Dr. John McCormickDr. John McCormick

Dr. John McCormick, professor of European politics at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), will present the address “The E.U.: An Uncertain Future” on Monday, March 27, at 1 p.m. at Hope College in Winants Auditorium of Graves Hall through the Great Decisions Global Discussion Series of the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan.

The public is invited.  Admission is free.

The council’s Great Decisions Global Discussion Series highlights the most critical global topics facing Americans for the year as chosen by the Foreign Policy Association in New York City.  The council brings experts to West Michigan to discuss the topics, with presentations at Hope in the afternoon and at Aquinas College in the evening.

McCormick was educated at Rhodes University in South Africa, University College London and Indiana University. His academic interests focus on the European Union, comparative politics, and transatlantic relations.

He has been a visiting professor at the universities of Exeter and Sussex in Britain, and at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. During 2010-13 he held a Jean Monnet Chair from the European Commission, awarded under an international program that supports teaching activities in European integration. In the spring of 2013 he was Fulbright-Schuman Chair in US-EU Politics at the College of Europe. In the autumn of 2014 he was awarded a second three-year Jean Monnet Chair.

He is the author of 12 books and multiple book chapters and journal articles, has written seven textbooks that have been published in 24 editions and seven languages, has won three university teaching awards, and has published in Political Quarterly, the Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Environment, Il Politico and Cuadernos Europeos de Deusto.

Hope is an educational partner of the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan (worldmichigan.org), which is dedicated to educating people in western Michigan about other countries and cultures of the world, as well as providing a forum for discussion of critical foreign policy issues.  In existence since 1949, the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan is a non-partisan, non-advocacy educational non-profit organization.  With 60 member companies and almost 3,000 members, it is considered one of the best councils in the national network of 100 World Affairs Councils.

McCormick will also be speaking on Monday, March 27, at 6 p.m. at the Aquinas College Performing Arts Center.  Admission to the event at Aquinas is $10.

The council’s 2017 Great Decisions Global Discussion Series will conclude on Monday, April 3, with the address “Shifts in the Sand: U.S.-Saudi Relations” by Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy of Washington, D.C.

More information about the presentations at Hope is available at hope.edu/greatdecisions.  More information about the Great Decisions Global Discussion Series as a whole is available here.

Graves Hall is located at 263 College Ave., between 10th and 12th streets.  The Aquinas College Performing Arts Center is located at 1703 Robinson Rd. SE in Grand Rapids.