New projects at the Dukakis Center

The Dukakis Center will host three extra-curricular projects in the fall 2015 semester for the principal benefit of the ACT student body.

First, the Center will host screenings of debates by Republican and Democratic candidates for the nomination of their respective parties for the 2016 Presidential election. The screenings will be a prelude to a project designed for US study abroad students who will cast absentee ballots from Thessaloniki in November 2016.

Second, in another, related political project, the Dukakis Center will inaugurate a research project with colleagues at the University Research Institute

 at the University if Macedonia. In the first phase of the project, two students -- one degree candidate, one study abroad student --will study the general phenomenon of voter abstention (apohi in Greek) and organize a workshop for students from ACT and the University of Macedonia. Their findings will inform a presentation Nikos Marantzidis of the University of Macedonia will make with Dukakis Center director David Wisner at a conference on political participation the Center will host during the spring 2016 semester. 

These new projects add to a student-based project currently underway, on "Public Service in the 21st Century."

Finally, during the week of November 23-27, the Dukakis Center and ACT's English program will host a Masterclass in photojournalism for ACT and Anatolia students and alumni with SBALA alumnus Dimitris Bouras. Mr. Bouras will present some of his own photos from Ukraine, Syria, and other conflict zones on Tuesday, December 1.

This will be the second time Dimitris Bouras visits ACT to speak about his photography, the first being in December 2013.

The Dukakis Center inaugurated its series of masterclasses during the spring 2014 semester with a masterclass in and exhibition of environmental photography with Anatolia alumna Chrysa Nikoleri, and a masterclass in documentary making with Christos Nikoleris.