For Immediate Release
March 23, 2009
Contact: Jim Skelly at jskelly@BCAabroad.org

Hastings College student Heidi Hullinger was among over 60 students and speakers from North America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, who gathered recently for a three-day conference in Strasbourg, France, to discuss whether or not President Obama would make a difference in US – European relations. Hullinger has been studying this semester at Magee College of the University of Ulster in Derry in the north of Ireland.     

Students from Algeria, Azerbaijan, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Serbia, Slovakia, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine, joined US students studying abroad in England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Northern Ireland and Spain, as well as at FIE, in the 6th Annual European – US student conference organized by BCA, and co-sponsored by the University of Strasbourg and AEGEE, the European Students’ Forum. Speakers, who came from several European countries including England, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Jordan, Moldova, Serbia, Wales, and the US, as well as the Council of Europe, provided students with the broad historical context for their discussions, and then the students themselves organized their own international sessions to emphasize their perspectives and questions about the future.

Following the Opening Plenary Lecture by Dr. Stephen Ryan, of the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, on the topic of “Will Illusion Breed Disillusion? Obama, Europe and Global Politics,” students participated in discussions on the future of US foreign policy, the new president’s challenges in the Middle East, and the impact Mr. Obama might have on NATO as it celebrates the 60th anniversary of its founding.  In addition, the students heard a presentation from the Danish diplomat Anders Bjørn Hansen, who is an advisor to the Prime Minister of Denmark, on the preparations for the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference this coming December.    

Following a discussion on citizenship and the global economic crisis led by Zsuzanna Szelényi of the Active Citizenship Foundation in Budapest, students organized their own sessions on “Climate Change and the Economic Crisis,” and “Tolerance and Global Citizenship.” Tori McGee, a student from Texas Christian University, who is studying at the BCA program in Barcelona, Spain, summed up the sentiments of many of the American students by saying simply that the conference was “life changing!”  

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Rooted in the values of peace and justice, BCA Study Abroad promotes international understanding, awareness of global citizenship, and academic scholarship through educational exchanges.  Founded in 1962 as a consortium of seven institutions of higher education with historic ties to the Church of the Brethren, BCA operates academic study centers around the world for students from hundreds of U.S. institutions of higher education.