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University of Illinois
EUROPEAN UNION CENTER
e-Weekly

Fall 2017

Aug 28-Sep1
 e-Weekly archive

In this issue
 

 

Welcome back!

 

Welcome back!
With this first edition of our e-Weekly newsletter for this new academic year, the European Union Center (EUC) welcomes new and returning faculty, staff, and students to the University of Illinois.
 
We had a very busy and productive summer at the EUC. We are pleased to inform you that our Center, in a joint effort with the Center of European Studies at KU Leuven, has secured another grant from the EU Commission. The grant, entitled, Illinois-Leuven Conversations on Tranatlanticism and Europe, will facilitate the movement of graduate students from both universities for a 2-year period.  A select group of our graduate students will travel to KU Lueven this spring to meet with policy makers in Brussels and participate in classes at KU Leuven. Then, a few weeks later, we will be welcoming the KU Leuven students to our campus, with stops in Springfield and Chicago. We are very excited and this exchange promises to be a great opportunity for our students and faculty.
 
In addition, the Center staff was hard at work this summer applying for another Getting to Know Europe grant from the EU. This grant will allows us to greatly expand our outreach and public engagement to the campus community and throughout the Midwest. We hope to know more soon and will definitely keep you updated through e-Weekly and our social media outlets.
 
We also supported graduate and undergraduate students through the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships. The recipients of the Summer 2017 FLAS fellowships studied Arabic and Italian on campus, in Middlebury as well as in France and Italy. The Academic Years 2017-18 EUC FLAS fellowships will support eleven graduate and four undergraduate students, who will be studying eight different languages: Arabic, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. Three undergraduate fellows will be studying abroad in Italy and Morocco. You can view the list of recipients of both Summer and Academic Year FLAS fellowships here.
 
This Fall, the EUC is welcoming several new MA as well as 5-year BA/MA students with partner departments in LAS. Undergraduate students enrolled in the five-year program will receive their MA with one additional year of education instead of the traditional two. The EUC is working with other departments in order to expand this opportunity to undergraduate students around campus.
 
Together with our highly energetic faculty, the EUC staff has been busy planning an exciting array of events for the academic year. The EUC will kick-off the academic year with a roundtable on “New Leaders of Transatlantic Relations - Future Prospects” on Tuesday, August 29th at 3 pm in Illini Union, Rm 210, followed by our Fall reception.
Please also mark your calendars for other important dates for the fall. October 20th & 21th promise to be busy and exciting days for us. On Friday, October 20th we hope to have the Ambassador of Estonia deliver the keynote address at our 16th Annual European Union Day. We will also be holding another roundtable on the “Sovereign Debt Crisis in the Transatlantic Arena” that afternoon. And then, on October 21st we will have our Annual EU Studies Conference. Please note that registration is now open for this exciting, upcoming annual conference, and the deadline to register and submit abstracts is September 20th – seats are limited so please register early!
Please look for updates about these events in forthcoming e-Weekly issues, on our social media and website. We also welcome suggestions—and self-nominations—for speakers to deliver lectures, so please let us know your ideas. You can find our form to request EUC co-sponsorship for your event here (next application deadline is September 1st)
 
As you may know, the EUC has proudly been a U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center since 2003. This funding allows us to support language courses; provide research & curriculum development support for faculty; organize a wide array of lectures, conferences and other outreach events; and award the prestigious FLAS fellowships to exemplary graduate & undergraduate students. This spring the EUC will be reapplying for the next round of Title VI funding. As always, this is a highly competitive process with the best Universities and Centers from throughout the country vying for the funding. The EU Center will be looking for innovative and relevant projects to include in our application so if your research, teaching or public engagement focuses on Europe, the EU or transatlantic relations, please reach out to us. A formal call for proposals will be circulated to our affiliated faculty once we have more concrete information from Washington D.C. about the Title VI application process.
 
Finally, we are delighted to announce that Dr. Sebnem Ozkan is our new Associate Director. Sebnem has been a valued colleague and tireless champion of our Center since 2008, serving as the Outreach and FLAS Coordinator. Her expertise and vision over the years has been a driving force in the success of our Center. Please join us in welcoming her in this new role.
 
You can stay in the loop with the Center and the latest EU news through our Facebook page, EUC Blog, and Twitter feed. e-Weekly will continue to highlight selected contributions to these social media. We also invite you to join our LinkedIn group, which allows EUC affiliates to stay connected and keep up with each other’s professional developments, and to follow us on Instagram.
 
As we look ahead to the upcoming year, the Center will continue to serve as a hub for research, teaching, and public engagement on the EU and transatlantic relations. We plan to spend this year focusing on developing new curricular and academic programs, including prospects for new certificates, degree majors and minors in EU studies at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, and enhancing the footprint of Illinois at European partner universities through research and study aboard opportunities. A key goal is to cooperate with other units on campus that share our interests in expanding the range of opportunities for students and faculty interested in the EU, so we look forward to engaging in dialogue about ways to achieve those objectives. Please feel welcome to share your ideas with us about how we can best serve that mission. In the meantime, we wish all of the EU Center’s many friends a productive and stimulating year to come!
 
~ The European Union Center 
 

 

  Events This Week

 

Opening Roundtable
&
EUC Fall Reception

Tue, Aug 29
3-4:30 pm - Roundtable
4:30-6pm -- Reception

Illini Union, Rm 210 (General Lounge)

Export to Outlook & iCal


New Leaders of Transatlantic Relations - Future Prospects

Speakers:
Scott Althaus, Professor, Political Science & Director, Cline Center for Democracy, University of Illinois
Zsuzsa Gille, Professor, Sociology & Director, Global Studies, University of Illinois
Kostas Kourtikakis, Teaching Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Illinois
Moderator: Neil Vander Most, Visiting Coordinator of Academic Programs, EU Center, University of Illinois
 
EUC Fall Reception to follow.
 

 
Upcoming Events

 

Conversations on Europe Videoconference series (with Uni. of Pittsburgh)

Wed, Sep 20 | 11 am

507 E Green St., Rm 413

Export to Outlook & iCal

Germany's elections -- what's at stake in 2017? 

Speakers: TBA

Sponsored by European Studies Center and European Union Center of Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh, along with Center for European Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, European Union Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Jean Monnet Center of Excellence at Florida International Universit
 

EUC Lecture

Fri, Sep 22 | 12 pm

FLB, Rm. 1080 (Lucy Ellis Lounge), 707 S Mathews

Export to Outlook & iCal

The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy: Benefits and Costs of Membership

Speaker: David Bullock, Agricultural & Consumer Economics, U. of Illinois

 

Registration is now open!
(Deadline: Sep 20)

Annual EU Studies Conference

Fri, Oct 20 - Sat, Oct 21

Levis Faculty Center, 919 W Illinois St.

 

"Researching and Teaching the EU: Best Practices and Current Trends in EU Scholarship"
A Working Conference for Regional College Faculty 

October 20-21, 2017

Registration deadline: Wednesday, September 20, 2017


Conference web page | Online registration

Registration fee: Participants who are not presenting are required to pay a $50 registration fee. This fee will be waived for accepted speakers and University of Illinois faculty and graduate students.

Travel grants available. A $100 travel reimbursement grant and one night of free lodging will be available to all accepted out-of-town participants.

*
We are pleased to announce that registration is now open for this exciting, upcoming annual conference! Proposals for research presentations on any topic relevant to EU studies from scholars, college instructors, and graduate students are welcome. Colleagues with only a nascent academic interest in the EU are also invited to join us without being obliged to present any materials.

We are also very excited to announce that we will kick-off this annual conference with two special pre-conference events on Friday, October 20: We have invited and awaiting confirmation from His Excellency Lauri Lepik, Ambassador of Estonia to the US, to deliver the annual EU Day “State of the EU” Keynote Address, to be preceded by a reception and followed by a luncheon. This will be our sixteenth year hosting the EU Day and the highlight of the celebration is the address by the Ambassador of the country that holds the presidency of the Council of the EU. In the afternoon, we will be welcoming world-renowned scholars for a Roundtable on “Sovereign Debt Crisis in the Transatlantic Arena” to be followed by a reception. Two of the roundtable speakers, Prof. Achim Hurrelmann and Prof. David Leblang, will also deliver special presentations at the conference on Saturday, October 21st.

Don’t miss these exciting series of events! Seats are limited so register early!

   

 

EUC Social Media Highlight

 
 Social Media Highlight

Linguis Europae

Did you know that the EUC has a blog space dedicated to a wide range of topics involving official state, regional, and minority languages in the European Union? Check out Linguis Europae!

It includes such topics as:
-Current events in Europe and here at the University of Illinois
-Language policy at different levels of jurisdiction
-Language planning
-Language revitalization
-Language and culture

Blog posts are written by University of Illinois students and faculty with a variety of backgrounds, and in five languages! Please browse past posts and check back next week for new updates!

As always, we invite you to join the conversation by leaving comments on our Blog and sharing posts/tweets with others! Also, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!
 

 

  Announcements

 

Council for European Studies
25th International Conference

Europe and the World: Mobilities, Values and Citizenship

March 28 - 30, 2018Inter Continental Chicago Magnificent Mile, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
Organized by the Council for European Studies

The intensification of migrant flows and capital mobility in Europe in an era marked by economic instability and security crises has generated widespread political backlash that poses fundamental threats to Europe's core institutions. Understanding these developments necessitates the careful study of the wide-ranging and powerful processes of mobility, both from within and outside of Europe, that are reconfiguring identities and citizenship regimes across European nation-states. Because mobility processes are shaped by economic, cultural, and geopolitical factors and the challenges they raise span the domains of political governance, party politics, economic policy, security, and collective self-understanding, this topic requires interdisciplinary engagement across the social sciences and humanities. Many of the challenges facing Europe raise questions about the position of Europe in the world. What is specific about the European political crisis and what features does it share with comparable developments in the United States and Asia? To what degree are these changes fueled by transnational cooperation and the diffusion of strategies among political actors? What are the possible consequences of the ongoing migration patterns and the associated rise of populist politics for democratic institutions and the welfare state? How are mainstream parties on the left and the right responding to the challenges from the radical right, both in terms of electoral strategy and policy? How can tensions between essentialist views of ‘European values’ and the reality of mass migration be addressed through creative policies aimed at social and cultural inclusion?

Further details can be found here.

Internship

2018 FU-BEST Internship

This summer, Freie Universität Berlin European Studies Program (FU-BEST) ventured into a new field of study abroad experiences: FU-BEST Internship. We offer an 8-week full-time internship placement with companies and organizations in Berlin that is accompanied by an intercultural internship colloquium and awards 10 ECTS credits upon successful completion.
Students can explore workplaces in categories as diverse as Business, Marketing, Management, Media and Communications, Finance, Politics, Nonprofits, the Sciences or Art in German or English – German language abilities are recommended but not mandatory.
The internship starts right after our regular Spring semester but we are also accepting stand-alone participants, i.e. without completing the regular Spring semester beforehand. Students interested in this option should contact us as soon as possible about any additional logistical requirements (applying for a visa; finding accommodation etc.).

Here are the dates for the 2018 Internship:
Internship 2018: May 18 – July 13
Application Deadline: February 21, 2018 (for students admitted to the FU-BEST Spring 2018 semester)
Stand-alone Application Deadline: December 1, 2017

Please visit our website for information on fees, the required application materials and everything else connected to FU-BEST Internship -- please feel free to contact us at fubest@fu-berlin.de with questions, material requests, or comments!
 

 

Contact

 

European Union Center
University of Illinois
328 International Studies Building MC-429
910 S. Fifth St.
Champaign, IL 61820
P: (217)265-7515
F: (217)333-6270 

http://europe.illinois.edu/

 If you would like to announce an event through the EUC e-Weekly,  please send the information by no later than the prior Thursday of the event to: 

Sebnem Ozkan | Phone: (217) 244-0570 | asozkan@illinois.edu


The European Union Center (EUC) is a
National Resource Center, funded through a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant,
and a Jean Monnet Center of Excellence funded through the European Union.
The EUC is also funded in part by a "Getting to Know Europe" grant from the Delegation of the EU to the US.