Many development projects fail to improve the lives of people in the developing world. Despite the good intentions of the project designers, many of these projects cause more problems than they solve. Straightforward water projects are implemented and fail to provide water; innovative technology is quickly abandoned; and large development projects which cost hundreds of millions of dollars leave the beneficiaries worse off than before. It is important to learn how to design and implement effective and sustainable projects that incorporate the needs of the beneficiaries.

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.

Countering violent extremism remains a critical security challenge confronting Western democratic societies. Policy makers face difficult questions about how to prevent their citizens from engaging in terrorism, what to do with citizens that seek to travel abroad to fight in “jihad,” and how to minimize the potential for violent attacks when fighters return to their countries of origin. Local communities also have an important role to play in countering violent extremism.

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.

The exhibit will be on display in the 2nd floor display cases of Hillman library from November to March, and will include various photographs, articles, and items featuring Berlin between World War II and the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Come and enjoy selections from the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival. This event will feature the best selections from the 2014 German Program as well as the 2014 Music Video Program

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.

Faculty and graduate students are warmly invited to join us later today for an afternoon focusing on Digital Humanities in research and teaching, hosted by Eighteenth-Century Studies at Pitt, with co-sponsorship from the Department of French and Italian.

Event Details
Humanities Center, Cathedral of Learning, Room 602
November 20, 2014
2:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.