Over a month ago I worked on building a website for Prof. Dr. Dhori Kule, who then was one of the running candidates for the position of Rector at the University of Albania. Last week the media (daily Shekulli or here, Vision Plus TV, reported the winners for all the universities in the country and I was glad to hear that the candidate on whose website I had worked had won!
I have to confess that his website is not my best work as it had to be built in quite a hurry; moreover, I had some major trouble with the server, which had me recreate it from scratch. Nevertheless, I feel much better now that everything is working well with the website.
Due to my involvement with the creation of his website and the team of people working for his election, I got some insight into how the university election campaigns have evolved both in terms of management and effectiveness of communication.
I cannot confirm that all the candidates for all the university positions had a campaign team working for them, but I am convinced that at least the candidates for the position of Rector at the Tirana University had at least one person helping.
Each team managed and supported the whole process up for the candidate till the election day. They prepared and supported the candidate’s meetings, interviews, pictures, website, and whatever else the candidate needed to win the elections. The team was made up mainly of volunteers (i.e. students and some professors), but it had also some paid staff. I don’t know exactly how all expenses were covered, but it is clear to me that many of the candidates did put some of their own funds or got some financing by sources outside the university.
Despite the fact that I was not part of any team and did not care to support any of the candidates, the whole experience was a good insight into the evolution of this process in the Albanian universities.
Disclaimer: I do not support nor am I part of any candidate’s campaign team. I was hired to prepare a website.
