“Change and Adaptation in Eastern Europe” is a workshop series meeting bi-weekly during Spring 2015. It forms a major component of “Bridging Cultures: Eastern Europe in the Curriculum,” a collaborative project between the Community College of Beaver County and the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Russian and East European Studies, which is funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant and intended to foster internationalization of community college curricula through the integration of East European humanities topics.

This is the second in a series of three workshops designed specifically for instructors of less-commonly-taught languages. This workshop offers the opportunity to examine the differences between exercises and tasks, explore the benefits of using tasks in teaching, and adapt textbook exercises to tasks. Participants will walk away with the knowledge needed to design effective tasks that motivate students to learn.

A faculty and curriculum enrichment workshop sponsored by the international and area studies programs of the University Center for International Studies (UCIS) at the University of Pittsburgh. This is the first in a planned series of annual workshops aimed at internationalizing college campuses in the Western Pennsylvania region, with support from the Title VI National Resource Center program of the U.S. Department of Education. Participation by faculty from minority-serving institutions and community colleges is particularly encouraged.

REES Acting Director Andrew Konitzer gave a lecture to history students at Winchester Thurston School on the modern history and politics of the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

The Europe: East and West Undergraduate Research Symposium is an annual event designed to provide undergraduate students, from the University of Pittsburgh and other colleges and universities, with advanced research experiences and opportunities to develop presentation skills. The event is open to undergraduates from all majors and institutions who have written a research paper from a social science, humanities, or business perspective focusing on the study of Eastern, Western, or Central Europe, the European Union, Russia, or other countries of the former Soviet Union.

A part of the 25 Years – Fall of the Berlin Wall Series, this exhibit is free and open to the public. It was curated by the Special Collections Department, with grateful assistance from the Archives Service Center, the Digital Research Library, Web Services, and the Hillman Library Journal and General Map collections.

Professor Spoon’s presentation is based on work (with Heike Klüver) on how voter polarization affects party responsiveness. The authors analyze party responsiveness across nine West European countries and argue that party responsiveness increases with the polarization of issues among voters. Professor Spoon is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at North Texas and a candidate for the position in European politics in the Department of Political Science.

On November 16, 2014 the second round in the Romanian presidential elections ended with the upset victory of an ethnic German candidate from the provinces. These surprising results defied nationalist mobilization and the current government’s administrative control of the electoral process. In spite of pollsters’ and analysts’ predictions, Klaus Iohannis, the candidate with fewer votes in the first round came from behind and succeeded in taking the presidency over the leading candidate, the sitting Social Democratic Prime Minister, Victor Ponta.

A REES undergraduate student gave presentations on Russia and Ukraine to social studies classes at three area middle schools.

Model United Nations provides students the opportunity to learn about and discuss today's most relevant issues of international diplomacy through participation in an academic simulation.