Among many things, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 symbolized new opportunities in education—but not just for universities in former East Germany.
Ohio University was beginning its partnership with the University of Leipzig.
The partnership began shortly after the wall fell, when the U.S. Embassy in Germany invited U.S. universities to visit the eastern universities. OU was one of two schools to take up the offer during the summer of 1991, said Robert Stewart, director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and one of OU’s first professors to work with the University of Leipzig.
OU received grants in the early 1990s from the United States Information Agency and the Freedom Forum for $125,000 and $80,000, respectively, and Stewart visited to work out a plan for the two schools’ journalism programs, Stewart said.
“We had all this money but we didn’t have a plan,” Stewart said.
After working out a curriculum, Stewart was one of 10 faculty members from OU’s school of journalism to teach a class at the University of Leipzig.
“We were very responsive (to Leipzig), and what I think I did, if I did anything, is I just listened.”
The partnership helped the University of Leipzig develop Mephisto 97.6, one of the only student radio stations in Germany, as well as study-abroad programs in Germany for OU students, Stewart said.
OU and Leipzig have also partnered to offer a research program incorporating OU’s Global Leadership Center and the Edison Biotechnology Institute.
“For the two of us, it just fell together very easily — our academic calendars lined up, and our academic interests lined up,” said Greg Emery, director of OU’s Global Leadership Center.
This weekend, OU received a grant from the German Embassy in Washington D.C. for the Global Leadership Center and Edison Biotechnology Institute to work with Leipzig in order to come up with ways to commercialize and use discoveries in biotechnology made by both universities, Emery said.
“This is really a professional experience,” Emery said. “Probably our project looks much more like an internship or consultation project than they do a course or a class.”
Emery declined to release the grant’s total amount.
OU and Leipzig developed the Ohio Leipzig European Center, a study-abroad exchange program for all disciplines, said William Condee, a theater professor and a former director of the center.
The program isn’t running anymore because of low enrollment, Condee said.
“I think it was a wonderful program because it gave students the opportunity to interact with students across majors,” Condee said. “The students could learn from each other across majors.”
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@DanielleRose84
