Michael and Kitty Dukakis Center for Public and Humanitarian Service
ACT - The American College of Thessaloniki
P.O. Box 21021
55510 Pylea, Thessaloniki
Greece
+30 2310 398 227
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David Wisner, Ph.D.
Executive Director
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David Wisner is Professor of International Relations at ACT -- The American College of Thessaloniki, and Executive Director of the Michael and Kitty Dukakis Center for Public and Humanitarian Service.

He is the author of an acclaimed monograph on the origins of the French Revolution, and of scores of scholarly and popular articles, in English, French, and Greek, on a wide variety of historical and contemporary topics. Under the auspices of the Dukakis Center he has written two collections of essays which reflect the Center’s research and outreach orientation, one on the Greek sovereign debt crisis, the other on the future of democratic governance.

At the Dukakis Center he has also commissioned a number of polls and reports, and organized and hosted hundreds of public events. He convenes an annual forum of Greek think tanks and civil society organizations, and has collaborated with dozens of research institutes worldwide. He is the host of “This Day and Age,” a video podcast series.

David Wisner holds a Ph.D. in Modern History from the University of Rochester and has attended post-graduate courses and lectures at the Université de Paris IV and the Ecole du Louvre. He has been at ACT since 1994, and served as founding Chair of ACT’s Division of Humanities and Social Sciences from 2004 to 2016.

David Wisner is on Facebook and LinkedIn.

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Select publications as Dukakis Center Director:

"Gatekeepers of democracy," Kathimerini English edition, May 13, 2019

The Joy of Politics (Kindle Edition) 2017  

"Engaging democracy," Kathimerini English edition, April 28, 2016

"@#$% democracy," Politis, September 23, 2015 

"The Sacrifice of Iphigenia," Politis, August 19, 2015

Still at Aulis: Essays on Crisis and Revolution in Greece and the Eurozone (Kindle Edition) 2014  

"Political reform begins with civic education," Kathimerini English edition, December 15, 2011

NB David Wisner's articles for Politis, the blog of the Dukakis Center, are available at http://politis-dukakis-center.act.edu/.

Three words: Older, Smarter, Better. We call it the ACT advantage.

Our parent institution, Anatolia, has been training regional and global leaders for more than a century, making us one of the oldest institutes of higher learning in this part of the world. The quality of our program is evident in the superior way we design our courses and curriculum, use our resources, manage our relations with our many constituencies, and prepare our students for life after college.

But there is more. We are currently the only private institution of tertiary learning in Northern Greece with American accreditation and EU validation. We have partnerships with some of the leading universities in the world. We attract leading diplomats and political figures to interact directly with our students every semester – people like Nicholas Burns, Alvaro de Soto, Nikiforos Diamandouros, Geert-Hinrich Ahrens, Michael Dukakis, and many others.

Add to this a solid curriculum taught by some of the most devoted teachers you will ever meet, and an unparalleled program of extra-curricular activities, all on a splendid wooded campus outside the noise and pollution of the city, and you have a winning combination. 

Every year since 1998 ACT has awarded financial aid to qualified IR majors. There are two principal forms of support: standard financial aid, based on need; and merit aid, based on academic performance. In 2006 and again in 2007 nearly 40% of incoming students in the IR program received some sort of financial aid.

In most cases the recipients of aid have been extremely successful. Consider Ilda Zhulali, who graduated in 2001 after transferring to ACT from the University of South Carolina. She was the top student in IR when she graduated in 2001. She first began working in the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then went to Oxford to do an MA in International Relations with a scholarship from the Italian government. She is now head of the department of European integration in the Albanian MFA.

Sotiris Themistokleos came to ACT from Cyprus as the recipient of a special scholarship offered by an ACT Trustee. He, too, received an award for academic excellence upon graduation and is currently finishing an MA at Birkbeck College, University of London. He plans to teach and become involved in politics and diplomacy when he finishes his studies.

For the Class of 2011, Valedictorian Ermal Vila was a recipient of Merit Aid with a GPA of 3.9/4; he was also selected by the University of Wales to receive a bursary scholarship for his senior year. During his time at ACT Ermal took part in dozens of lectures and other activities on and off campus, including several master classes with senior diplomats and a session of the European Youth Parliament, and also did a formal internship at the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe. Ermal is currently doing an MA at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on a full scholarship.

Ours is the most international of the academic programs at ACT, with students coming from three continents and a dozen countries. Some are sons and daughters of professional diplomats; all are young people with passion and curiosity. Most know already what they wish to do in life; others discover themselves throughout the course of their studies.

Our students are generally socially mobile, and typically intend to use their ACT degree as a passport for some sort of international career – either in the form of post-graduate studies or in terms of work abroad. Nonetheless, the majority of our alumni eventually make their way back to their home countries. We pride ourselves in fact in our positive contribution to sustainable regional development.

One characteristic unites all our students and alumni: a fierce pride and loyalty to ACT and the IR program. And they all respond to our principal message: No matter who you are, you can look forward to success if you are willing to work hard, keep an open mind, and take advantage of the many opportunities that come your way.

Did you know that Alexis Papahelas studied history and international relations in college?

More than 100 students have taken one of our degrees in IR. Our success rate among graduates in IR is superior to US and EU averages.

We find that the breadth of our general education program makes for better diplomats, while the skill sets developed in the specialized IR curriculum are also ideal for business and academic careers. Take the first three students who graduated with a BA in IR, back in 1999. One is a practicing architect and co-founder of the motion design studio Nomint, one a general manager at Hellenic Fabrics, and one a successful Athens-based journalist.

Other graduates are working in government ministries, international organizations, and ngo’s; are active in local and national politics; are involved in business and in teaching; or are self-employed as successful entrepreneurs. Several have also done post-graduate studies at some of the best universities of the world, and, indeed, our program will give you a great head start if you wish to pursue an MA, MBA, or Ph.D. after graduating from ACT. 

Alumni of the ACT IR program have been offered jobs by the following companies and agencies, among many others:

European Commission
Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art
University of St Andrews
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
United States Institute of Peace
Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
FYRoM Miistry of Foreign Affairs
Janes Publications
East-West Institute
Schuman Associates Brussels
Heritage Foundation
International Office of Migration
European Center for Vocational Training – CEDEFOP
Municipality of Plovdiv
Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe
Nomint Motion Design
Hellenic Fabrics
CNN Greece
United States House of Representatives
UK Data Archive
Saatchi and Saatchi

International Relations, or IR, is actually a relatively new field of academic study. It is comprised of a combination of academic disciplines and methodologies we at ACT call the Human Sciences.

To start with, all ACT students receive a broad academic base, with special focus on communication skills – you will do a lot of reading, writing, and public speaking. The program has a practical dimension as well, with lots of emphasis on problem solving.

The core of the IR curriculum is a series of courses in foreign policy, political economy, regional integration, and international law. Students also take a specially designed cluster of courses in gender, geography, and culture, in addition to more traditional politics and history sub-disciplines. Finally, you will have several optional courses, or IR electives, in a wide variety of areas.

Our program in IR is unique in its dual emphasis on public service and international diplomacy. We aim to produce better citizens – regardless of where you come from and what you hope to do in life – and we provide pre-professional training for a wide variety of careers. 

The Lucy Center for Balkan Studies was established in 2004 thanks to a generous donation from ACT friend and trustee, Elias Kulukundis, and named after his late wife Lucy. The Center was created to facilitate the formal study of Southeast European affairs, particularly for undergraduate study abroad students spending a semester or academic year at ACT. Students studying at the Center have the opportunity to do formal coursework in Balkan Studies, participate in study trips throughout the region, and, in select cases, undertake formal internships in regional organizations.

The Center for Balkan Studies also acts as a clearinghouse for information about the Balkans and the Aegean Basin, and as a forum for debate on regional issues. In particular, a lecture series has been established for discussion of such important topics as civil society, democratization, and European and transatlantic integration. The Center for Balkan Studies supports the annual Borjan Tanevski Memorial Fund essay competition.

ACT offers undergraduate teaching and organizes extracurricular and outreach activities regarding the Holocaust and other historical instances of genocide on a regular basis. ACT’s Bissell Library contains a collection of print materials and other resources on the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, which make of ACT an ideal destination for people seeking to study genocide as it relates to the different communities of Thessaloniki.

The Dukakis Center hosts an annual lecture on the Holocaust and other events on the theme of comparative genocide. Speakers in this series have included Taner Akcam and Debórah Dwork, both of Clark University, Thessaloniki-based historian Rena Molho, Devin Naar of the University of Washington, and local journalist Popi Asteriadou.

In 2015 the Dukakis Center will host a series of events marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Rena Molho
Taner Akcam

Every summer the Dukakis Center hosts senior scholars from the European Studies Centre, St. Anthony's College, Oxford, for an intensive summer seminar in European integration, the SEESOX Salonika Seminar, for the principal benefit of ACT degree candidates and study abroad students. Collaboration between the Center and SEESOX extends also to academic research and student and faculty exchange. The SEESOX Seminar was launched in June 2009.