UA celebrates its 50th anniversary with its partners and alumni

On Thursday 23 November, the University of Angers welcomed its institutional, academic and research partners as well as its alumni at the Angers Convention Centre to celebrate its 50th anniversary and to illustrate the progress made. 750 people attended the event.

Hosted by Bruno Parisse, a former UA graduate and president of Austin Créative Angers, the evening took place in the auditorium, with an opening ceremony divided into five sequences, each referring to one of the five senses.

Guests could thus attend a fashion show of designs by students from the Cholet fashion campus, listen to the testimony of Jean-Claude Rémy, former president of UA and that of Geneviève Rivoire, the first and only female president of UA, and (re)discover the solidary adventure led by UA in connection with the production of hydroalcoholic gel at the beginning of the health crisis

Following the senses of Sight, Hearing and Touch, it was the sense of smell and the work of the researchers on the rose that was honoured, followed by Taste with the presentation of the special 50th-anniversary wine, from grapes harvested by students and staff.  This was also the opportunity for Pascaline Lepeltier, Esthua graduate and elected best sommelier in France in 2018, to speak from her restaurant in New York about the training she received at UA.

A strong message from Denis Mukwege

Denis Mukwege, a gynaecologist trained at UA and the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2018, was unable to attend but was keen to deliver a message: "Angers is certainly a small town but a very welcoming town. It is a town where I have met people who have shaped me by their sense of solidarity and their humanism. Much of my work, everything I do today, has its roots in Angers. When I left Angers, I did not cut ties, I kept very good relations with my many friends from Angers."

These moments of exchange were also accompanied by cultural interludes with a performance by Oscar Mouchet, a student in the Master's programme Cultural Project Management at Esthua, and a choreography with six K-Pop dancers trained at the Suaps. 50 international students also took to the stage and two of them read a text by Edgar Morin, a French sociologist and philosopher resolutely turned towards the future. For this was the message of President Christian Roblédo when he concluded the ceremony on stage with the students and the 5 former presidents who preceded him: "Together, let us invent and build the world of tomorrow!"

After the ceremony, guests were invited to the "showroom" area, for a cocktail reception prepared by Esthua students on Food and Wine pairings. Here, guests could also discover the various UA stalls: schools and faculties, university services (health, sport, libraries), doctoral schools and the research department.