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CENTER FOR WESTERN EUROPEAN STUDIES
The Center for Western European Studies was established at the University of Michigan in 1970 under the terms of a grant from the Ford Foundation. The plans for such a center had evolved, however, from the meetings of an informal group that included Professors John Bowditch and Raymond Grew from the Department of History, Sam Barnes and Roy Pierce from Political Science, and Robert Stern, Economics. The Dean named this group a Committee for Western European Studies with Professor Stern as its Chairman in 1968; Professor Grew became Chairman the following year. The Committee's subsequent involvement with the Ford Foundation led to Michigan's becoming a founding member of the Council for European Studies (established in 1969 as a consortium of the University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, Princeton University, the University of Wisconsin, and Yale University); Professor Grew served as co-Director of the Council in its first two years and subsequently on its Steering Committee, and Professors Barnes and Pierce of the Political Science Department, and Morris Bornstein of the Economics Department all served on the Steering Committee in the next few years, as the Council gradually expanded to become an open scholarly organization. The Center's Directors have included: Professors Raymond Grew, Department of History, 1970-71; John Bowditch, Department of History, 1971-72; Roy Pierce, Department of Political Science, 1972-75; and Acting Director Charles Tilly, Departments of History and Sociology, 1975-76. The Center was first given office space of its own in 1971.
In a report to Bernard A. Galler, Associate Dean for Long-Range Planning, Professor Charles Tilly summarized the orientation of the West European Center:
The Center has from the start concentrated on the encouragement of graduate work on Western European topics within established degree programs, and on the facilitation of communication and collaboration among scholars concerned with Western Europe.