Mr. Rector, Madam Minister, Your Holiness, Excellencies, distinguished guests,
It’s a great honor for me to be here today to join the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the University of the West.
For most of this period, at least for the past 50 years, we’ve enjoyed very very strong academic collaboration between the University of the West and American institutions of higher learning. At the center of this collaboration has been the Fulbright program. In 1972, Mihalas Gheorghe became the first scholar from Timisoara – from the University of the West – to take part in the Fulbright program, spending an academic year in the United States researching biophysics.
Since then, sixteen more scholars and students from University of the West have had the honor of studying and conducting research in the United States as part of the Fulbright program, in topics ranging from American literature to electronic engineering.
And the flow has been in the other direction as well. Since 1998, 23 American scholars and students have come to Timisoara, here, at the University of the West, to learn and teach about English language, social work, and many other disciplines.
I would also like to mention and express my appreciation for the American Studies program here at the University of the West, one of only five in Romania. Begun in 2008, the American Studies program has brought our people closer together, by giving students here at the university an in-depth, multidisciplinary opportunity to study the United States, a goal and objective that is at the very core of my mission here in Romania.
I expect and in fact intend that this academic cooperation between the University of the West and American institutions of higher learning in the years ahead, under the leadership of Rector Pirtea will, only deepen and broaden.
Congratulations again on 75 years! La multi ani, Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara! Multumesc!
