The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki achieved three excellent distinctions in the 4th Writing Contest of the Silk-Road Universities (SUN) -WRICOS 2020, as three members of its student community managed to stand out with great awards in the poetry competition. The competition was organized in the framework of the actions of the Network of Universities of the Silk Road (SUN Network), of which the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is a member.
Maria Diakaki, graduate of the Psychology Department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, received the Grand Award of Poetry for her poem: «The Wisdom of the Silk Roads for the Survival of Civilizations». The Special Selection Award was given to Despina-Efrosini Giannakopoulou, PhD Candidate of the Department of Music Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and Panagiotis Bountzioukas, an undergraduate student of the Department of Mathematics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, also for their poems written in Greek and in English respectively, with titles same as the one of this year’s competition’s theme.
The purpose of the competition in the fields of poetry and essay writing is to give students the opportunity to get familiar with the linguistic diversity along the “Silk Road” and simultaneously to protect the value of “small” languages.The distinguished students participated in the 6th General meeting of the SUN network, which took place online on December 3, 2020, as well as in the United Students of SUN (USSUN) Laboratory, which was held on the same day, along with other representatives students of the member-Universities of the network.”We are very proud of the participation and distinctions of the members of our student community in this competition. The students of Aristotle University, characterized by a spirit of creativity, participate constantly in international competitions, winning important awards, something that makes us very happy “, noted the Rector of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Professor Nikolaos G. Papaioannou, when congratulating all distinguished students.The Secretary General of the SUN Network, Dr. Sungdon Hwang, also congratulated the winners for this important distinction, emphasizing that their work reflects the theme of this year’s competition. “Through your poems we understand the diversity of cultures and people along the Silk Road,” he said in his congratulatory letters.
The Silk-Road Universities Network -SUN
The WRICOS competition is organized by the Silk-Road Universities Network (SUN), a very important and active network of 82 Universities from 65 countries in Europe and Asia. Undergraduate or postgraduate students of SUN member-Universities were entitled to participate in the competition. The entries in the poems and essays, written in 15 languages from 14 countries, were 92. The poems competed were 51, while the essays were 41.
