handling visa issues for our international faculty, who come from Bosnia and Herzogovina, Kosovo and Turkey. Hunn also noted that “organizing interesting and challenging visits and briefings, including high-level meetings” was a serious consideration in picking new destinations.
Ultimately, the staff decided that a few alternatives could make for an exciting and academically stimulating trip for our summer students: Croatia, Albania and Kosovo added to the end of the Bosnia and Herzegovina trip. Karin Hunn received lots of help, advice and ideas from the faculty and staff members at the center in creating a completely new study trip agenda. “Since one of our faculty members was from Kosovo, I profited a lot from her input, as well as from the input of IES EU staff member Karin Thomas, who went on a non-IES related study trip to Albania and Kosovo last year during her summer vacations,” said Hunn. Although the window that Hunn had—a mere two weeks—was not ideal for planning such a trip, which includes hotel bookings, transportation setup between countries, flights, scheduling meetings and, on top of everything else, breaking the news to the students, the plan and a clear schedule were set just in time for take-off.
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When the students were first notified about the changing itinerary, there were mixed reactions, ranging from disappointment to intrigue. Summer student Brett Hoffmann said, “Initially, I thought damn; I kept hearing really great things about Istanbul and Turkey. But then the introduction of all different places made me really excited… mainly because we would get to see three countries instead of one!” Other students remarked that it would allow them to get to see a corner of the world they would never think to travel to otherwise. Although the reactions varied, everyone was in the least excited to be traveling, seeing new destinations and hearing varied opinions about the relationship between the EU and the near East.
What these students experienced during their two week field study trip was an academically intriguing program mixed with fantastic highlights of each location. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, students were able to learn about the connection between the country in the EU, while also visiting the Aljazeera News Office and the US Embassy to have talks with representatives. They were then taken to Visegrad to learn about the political history of the country, after which returning back to Sarajevo for a few more academic sessions.
Next they visited the beautiful and historic divided city of Mostar before bussing over the border to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Within the medieval city gates of the old town, they took a tour of the Croatian city and learned about Croatia’s position in the Western Balkans with regard to its EU accession. This was an extremely pivotal moment for discussion, since Croatia’s EU accession would occur the following week. From there, the students were off to Tirana, Albania, where they met with the director of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, learning about the current political situation in Albania. Other meetings occurred in Tirana, including briefings on EU-Albania relations and Albania-Serbia relations. Finally, the students left for their last leg of the journey in Pristina, Kosovo. Students visited the offices Vetëvendosje!, or a political party in Kosovo, where they heard an intriguing lecture on the possible reunification of Kosovo with Albania. They were also able to travel around the city with their Kosovar faculty member, Edona Krasniqi, who showed them the sites of her home country. This was a rare chance for the students to learn about the background of one of their faculty members in her native environment.They also visited the town of Prizren, where they were briefed on the development of Kosovo since the adoption of the UN Security Council Resolution 1244.
It was an eye-opening experience for the staff, faculty and students where were along for the amazing journey. Many students commented that Kosovo was their favorite leg of the journey, although seeing the crystal blue waters of Croatia was also a highlight. Student Brett Hoffmann commented that “Kosovo and Albania were so unique in the fact that they are in a weird development phase,” meaning that they were in a state of rebuilding their cities both culturally and politically. They were able to witness a continuous thread of development to the East of the EU zone, particularly in locations that could one day be a part of the growing union. This not only added to the academic programming for our summer students, yet gave the staff new ideas about how we could redefine this program in the near future, if need or desire be.
Katie Smith
Edona Krasniqi