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Warm greetings from your Political Science Department at CEU. I am writing to update you to keep you in the loop with developments at your old and hopefully still cherished department and at CEU.
Last year was a special year for CEU celebrating its 25th Anniversary. This year promises to be equally exciting. We just completed the first phase of the campus redevelopment. If you have the chance to come and meet us in Budapest, you will find a stunning new building at Nador u. 13-15, that has already won recognition both from the general public and professional architects. For a short video on the building, please have a look here, for pictures here. Soon it is our turn to move: we will leave the Faculty Tower, which will undergo a substantive modernization and re-open in September 2018. After that, the building machines will turn to the old OSF building and the courtyard above the old library in order to erect an entirely new structure for offices and classrooms.
Last but not least, we would like to remind you of our Alumni Ambassador Program – please join by sending us an email. Needless to say, CEU also welcomes your financial contributions. If you wish, you may designate your gift to support your department. As you may recall, those donations will be used by us to continue the PolSci Alumni Scholarship program, a program that helps our current students to excel in their research. If you have already made your gift, please accept our heartfelt thanks.
We believe these are exciting developments, of which we can all be proud. Your contribution to maintaining and increasing our reputation and academic excellence is of great significance.
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Our department remains as busy as ever. Next to our regular teaching and research, we always run new initiatives. We are especially proud that we have hosted the prestigious ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research) Summer School in Methods and Techniques and we will continue to host it for at least the next two summers, if not longer. Those of you who feel that they want to hone their methods skills, consider enrolling in one of the courses. We also had our first ever undergraduate conference on the theme of the European refugee crisis. We are planning to repeat this event in the next summer. The topic will be the dangers and opportunities of social media – if you know undergrads be sure to tell them to watch out for the call. |
We remain thankful for - and continue to rely on - your help in attracting the next generation of talented PolSci students.
The application deadline for our MA or PhD programs is 1 February 2018. If you know someone who might be interested in studying Political Science at Central European University, please forward them the announcement attached - perhaps by adding a short personal note that encourages them to apply.
Thank you very much for everything – and, please, do not forget: we always love to hear from you.
As some sort of tradition, we would like you to ‘meet’ again one of your faculty members – Nenad Dimitrijevic, one of our longest-standing members of the faculty.
"Dear Alumni, dear friends,
It is a pleasure and privilege to greet you. I'm Nenad Dimitrijevic, one from among your old teachers (in my case, the adjective 'old' is not just a metaphor for the time that has passed since you left Budapest ☺). Your old School – CEU Political Science Department – has been my academic home for 23 years. I'm proud of, and grateful for, every single moment I spent here. Colleagues in Department are still wonderful people (this of course does not mean that we are not nasty when it comes to assigning hundreds of pages of class readings, or grading those countless tests and mid-terms). The CEU is still such an exciting and unique place. Students are still extraordinarily decent and enthusiastic (although you were better, no doubt about that). You have heard for sure that we are now proud inhabitants of a shiny new building. It is a truly beautiful place, and it is equipped with the technological state-of-the-art equipment. This equipment is advanced enough to require us to attend special courses where we learn how to avigate all those buttons, computers, and monitors in the new classrooms (motorized windows blinds tend to behave in a hectic manner, going up and down whenever they please). Personally, I cannot help admiring our new Library, a truly beautiful place for reading newspapers, surfing internet, sharing gossip about your teachers, and, yes, from time to time reading that boring academic stuff. What I find even more impressive - my personal tip - is the quality of espresso in the new cafeteria. Believe me, you coffee addicts would have to travel far to find a more tasty cup to keep you awake.
More will be built in the coming years, which is also fine. Still, if you are prone to nostalgia for the 'good old times', you may find it slightly saddening to learn that our cherished Faculty Tower - with its always overcrowded elevators, noisy corridors, strangely low ceilings, and friendly basement - will soon be re-built, and we do not know yet if PolSci can return or will move elsewhere in the campus.
Time is passing fast and memories are apparently at war with forgetting. Some of you might remember me, some of you might not. Same here: some of you I remember vividly; many of you keep me happy by writing occasional mails, telling me about your lives, careers, problems, or asking for a letter of recommendation.
Then there are those among you whom I meet in all kinds of strange places, be it an Oslo record shop or Sarajevo airport. I may struggle for a moment or two to recall your name, or the generation you belonged to (I may even ask you to remind me, don’t get offended). But these are always moments of genuine happiness, like meeting a dear friend with whom you lost touch, but for whom you kept your sincere deep affection.
We hope that the CEU episode has a special place in your hearts and minds. On our part, rest assured that each of you remains very special to us. We would love to hear from you. Don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Kind regards,
Nenad"