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Pardon Our Dust

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Transatlantic Conversations: A Review of the Leuven Roundtable

By Rafael A. Rodríguez Diaz This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place from February 12-April 30, 2018. The Leuven Roundtable. l-r: Prof. Michael Smith, Mr. Alexandros Papaioannou, Mr. Richard Tibbels, Prof. Simon Duke As part of the graduate-level seminar of EURO 596, which explores current issues in global and European Union (EU) affairs, and in the framework of the Jean Monnet ERASMUS+ and Leuven-Illinois project, “Conversations on Transatlanticism and Europe”, 3 students and I participated in a study abroad trip to the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium during the Spring Break of 2018. As part of our agenda, on March 19, we attended a roundtable entitled: “The Transatlantic Community between Contestation and Cooperation”. This round table was divided into two parts: a) “Contestation, Cooperation and Global Threats in the Transatlantic Security Community”; and b) “Transatlantic Competition, Cooperat...

Visiting KU Leuven and Hosting Leuven in Illinois: Strengthening Transatlantic Relationships

By Jessica Mrase CEURO participants visit Brussels. Jessica is fourth from the right, in the beige trench coat. When the CEURO project was in its early stages, I had already fully committed to it. Nothing had been set, and we weren’t sure of any details, but I knew that somehow, I would be a part of it. I believed in the project, the course, and the trips abroad. It was something original and being part of that would be an honor. Returning to Leuven was something I had always thought of doing, but never knew if it would happen. With the CEURO course, I was able to travel back to Leuven and revisit the city that captured my heart two years before when I had studied there for a semester in my undergrad. I had a grand plan of sleeping the entire way across the Atlantic so that I would be ready to hit the ground running as soon as we landed, and that was very much the case. I wanted to serve the others in my group as a guide and show them all the wonderful parts of Leuven. Showing t...

Visiting KU Leuven: First Meetings and New Friends

By Victoria Prince Illinois students and staff explore Brussels with representatives from Leuven Our semester of exploring transatlantic relations happened not only in two separate classrooms across the world, but were intertwined when students from each side were able to personally travel this distance. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the University of Illinois delegation that traveled to Leuven, Belgium to meet our international classmates in person. The trip was filled with amazing experiences and unforgettable people that have made a huge impact on me and whom I hope to maintain friendships with throughout my lifetime. I would say that the first full day of the program best exemplifies how incredible the entire journey was. On the Monday morning of our trip, we met in person with the professors of our course and the five students that would be our counterparts traveling to the United States a few weeks later. We saw the diversity in the student body and the impressiv...