United States Studies Centre

United States Studies Centre
Non-profit
Founded 2007
Headquarters Sydney, Australia
Key people
 Bates Gill, CEO
Malcolm Binks, Chair of the Board of Directors
Website ussc.edu.au

The United States Studies Centre is located at the University of Sydney, and aims to increase understanding of the United States in Australia. The centre provides courses for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and hosts public and business forums.

History

To improve understanding of all facets of the US, then Prime Minister John Howard announced in 2006 the creation of a $25 million endowment to establish a United States Studies Centre. After a national competition administered by the New-York-based American Australian Association, the University of Sydney won the right to form the Centre in partnership with the AAA, with additional support from the NSW government and the private sector.

The Centre constituted its Board of Directors chaired by Malcolm Binks, AO and held its first National Summit on the Bush Presidency in 2007. The Centre admitted its first postgraduate students in its MA and PhD degrees in US Studies in early 2008. The remainder of 2008 saw the appointment of the Centre's founding CEO, Professor Geoffrey Garrett, its Chair in US Politics, Professor Margaret Levi, as well as the completion of the Centre's historic headquarters on the University of Sydney campus. In 2009, the Centre appointed journalist James Fallows as Chair in US Media, offered its first undergraduate unit of study on The US in the world, and formed a partnership with Harvard University to host the Centre's second National Summit on Sustainable Globalisation.

In 2009, the Centre hosted its first cohort of six postdoctoral fellows, chosen from 176 applicants. The fellows' work focuses on a variety of issues related to the United States, including cross-national comparisons of the role of religion, effects of increases in income inequality, the history of financial exchanges, U.S. and Arab-Israeli relations, Latino interest in education policy, and the history of sexual liberation in the 1970s U.S.[1]

In the same year, the Centre appointed former Executive Director of Recovery Management for the City of New Orleans Edward Blakely as Honorary Professor in Urban Policy and former Australian Ambassador to the UN Robert Hill as Adjunct Professor in Sustainability.

In 2010 the Centre announced the $2 million Dow Sustainability Program, funded by the US-based Dow Chemical Company Foundation. The program will bring together academic and policy experts from Australia and the US to develop action-oriented solutions to a range of sustainability challenges concerning energy, water, food and biodiversity that are technologically innovative, commercially scalable and politically viable. Former Director of Pharmaceutical Research at Johnson & Johnson Susan Pond was appointed by the Centre as an Adjunct Professor working on the Dow Sustainability Program.

Bates Gill replaced Geoffrey Garrett as chief executive officer in October 2012.[2]

Funding

The Centre is funded from an endowment established by the Australian Government of $25 million with additional support from the University of Sydney, the NSW Government and the American Australian Association through contributions from business and private individuals.

Controversy

Sydney Alumni magazine and the university's newsletter published letters to the editor [3][4] criticising the involvement of the American Australian Association. Some of the letter-writers suggest that the American Australian Association is a partisan organisation hoping to promulgate pro-American views through the Centre. Concerns about lack of academic independence and possible bias at the Centre were also voiced by the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University [5] and political scientist Robert Manne [6]

References

  1. ↑ Postdoctoral fellows.
  2. ↑ "New CEO for the United States Studies Centre". US Studies Centre. Retrieved 2012-05-03.
  3. ↑ "Untitled letters". Sydney Alumni magazine. Retrieved 2008-06-22.
  4. ↑ Holcombe, Alex (2007-10-19). "Concern about the U.S. Studies Centre". Uni News. Retrieved 2008-06-22.
  5. ↑ Illing, Dorothy (2006-08-02). "VC defends open debate". The Australian.
  6. ↑ Lane, Bernard (2007-05-02). "Manne predicts bias at US centre". The Australian.

External links