Fifth Annual U.S. - European Student Conference on European - U.S. Relations
“European – U.S. Relations After Bush”
BCA is pleased to announce the fifth annual U.S. - European Student Conference on European - U.S. Relations to be held in Strasbourg, France from March 7-11, 2008. Since 2004, BCA has sponsored the annual conference so that students can explore the character and future of U.S.-European relations, as well as the fundamental differences between the European Union and the United States both structurally, and on important international issues.
Last year 50 students and speakers from 14 different countries gathered for four days in Strasbourg to discuss the differences in politics, economy, culture and foreign policy between the United States and Europe. This year’s conference in Strasbourg in a much disputed region in European history should provide a poignant symbol of the possibilities of reconciliation between states, and of creating a more peaceful international order.
BCA, which sends students to study abroad programs throughout Europe, developed the idea for the conference because its staff realized that U.S. students are often shocked by the different perspectives held by Europeans on many of today’s most important issues. Speakers from Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Poland and the United States, as well as the Council of Europe, provided students with the broad historical context for their discussions, and then the students themselves put together their own international panels to emphasize their perspectives and questions about the future.
The American students, who have come from different U.S. colleges and universities, have studied at BCA and Arcadia programs in Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Spain, Wales and England. Speakers and prominent guests at the conferences have included the former BBC presenter and New Yorker magazine writer, Isabel Hilton; the United States political representative to the European Union, Lawrence Wohlers; Andras Biro, who won the “Alternative Nobel Prize” – the Right Livelihood Award in 1995; as well as faculty from the Institut de Etudes Politique in Strasbourg, and the Council of Europe, among others.
Steve Kurz, a student from Cornell University in New York, who studied at the BCA program in Barcelona, articulated the sentiments of his fellow American students: “The BCA conference …. was more than I had hoped for on many levels. Not only were the speakers intelligent, the topics relevant, and the debates thought provoking and meaningful, but I genuinely had a great time and will keep in touch with many new friends made over the week.”
Students interested in attending the conference can contact Dr. James Skelly at jskelly@BCAabroad.org with questions.
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