Expert on Europe to speak at VGCC on May 26

Vance-Granville Community College will host a noted scholar to discuss European affairs on Wednesday, May 26 from 11 a.m. until noon in the Civic Center on the college’s main campus in Vance County. The public is invited to attend the presentation, which is offered free of charge.

The guest speaker, Dr. Erica Edwards (pictured above), serves as the Executive Director of the Center for European Studies, the European Union Center for Excellence, and the TransAtlantic Masters Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The topic of her presentation will be “Immigration and the Strengthening of Right Wing Parties in Europe.”

Dr. Edwards completed her undergraduate degree in political science and French at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and obtained an M.A. in European Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, where she was a Fulbright Scholar. Edwards received her Ph.D. in Comparative Political Science in 2007 from UNC and was involved in a number of international education programs during her tenure, most notably the Chapel Hill Expert Survey on Party Positioning on European integration and the UNC Video Consortium in EU Studies. Prior to joining the UNC Center for European Studies in August 2009, she held academic positions at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) in Vienna, Austria, and the Free University Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Her main research and teaching interests are in the fields of comparative politics, political parties and party systems, European integration, and public opinion.

Edwards’ presentation is the fifth installment of an International Speakers Series sponsored by the VGCC Global Awareness Committee in partnership with the University of North Carolina’s World View program. The series is designed to enhance public awareness of pressing international issues and how they affect area residents. For more information, contact Bobby Van Brunt at (252) 738-3412.