The U.S. Department of Education has awarded a shared three-year grant of $1.6 million to Syracuse and Cornell universities for a joint national resource center in European studies. The grant allows SU to offer generous graduate fellowships in language and area studies, and supports curriculum development, library collections, scholarly conferences, regional workshops in upstate New York, and a range of outreach activities. SU has founded a Center for European Studies to coordinate campus-wide activities, housed in Maxwell’s Global Affairs Institute.

The grant will “launch a process of rethinking European studies at SU in order to prepare students for a changing Europe whose boundaries and divisions have become more complex,” says Mitchell Orenstein, assistant professor of political science and director of the center. “It will add new languages to the curriculum, starting with Polish and Turkish this fall; enhance library collections; and establish Syracuse University as a regional center for European studies and public affairs.”

The Center for European Studies will work closely with the existing European Union Center, also based in the Global Affairs Institute. The EU Center is funded by a grant from the European Commission, making SU one of only a handful of American universities with both U.S.- and European-funded centers in European studies.

—Dana Cooke

This article appeared in the Fall 2003 print edition of Maxwell Perspective; © 2003 Maxwell School of Syracuse University. To request a copy, e-mail dlcooke@maxwell.syr.edu.