November 2012 Header
In This Issue
Comparative Energy: Policies and Technologies in France and the USA
FLAS Fellowships
Graduate Student FLAS Fellows
Undergraduate Student FLAS Fellows
Euro Challenge Registration is Now Open!
Call for Faculty and Graduate Student Research Awards
CES Co-hosts Eurozone Conference
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Energy Conference

 

Comparative Energy: Policies and Technologies in France and the USA

 

Monday, December 17, 2012

8:30am - 5:30pm

AT&T Conference Center Auditorium

The University of Texas at Austin  

 

Comparative Energy Updated 11.16.12  

This conference will bring together representatives from academia, industry, government, and the media from the USA and France for a conversation about a variety of energy policies and technologies. The central thesis is that while France and the USA both share a similar set of concerns related to the abundance, safety, reliability, and cleanliness of energy, the two countries have taken very different approaches to achieving our respective goals (particularly, for instance, regarding how they have each dealt with nuclear and shale gas). Consequently, each country has different positive and negative results to share. This conference would seek to share best practices for solutions to the energy problem while educating participants about the problems and solutions and establishing a collaborative Transatlantic relationship. To this end, this conference will specifically seek to compare and contrast the energy landscape in the USA and France around four core topics: shale gas production; the grid (including nuclear, smart grid, renewables and energy efficiency); public policy; and media coverage.

 

Sponsors: French Embassy, EU Delegation, US Department of Education, UT Center for European Studies, France-UT Institute, UT Cockrell School of Engineering, UT College of Liberal Arts

Partners: French Consulate in Houston, TX; CleanTX Foundation in Austin, TX

Confirmed Speakers:

  • Media:

Evan Smith (CEO and Editor-in-Chief of the Texas Tribune)

Russell Gold (energy writer for the Wall Street Journal)

Clifford Krauss (energy writer for the New York Times)

David Sassoon (Founder and publisher, InsideClimate News)

Karl De Meyer (correspondent at Les Echos)

  •  Academia:

Prof. Ernie Moniz (Director of MIT's Energy Initiative and former Under Secretary of the Department of Energy)

Prof. Richard Newell (Director of Duke University's Energy Initiative and former Director of the Energy Information Administration)

Prof. James Sweeney (Director of Stanford University's Precourt Energy Efficiency Center)

Dr. Patrice Geoffron (Professor of Economics, University Paris Dauphine)

  •  Policy and Government:

Hon. Mark Strama, Representative, Texas House of Representatives

Dymphna van der Lans, Energy and Climate Fellow, German Marshall Fund

Dr. Franck Carre, Scientific Director of the Nuclear Energy Division, France

Dr. Paul Lucchese, Advisor to the General Director, New Technologies for Energy (invited)

  •  Industry:

Pierre Gauthier, President and CEO, Alstom US

Rod Nelson, VP of Communications and Innovation & Collaboration, Schlumberger

Marc Florette, Director of Research and Innovation, GDF Suez (invited)

Manoelle Lepoutre, VP for Sustainability, Total (invited)

Areva (invited)

Electricite de France (invited)

 

 Click here to visit the conference website and register.  
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FLAS Fellowships
 
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CES offers undergraduate and graduate student funding through awards offered through the Department of Education. The FLAS Fellowships (Foreign Language and Area Studies) are offered for both summer and Academic Year. Fellowships are interdisciplinary and open to students from every college/school/department on campus who are pursuing advanced training in modern foreign language and international/area studies. Students must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and be enrolled at UT full time.

For more information about the FLAS Fellowships, please visit our website.    
Applications open November 15 and are due by 4:00pm on February 6, 2013.
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CES FLAS Fellows  - Graduate Students  

 

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Stephen Joyce
Stephen is a third year PhD student in the Deartment of Government, studying the relationship between Germany's version of federalism and its judiciary. The FLAS Fellowship is enabling him to improve his German so that he can more productively interview German judges, lawyers, and politicians. Once he has finished his doctorate, he wants to teach and conduct research, especially about Germany, at a college or university.

Dominique Batiste
Dominique is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology.  His research involves the ethnographic study of gay male communities in southern France, their identity formations as French men who have sex with men, and the queer affects, embodiments, subjectivities, world-makings, and senses of belonging that both inform, and are informed by, these identities.

Eric Baylor
Eric is studying Global Policy with a concentration in global governance and international law.  He plans to join the State Department as a Foreign Service Officer or the intelligence community.

Carlo (Danny) Guerra
Danny is studying international relations and journalism as a graduate student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He has an interest in how international organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, implement programs and strategies in developing nations. He is currently applying his Portuguese language skills during the winter break, in preparation for a month-long research project on climate change and political stability in Angola, one of the Portuguese speaking countries in Africa. Following graduation in May 2012, he will pursue a career in journalism.

Abigail Weil
Abigail's master's thesis, which she is writing at the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, explores a novel by a great contemporary, though recently deceased, Czech writer, Josef Skvoreck�.  His 1996 novel Two Murders in my Double Life is a fictional account of what happened when his wife, dissident writer and publisher Zdena Salivarov�, was accused of having collaborated with the Communist secret police.  Such events as befell the Skvoreckys were part of the general trend of transitional justice.  Transitional justice occurs in every society after a regime change, and was particularly poignant in post-socialist countries.  Thus Skvoreck�'s novel is both a work of art and a historical artifact.
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CES FLAS Fellows  - Undergraduate Students

 

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Nile Miller
Nile is a government major concentrating mainly on international relations. After graduation, he hopes to conduct research using his Russian language skills.

Eric Nikolaides
Eric is currently pursuing a double major in Spanish (with a concentration in Hispanic Linguistics) and Government.  He is also focusing on taking as many Portuguese classes as he can fit into his schedule, with the hope of traveling to Brazil in the next few years either to study or to work.  After graduating, he intends to apply to law school and pursue a dual degree in law and urban planning.

Elizabeth Fenley
Elizabeth is an Italian Language and Literature and Middle Eastern Studies double major, and an Arabic Flagship student. She is interested in global social development and loves learning about other languages and cultures.

Loraine Hoane Loraine is majoring in Anthropology (with a focus on Archaeology), Spanish Literature, and Italian Language.  She will be spending the spring taking part in an intensive Italian program in Perugia, Italy, and will hopefully return to graduate a year early (in 2014).  Her current plan is to apply to the University of Southampton in order to earn a graduate degree specializing in underwater archaeology.

Juliette Seive
Juliette has always been fascinated by language and its role on thought processes through-out history. Her area of study consists of looking at  (and learning) different languages and trying to understand how they affect the way people think, and thereby have some kind of influence on the actions they choose to take. Her ultimate goal is to develop and teach these ideas as a university professor. 
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Euro Challenge Registration is Now Open!

 

2012 Euro Challenge Winners
2012 Winners from First Baptist Christian Academy

 

The Euro Challenge is now open for team registration!

 

A competition for 9th and 10th graders, the Euro Challenge allows students to compete in teams of 3-5 with presentations about the euro crisis and possible solutions.

 

The Texas regional competition will be held on the UT-Austin campus on March 25th. The winning team will compete nationally at the Federal Reserve in New York on April 12th. Travel to Austin and one night of accommodations will be covered by the University. Travel to New York for the winning team with be covered by the EU Delegation.

 

Also, teachers who oversee a team will receive special consideration for he EUCE Brussels Program, an organized rip in June 2013 to Brussels for high school teachers to learn more about the EU.

 

Click here for more information and registration information.  

 

Applications are due by mid-December. 

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Call for Faculty and Graduate Student Research Awards


The Center for European Studies is pleased to offer three graduate and faculty research grants thanks to funding by the EU Center of Excellence (EUCE) in the College of Liberal Arts and the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) at the McCombs School of Business. Applications for each award are available at the CES website. Applications will be accepted beginning November 15, 2012 and we will begin reviewing them and awarding funds thereafter until all funds and awards are expended.

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PhD Research Grant: Competition for two grants of $2,000 each for research on EU Public Policy or EU-US Relations.The overall aim of this grant is to ensure that EU public policy ideas and best practices are widely understood in the US by both academia and policy makers alike. To this effect, this research grant will award graduate students at UT the funding to conduct field research in Europe and meet with key policy makers at the supranational and Member State national level.
 
Faculty Research Grant: Competition for two grants of $3,000 each for research on EU Public Policy or EU-US Relations.The overall aim of this grant is to ensure that EU public policy ideas and best practices are widely understood in the US by both academia and policy makers alike. To this effect, this research grant will award faculty at UT the funding to conduct field research in Europe and meet with key policy makers at the supranational and Member State national level.

Business Studies Stipend: Competition for three grants of $4,000 each for research with a focus on Business in the EU and/or Business relations between the EU and US.CIBER, a program housed in the McCombs School of Business, will fund two $4,000 faculty stipends for researchwith a focus on Business in the EU and/or Business relations between the EU and US,or to support collaborative research between researchers at our university and their colleagues in the EU in an effort to promote increased dialogue about important topics of common interest related to Business in the EU and/or Business relations between the EU and US.

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CES Co-Sponsored Conference
UN logo  
 

At the conference on "Promoting Tolerance: Solutions for Change," organized by the Austin Chapter of the Committee on Teaching About the United Nations (CTAUN) and held at The University of Texas at Austin on 22 September 2012, speakers emphasized the need for concerted efforts by educationists, media and civil society to fight against intolerance, cultural bias and bigotry.

Maher Nasser, Director of the Outreach Division of the Department of Public Information, in his keynote addressed noted that tolerance and peace are two faces of the same coin
. "The necessity for tolerance is embedded in the very idea of the United Nations." He noted that the UN Charter, which sets out the founding principles of the Organization, affirms in its very beginning the resolve "to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours." He emphasized that the practice of tolerance must mean more than just peaceful co-existence. "It must be an active understanding fostered through dialogue and positive engagement." Mr. Nasser concluded his remarks with a quotation from Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian poet, who wrote: "We suffer from an incurable malady: hope."

This conference, which was attended by educators, community members, and university students, provided an opportunity to gain knowledge of local and global trends and solutions in an effort to promote tolerance. It included a panel discussion on the role of Information technology in promoting tolerance in the 21
st century and break-out sessions on global technology, working and collaborating across cultures, cyber bullying and keeping kids safe in their digital world. The Committee on Teaching about the United Nations, a partner of the United Nations Academic Impact, was founded in 1996 and beginning in 1999 has held annual conferences at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

Originally published in the "United Nations Academic Impact Newsletter" from October 2012
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