Summit expands academic engagement to Poland

A few times this fall, Dr. Laurel Wei arose earlier than usual to teach an international political economic class at 7 a.m. from her home office. The fully online class, though, wasn't for undergraduate students at the University of North Georgia (UNG).

Wei, assistant professor of political science at UNG, taught 12 international graduate-level students enrolled at Wroclaw University in Wroclaw, Poland. She met with them early in the morning, because it was in the afternoon for them.

"It is amazing that UNG and Wroclaw University could collaborate in this manner considering how different our two higher education systems are," Wei said. "I will have four more meetings with them in January, and it will count as a single semester for them. But for me, it will cover two semesters."

Teaching this course is one part of an international collaboration between UNG and Wroclaw deemed the Wroclaw Security Summit 2021. The second part involves Dr. Bibek Chand teaching a graduate-level workshop in the spring.

"It largely focuses on how China's increasing power and engagements within Asia are challenging the European Union's normative approaches in engaging the region's countries, including democracy promotion and strengthening of rule of law," the assistant professor of political science at UNG said.

The third and final portion of the collaboration involves Chand, Wei and Drs. Craig Greathouse and Dlynn Williams attending the second "International Science Conference — NATO and the EU — strategic partnership and cooperation in the field of Euro-Atlantic security area." Wroclaw and its Institute of International Studies are sponsoring the three-day conference Dec. 14-16.

"This security summit and conference allows our scholars who study European and Asian relations to participate and collaborate in a virtual conference with colleagues throughout Europe," Dr. Dlynn Williams, head of the political science and international affairs department at UNG, said.

The partnership and conference with Wroclaw University are examples of UNG's commitment to international associations. Earlier this fall, three faculty members from the Military University of Land Forces (MULF) in Poland visited UNG for research purposes. UNG's Corps of Cadets has a partnership with MULF, which features an exchange of cadets, guest lectures, joint research projects, and publications.

Visiting faculty members were:

• Marta Nowakowska, a cultural anthropologist and associate professor at MULF. She is writing a book about cultural competencies and their influence on human error, based on military missions abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Wojciech Horyń, professor of security studies at MULF. He is writing about how the National Guard helped the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic and lessons Poland could learn.
• Aneta Kazanecka, vice chancellor for student affairs at MULF. She examined best practices at UNG.

The trio spent about a week at UNG in November before they returned to MULF, which is also headquartered in Wroclaw, Poland.