EU provides IU with 'Center of Excellence'

The Delegation of the European Commission in Washington, D.C., recently awarded IU $351,000 to establish a European Union Center of Excellence.\nIU was selected as one of 10 U.S. schools to receive the grant, which will fund teaching and research of the European Union, as well as outreach activities. The European Union is a coalition of European countries that was formed after World War II.\nDavid Ransel, who was named co-director of the new European Union Center, said IU won the grant because of its well-developed international studies program and the variety of European languages offered.\n"We teach more languages at IU than any other university in the United States," Ransel said. "We will give some of the money to scholarships for students to study certain languages in connection with their research of the European Union."\nRansel said IU's West European studies program applied for the grant before and was rejected. So the East European studies program collaborated with the West European studies program to apply again, and this time received the grant.\nStudents can now minor in European Union studies, as of this semester. IU is working on establishing a major in European Union studies as well, but that will take a few years to be approved.\nAndrew Satchwell, a graduate student who is studying West European studies, spent some of his undergraduate career at the University of Pittsburgh, which already has a European Union Center of Excellence.\n"I think Europe right now is our closest partner in terms of business and foreign affairs," Satchwell said. "(The European Union Center of Excellence) is an excellent resource to have. We are going to be having scholars from Europe come, and there will be opportunities for students to be exposed to top-level officials."\nRansel and now co-director Fritz Breithaupt both wrote the grant proposal, which outlined their plan for the use of the money.\nBreithaupt said with the grant, the European Union Center will host a series of conferences on topics including the Baltic Sea region and immigration policies in Europe. They will also feature a range of activities, including a workshop for high school and middle school teachers on European Union education, a conference for legal professionals on trans-Atlantic litigation and a workshop for policymakers in Washington, D.C.\n"The grant listed about 40 individual projects," Breithaupt said. "Some are smaller things, but some are very big things."\nBreithaupt also said the center will organize and fund a series of speakers including European politicians.\nThe European Union Center of Excellence won't have its own professors but will act as more of a grant management office, Ransel said.\nBreithaupt believes study of the European Union is important because of their unique integration process.\n"The European Union is a model of peaceful integration," Breithaupt said. "Typically countries have broken apart, not reunited. It is a model for other countries."\nBreithaupt also stressed the importance of European Union study for economic reasons.\n"The European Union is slightly more economically powerful than the United States," Breithaupt said. "Many jobs are trans-Atlantic jobs."\nThe European Union Center of Excellence will consist of a list of specialists employed in other departments and will be located in Ballantine Hall.