European Studies Institute aims to center the continent for interested undergrads

A new European Studies Institute (ESI) has launched at Penn along with a revitalized minor available to most students who study abroad in Europe.

“The European Union is the second-largest economy in the world,” says Mitchell Orenstein, director of the institute and professor of Russian and East European studies. “It’s probably the place that students in their careers will interact with in an important way,” he says.

While many departments at Penn focus on specific European countries, cultures, or languages, the new Institute is focused on student research under the umbrella of faculty members, across the continent and its institutions.

Henry McDaniel, a fourth-year student from Philadelphia double-majoring in Russian and East European studies and history, is researching Russian “hybrid warfare”—election interference, disinformation, and infrastructure sabotage—in the western Balkans and how it affects the countries’ movements toward European Union candidacy.

McDaniel says he would recommend that any student pursue research in Europe. “Being on the ground, speaking to experts, is ultimately what is going to make us more globally minded citizens and future diplomats,” he says.

The ESI began last year with a grant from Penn Global. The next phase will be to grow the institute “into a full-fledged area center,” Orenstein says. That will include developing programs, increasing teaching opportunities, creating additional classes, adding a speaker series, and working with partners across the University, particularly on study-abroad initiatives and languages, he says.

One central element is the new minor in European studies. It had previously existed for several decades but recently had gone dormant and lacked visibility to students, Orenstein says. The new minor now has a core course on European institutions, which can be taken either at Penn or during study abroad. Half can be done at Penn and half during a term abroad.

“It’s a terrific opportunity to get some recognition for the time and effort spent in study abroad and also to understand the European Union institutions and their cultural context,” Orenstein says. “There’s a good core for this minor and a few good research programs right now; we just need to expand it.”

McDaniel agrees about the importance of learning more about Europe. In January, he and other fourth-year students writing senior theses related to how the war in Ukraine is changing Europe went on a two-week trip there under the ESI, making stops in London, Brussels, Paris, and Berlin to hear from academics, experts, and EU officials. Students work in small teams to study issues confronting Europe and interview policymakers during the trip, which takes place between New Year’s and the start of the spring semester. Applications for the next trip are now open and will close Feb. 17.

The Russia-Ukraine war in particular is a critical inflection point for students to consider, according to McDaniel. “That’s such a critical time for Europe,” he says. “How Europe is collectively responding to this crisis can tell us a great deal about geopolitical dynamics on the continent.”

The institute has an advisory council including Osman Balkan of the Huntsman Institute and the Department of Political Science, Kristen Ghodsee of the Department of Russian and East European Studies, Abigail Lewis of the Council for European Studies, Julia Lynch of the Department of Political Science and the Lauder Institute, Philip M. Nichols of the Wharton School, Brendan O’Leary of the Department of Political Science, and Barbie Zelizer of the Annenberg School for Communication.

Europe is an important academic subject because it is a “really unique polity that shows the possibilities of international cooperation through pooling sovereignty between different nations, which has led to a historic reduction in conflict,” Orenstein says. “Countries that have fought for hundreds of years are now at peace. It’s its own security community, and that’s an important model for a world that is increasingly immersed in conflict.”

Europe’s economic strengths and relationship with the United States are also vital to understand, Orenstein says. “The United States heritage is as a former European colony, and many of our people have close ties to Europe. Our government has close ties. So, there’s all sorts of ways in which we’re close to Europe and sort of underappreciate how differently things operate there.”