Funded by a Title VI grant of more than $1.2 million, the Center for the Study of Europe at BYU officially opened during a Sept. 25 ceremony at the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies.
President Cecil O. Samuelson praised the BYU faculty and students who worked to create the center.
"It will provide an improved mechanism so that all related areas across campus can work together to move ahead our study of things European," he said to a standing-room-only crowd of BYU students and faculty.
"We look forward to the tremendous success of the center," said President Samuelson.
Monies from the three-year renewable grant will fund internships, library acquisitions, language modules in the social sciences, outreach programs for public school educators, faculty research projects, guest lecturers and conferences, according to Wade Jacoby, director of the center and an associate professor of political science at BYU.
"BYU is so well situated to help students nurture ties with Europe," Jacoby said.
The grant to "establish, strengthen and operate comprehensive and undergraduate language and area/international studies centers that will be national resources" is due in large part to the efforts of Jacoby and fellow faculty members Hans-Wilhelm Kelling, a professor of German, and Kristie Seawright, an associate professor of business management.
Panel reviewers from the U.S. Department of Education were impressed with existing programs at BYU, paving the way for the selection of BYU as a National Resource Center site.
"The proposed activities made BYU an excellent program to recommend for funding," Jacoby said. "We're trying to build an ethos on campus that an important part of the undergraduate and graduate experience is to be involved not just in consuming knowledge but in producing knowledge as well," he said.
A significant portion of the grant money--$168,000 a year--has also been set aside to provide generous foreign language and area studies fellowships for graduate students.
For more information about the Center for the Study of Europe, contact Jacoby at (801) 422-1711 or send an E-mail message to europe@byu.edu.
