Educational diplomacy: Virginia Tech showcases transatlantic policy expertise in the nation's capital
“The most important thing is that we relate with and engage with a global agenda,” said Joel Peters, who directs Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs.
A few months after graduating from Virginia Tech, Salwa Balla '23 landed a job as a national security advisor with a firm in Washington, D.C. There’s no doubt that her Virginia Tech education set her on the right path to her dream career.
While she was a student, she interned with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, specializing in social, economic, and human development issues, as part of the Washington, D.C., Semester in Global Engagement. She also worked as an undergraduate researcher for the Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons through Viginia Tech's Diplomacy Lab program.
These experiences were “big stepping stones toward working in the city and in the field,” said Balla, who majored in national security, foreign affairs, and international public policy.
She was one of approximately 50 people at a conference in Washington, D.C., last week that addressed the ways that the European Union (EU) and the United States will work together with the new U.S. presidential administration. Virginia Tech’s Center for European and Transatlantic Studies and the School of Public and International Affairs organized and hosted the event at the European Union delegation headquarters.
University faculty with expertise in politics and international affairs as well as representatives from the EU and other Washington, D.C., institutions, shared their perspectives in a series of panels. The topics covered everything from the future of transatlantic relations to trade issues and the relationship between the U.S, NATO, and the EU.
Balla, who said she was taking what she learned from the conference for use in her daily work, is a clear example of how Virginia Tech faculty and its programs equip students for careers on the international and political stage.
The conference drew embassy staff, political and think tank representatives, academic experts, and students, and it was a unique opportunity for Virginia Tech to showcase its command of national and international issues. It also highlighted the importance of transatlantic studies to Virginia Tech’s academic programs.
“It’s important for us to be competitive in the Washington, D.C., space,” said Chad Hankinson, who is a political science lecturer and associate director of Virginia Tech’s Center for European and Transatlantic Studies. “We have great experts in political science and international studies, so hosting this conference and highlighting the contributions that our faculty make to public policy discussions is a win for Virginia Tech and the center.”
Eight Virginia Tech faculty spoke or moderated panels during the conference. They included Yannis Stivachtis, director of the Center for European and Transatlantic Studies and Jean Monnet Chair; Paul Avey, associate professor of political science; and Chad Levinson, assistant professor of government and international affairs.
Other panelists hailed from around the globe. They included Santiago Monsalve, deputy head of the political section and a political counselor for security and defense with the EU delegation to the United States; Julie Smith, professor of European politics at the University of Cambridge; and Karel Lannoo, CEO of the Centre for European Policy Studies, a think tank in Brussels, Belgium.
Virginia Tech partnered with the Austrian Institute for International Affairs for the conference.
Lannoo said the event was unique because many universities are not as connected with current events in this way. Think tanks and similar policy groups often host these kinds of discussions in Europe, he said.
Bringing together academics with policy experts provides a helpful perspective, said Michelle Egan, professor and director of the Transatlantic Policy Center at American University, who participated with one of the panels.
“It’s a timely opportunity to think about the future of transatlantic relations,” she said. “It’s also a good way to put together academics and policy makers to spread the word about the importance of both educating students on these issues and also research networks and creating feedback.”
“This is kind of public diplomacy, education diplomacy at its best,” she said.
Global issues are a focus for Virginia Tech’s political science and international affairs programs.
“The most important thing is that we relate with and engage with a global agenda,” said Joel Peters, who directs Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs and was a panel moderator. “The buzzline of the school is bridging theory and practice, and we look at the U.S. and global affairs in general. Europe is a critical relationship with the U.S.”
Peters, along with a graduate student, plans to write a policy brief from the event.
Virginia Tech’s educational focus helped students and alumni like Balla and currently Michael Senters, a third-year doctoral student who is studying political science through the Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought program.
He said hearing the conversations during the conference gave him a new view of his research on the regulation of digital platforms in the United States. He hopes to work in public policy one day, addressing online regulation.
Learning ways that European countries govern the digital space “gave me a broader perspective,” he said.
