September 2, 1998
New European Union Center makes University Of Washington a “major player” in European Studies
The University of Washington was recently selected as one of ten American universities to host newly established European Union Centers which will promote the study of the EU, its institutions and policies, and EU-US relations through teaching programs, scholarly research and outreach programs.
“The UW is now a major player in the field of European studies,” said EU Center Director John Keeler, professor of political science. “This will greatly enhance the UW’s teaching, research and outreach programs related to the EU.”
The UW is the only university on the West Coast to have been designated both a National Resource Center for West European Studies by the U.S. Department of Education and a European Union Center.
The UW is scheduled to receive nearly $500,000 from the EU over the next three years to fund academic and outreach programs.
During the 1998-99 academic year, the EU Center will host a number of distinguished visiting scholars from Europe. The first, Professor Wyn Grant of the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, will spend the next spring quarter at the UW as the first Marshall-Monnet Scholar-in-Residence. Grant will teach a course on “Current Policy Debates in the EU” and co-organize with Keeler a conference on tensions between the US and EU in the area of agricultural trade.
The announcement by Ambassador Hugo Paemen, Head of the European Commission’s Delegation to the United States, came at a reception held at the Library of Congress.
The European Union is funding this initiative as part of a broader effort to promote the people-to-people ties outlined in the New Transatlantic Agenda, which provides a framework for EU-US relations.
The EU received 69 applications for EU Centers and interviewed 17 finalists. In addition to the UW the nine other universities or consortia selected are:
- University of Georgia/Georgia Institute of Technology
- Harvard University
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- University of Missouri-Columbia
- New York University/Columbia University/City University of New York
- University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill/Duke University
- University of Pittsburgh
- Scripps College/The Claremont Colleges/University of Southern California
- University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The European Union Center will be housed along with the existing Center for West European Studies within the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.
Upcoming events through the EU Center include: a Boeing-Airbus Symposium; a conference on “From the D-mark to the Euro: Monetary Reform as a Challenge to National Identity in Germany;” a summer workshop on “US-EU Commercial and Political Relations” designed for secondary school teachers in the Northwest, and a module on US-EU relations within a workshop on “Washington State in the Global Economy” designed for newly elected Washington state legislators. The latter two activities will be co-sponsored by the Washington Council on International Trade (WCIT).
For more information about the new EU Center call John Keeler at (206) 543-1675.
