Pitt’s European Union Center of Excellences Wins National Award for Outstanding Outreach Activity

PITTSBURGH—The European Union Center of Excellence (EUCE) at the University of Pittsburgh has been awarded the EUCE Outstanding Outreach Activity Award for its 2011 Model European Union program for high school students.  

“We are especially proud of this award because Pitt’s Model EU simulation is an EUCE team effort and because it is awarded by a committee made up of fellow EUCE members and diplomats,” said Ronald Linden, director of Pitt’s EUCE/European Studies Center and a professor in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Political Science. 

The review committee—comprising representatives from the Polish embassy, the Austrian Consulate in Chicago, and the Delegation of the European Union to the United States—tapped Pitt’s EUCE for the award. Pitt’s EUCE will be featured in promotional materials to be distributed domestically and throughout the European Union in an effort to promote EUCEs in the United States. 

In December 2011, more than 100 students in grades 9-12 from nine Pittsburgh-area schools participated in the University‘s daylong Model EU simulation. This is the most recent of these annual events, which provide students with an opportunity to learn about the workings of the European Union through role-playing activities. Students assume the roles of presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers and engage in intense negotiations over controversial issues facing the EU. 

Established in 1998 as the result of a first-of-its-kind national competition, Pitt’s EUCE has successfully received renewal with each subsequent national competition. Ten U.S. institutions of higher learning were designated as Centers of Excellence in 2011 and will receive funding support through 2014. The European Commission funds the EUCE initiative as part of a broader effort to promote people-to-people ties across the Atlantic. 

For more information about Pitt’s EUCE, visit www.ucis.pitt.edu/euce.

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4/24/12/mab/lks/jdh