European
Union Fellows at the School of Public
Policy
European Union Flag
The School of Public
Policy (SPP) has the distinction of being
one of a select number of U.S. universities
chosen by the European Union (EU) in
Brussels to annually host an EU Fellow.
The fellow—an official of one of
the EU’s institutions—spends
either the fall semester or the full
academic year at the host U.S. institutions,
which also include Harvard, Yale, Stanford,
and the University of Pittsburgh.
The EU chose SPP because
the school includes among its renowned
faculty Professor Desmond Dinan, a leading
authority on the history, institutional
structure, and governance of the EU.
Dinan is one of the few scholars located
outside the EU to hold a prestigious
Jean Monnet Chair, awarded by the European
Commission and named after the founding
father of the original European Economic
Community.
EU Fellows at Mason predate
SPP. The inaugural fellow, William Nicoll,
a British citizen and one of the most
senior officials in the Council of Ministers
of the European Community came to Mason
in 1991, a time of great ferment in the
development of European political and
economic integration. In December 1991
in London, he was knighted for his lifelong
service to Britain and Europe.
Since 1997 when Dinan
joined SPP, EU Fellows have held a prominent
role at the school. Fellows teach a course
each semester on a topic relating to
their research, liaise with faculty and
students on a range of EU-related issues,
and participate in the academic life
of the university and the greater Washington
area. The list of fellows at SPP since
1997 reads like a who’s who of
key EU officials. They include
- David Sweet
(1997-98), who is working on regional
development and taught a highly popular
course on the Economic and Monetary
Union of the EU
- Michael Gremminger
(2003-04), now in the Secretariat-General
of the commission, who taught a course
on EU competition policy
- Graeme Preston
(2005-06), in the commission's Directorate-General
for Energy and Transportation, who
taught a course on reconstruction
and infrastructural development in
the Balkans
- Rene Von Schomberg
(fall 2007), an official in the commission's
Research Department, who taught a
course on EU research and technology
policy
Beatrice Covassi will
be the EU Fellow this coming fall. Covassi
is leader of the EU’s Digital Broadcasting
Sector in the Directorate-General for
Information Society and Media. Her areas
of interest focus on new digital technologies
and the policy challenges raised by convergence
between telecommunications, audiovisual
technology, and the Internet.
In addition to continuing
her research while at Mason, Covassi
will teach a course on the European Union
and policy challenges in a new media
era. The course will identify the main
challenges for policymaking with regard
to the new digital media landscape, including
technology, spectrum, and content. It
aims to help SPP students understand
how a rapidly evolving, visionary policy
domain is unfolding in the EU and compare
policy approaches on both sides of the
Atlantic.
For further information
about the EU Fellows Program or Covassi’s
course and research agenda, please e-mail
Dinan at ddinan@gmu.edu. |
