The gateway is IU’s third facility for international faculty, student and alumni activities as it followed the launch of other offices in New Delhi and Beijing, according to an IU press release.
“The IU Europe Gateway will give IU faculty and students greater access to opportunities in Europe, and at the same time, it will allow our students, alumni and university partners who are based in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to connect directly with IU in one of the most dynamic cities in the world,” McRobbie said at a ceremony Thursday night to open the new facility officially.
The establishment of the new office also adds to IU’s belief that it is absolutely essential in this day and age that the education of all of its students includes an international dimension, McRobbie said in the release.
“By encouraging more IU students to study abroad, it will help to create global leaders, and it will support scholarship, research and international collaboration that will help future generations of American and European students succeed in our extensively interconnected world,” McRobbie said in the release.
The office is housed within the new Global Institute of the Council on International Educational Exchange, one of the leading U.S. non-governmental international education organizations, according to the release.
On Wednesday, Nov. 4, McRobbie served as one of the main speakers at the official opening for the CIEE Global Institute.
IU has partnered with CIEE for more than 40 years, and more than 2,500 IU students and faculty have participated in CIEE programs throughout the world.
“This superb new Global Institute represents the commitment that all of us share to delivering quality educational programs that meet the needs of the 21st century,” McRobbie said in the release. “It represents our shared long-term commitment to international exchange, to the promotion of international understanding and to opening wider the gates of opportunity to students from all backgrounds.”
Hannah Buxbaum, professor and the John E. Schiller Chair in Legal Ethics in the Maurer School of Law, is the new academic director of the IU Europe Gateway, which is in the Kreuzberg District of east Berlin.
Andrea Adam Moore, a Berlin native and previously the director of German University Alliance in New York City, is its new director.
IU has more than 725 active alumni in Germany and an alumni chapter in Berlin.
Many graduates and friends of the University, as well as several IU students studying in Berlin, were in attendance at Thursday’s opening event for the IU Europe Gateway office.
The opening event featured a performance by two alumni of the Jacobs School of Music — mezzo-soprano Nadine Weissmann and pianist Andrew Crooks — according to the release.
For more details about the trip, visit global.iu.edu/blog/Germany-2015
Alyson Malinger
