do need is a friendly face to be available if and when the need arises - someone who can show them something of the countryside and culture of the area where they will be studying for the next year. Universities tend to be rather insular establishments and the scholar's experience will be all the better for a supportive link with the outside world.
Jeanine arrived in the UK on 24 September, 2003 to undertake post-graduate studies in mathematics at St John's College, Oxford. She had just completed her third year at Luwig-Maximilans University, Munich, where she read Financial Mathematics - a combination of maths and business studies.
After a few days staying with her Counsellor, during which the mundane tasks of opening a bank account - a real chore these days! - and other necessary preliminaries were undertaken, Jeanine settled into her college. From time to time, there are opportunities for all Ambassadorial Scholars to get together, and this year a group of ten have already met on a visit to Windsor Castle.
As the title suggests, Ambassadorial Scholars are in a sense ambassadors for their countries. Rotary, as probably the world's largest international voluntary organisation, supports many programmes that promote international understanding. As part of this, there is an expectation that the Ambassadorial Scholars it sponsors will meet and talk to local Rotary Clubs about their own countries and matters of mutual interest. Jeanine has prepared material on the vexed question of the Euro under the title of "Germany and the Euro" and she has already presented this talk very successfully to several Rotary Clubs in the area.
Ambassadorial Scholars are invariably very lively people with broad interests. Jeanine is no exception. Apart from being a habitual theatre and concert-goer, she enjoys jogging and is improving her fencing skills by taking classes. One of her musical talents is as a flautist, and she quickly joined the college orchestra on arrival at St John's.
News of one of our past Ambassadorial Scholars
Regular visitors to this website may remember Holger Osterrieder, the tall young German, who came from the Sorbonne to study at Oxford for the academic year 2000/01 before moving on to do a further year at Cambridge. How’s that for a CV? He was then very lucky to be selected to study at the prestigious ENA in Paris (L’Ecole Nationale d’Administration) which was set up in 1945 by General de Gaulle to train the French equivalents of Sir Humphrey. It boasts both Jacques Chirac and Alain Juppé as its alumni.
Holger has just graduated with honours, in fact, he was named as best student, a very rare occurrence apparently, which warranted an interview in Le Monde. The main thrust of the article was that three German graduates of ENA had been appointed to jobs within the French Civil Service – the first time such posts have gone to non-French citizens. We’re all Europeans now!
On April 1st he joins the “real” world and begins his first full-time job, at the age of 26. He will be a ’comparative assessor’ at the Inspection Générale des Affaires Sociales. He doesn’t have much idea of what his role will be at the moment but is confident that the ENA has prepared him for anything!