Past Events

Join the German Club on Wednesdays during Spring semester for conversational meetings and to practice German speaking and listening skills.

Get paid for pursuing proficiency of a less commonly taught languages while at Pitt! Learn about submitting a competitive FLAS application (deadline: February 17) and chat with UCIS advisors about any questions you may have about the application process. Pizza Served!

Join Brazil Nuts (Luso-Brazilian Student Association) for coffee, light snacks, and a chance to learn basic conversational skills in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Mangia con noi! Bring your lunch and chat with us! Pitt students only, all levels welcome!

Moderator: Randall Halle, University of Pittsburgh Panelist/s: Phoebe Koundouri, University of Cambridge Max Koch, University of Lund Maša Ocvirk, Global Europe Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Description: This Conversation on Europe will look at the economics of climate response. Growth or degrowth, clean investment or circular consumption, modernization or renovation: what are the European routes toward sustainability? From a Transatlantic perspective, what are the best economic practices in climate response? About the Panelists: Phoebe Koundouri: She holds an MPhil and a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge and holds academic positions at the University of Cambridge, University College London, the University of Reading, and the London School of Economics. She has published 18 books and more than 600 scientific papers, including publications in Nature, the Lancet, and top-ranked economics, econometrics, and sustainability science journals. She co-edited several prestigious academic journals, including Nature: Climate Action and Environmental and Resources Economics. She organized numerous international scientific conferences, supervised more than 30 PhD students, and gave keynote speeches and public lectures across the world. In 2019, she was elected President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE) the biggest scientific association in the field, with more than 1500 member institutions, from more than 75 countries and she is now chairing the World Council of Environmental and Natural Resource Economists Associations (WCERE). In 2022 she received the prestigious European Research Council Synergy Grant, and in 2023, she was awarded the Academy of Athens Award for Scientific Excellence. Max Koch is Professor of Social Policy and Sustainability at Lund University, Sweden. He currently leads the interdisciplinary projects Postgrowth Welfare Systems and Economic Elites in the Climate Change Transformation: Practices, justifications and regulations of unsustainable lifestyles in Sweden. He has published widely on degrowth and sustainable welfare, mainly with focus on European societies. Maša Ocvirk is the Program Coordinator for the Global Europe Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Originally from Slovenia, she has previously served as the Representative of the Slovenian National Assembly to the European Parliament in Brussels, among other things working on the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2021. Before that she worked as an advisor for the Committees on EU Affairs and Foreign Policy at the Slovenian National Assembly. Next to fostering transatlantic relations, her research interests include the EU as a Global Actor, EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, EU reform, EU enlargement, and relations with the Western Balkans.

The High School Model European Union is an annual event for area high school students. The goal of the Model EU is to give high school students a chance to learn about the workings of the European Union through a hands-on simulation. Playing the roles of presidents and prime ministers, students spend a day engaged in intense negotiations over conflicting issues about the EU. The objective is to simulate a specific European Council meeting that focuses on recent current events impacting the EU. Model EU enhances students’ understanding of classroom learning and gives them a real sense of the challenges involved in the decision-making process of the European Union.