Yesterday, the degree congregations for all German programmes at Aston took place at Birmingham Town Hall. IBML (International Busines and Modern Languages) and Combined Honours students received their awards at the morning ceremony and all other graduates took part in the afternoon congregation.
The department was pleased to be able to provide prizes for particularly high achieving students. The German Embassy had donated two book prizes which went to the best student on the IBML final year German Business Environment course and to the best German dissertation by a non-IBML student. The winners were Alexandra Veleva for IBML and Katie Dudley for her impressive dissertation on interpreting at the Nuremberg trials. 
Other prize winners from German were Colleen LeGriffon (John Stagg Memorial Prize), Eliot Taylor (Peter Morris Memorial Prize) and Konrad Kyrcz (IBML Unilever Prize).
This was in many ways a special year, not least because a 
member of GermanAtAston’s staff, Alexander Burdumy, was among the graduates. He was awarded a PhD for his thesis on welfare politics in former East Germany which he successfully completed earlier this year. He is now moving on to a new job at the University of Essex. Alles Gute für die Zukunft, Herr Doktor!
Alex’s current responsibilities at Aston will be taken over in September by a new member of staff: Imke Baasen. We will shortly have more information on Imke – so watch this space!
Experience German at Aston University 