In Dialogue with the USA 

The University of New Orleans in the US state of Louisiana is the first American university with which co-operation was begun in the year 2000. The institutional basis was achieved by the establishment of a Marshall Plan Anniversary Chair and a Visiting Professorship at CenterAustria. The Marshall Plan Chair is occupied each year by a guest professor whose expertise and research in his or her area is intended to further the academic dialogue between Austria and the USA. The guest professor is in charge of three university courses and is integrated in the activities of CenterAustria. He or she takes part in annual symposia and gives public lectures. Transatlantic exchange of experience With this new chair and the visiting professorship, the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation wishes to advance the recognition of Austria and her interests and support the exchange of experience between US-American and Austrian researchers – particularly in the fields of social sciences and economics. The Foundation thereby contributes to the expansion of Central European studies courses offered at the University of New Orleans.

The international academic community profits from the results of this transatlantic discourse, which is published in the series ‘Contemporary Austrian Studies’ and ‘Studies in Austrian and Central European History’. Not only social scientists at the University of New Orleans but also the guest professors publish their research findings here.

That the choice of the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation fell to the University of New Orleans was thanks to its exemplary cooperation with the University of Innsbruck as well as the fact that the university chair in Louisiana receives financial support from the State. There are thus greater resources available for the project and correspondingly more activities can be carried out and the effectiveness of the measures is increased.

Academic symposia in New Orleans or Innsbruck
The University of New Orleans has been associated by an academic partnership with the University of Innsbruck since the year 1976. This began with an International Summer School and student exchange program, followed a few years later by exchanges of lecturers and professors. Since 1982 an academic symposium has taken place annually in New Orleans or Innsbruck, the findings of which have also been published. Twenty years ago the University of New Orleans and Innsbruck University concluded an official Friendship Treaty.

In 1990 Innsbruck University first awarded Joint Studies Scholarships to students of the University of New Orleans spending an academic year at Innsbruck University, and the University of New Orleans launched the Washington Centre Internship Program for students of Innsbruck University. Meanwhile, for over ten years now both academic institutions have published a common series ‘Contemporary Austrian Studies’ (Transaction Press, Rutgers University) and lectures take place annually in the framework of the Transatlantic Lecture Series.

The Center for Austrian Culture and Commerce (CenterAustria) has existed at the University of New Orleans since 1997, with academic emphasis on the study of Austria and Academic cooperation with her Eastern European neighbours. Alongside German language instruction and Austrian geography, its program includes university courses in Austrian literature, culture and economy. CenterAustria administers the Friendship Treaty between the University of New Orleans and Innsbruck University. It organizes business meetings between the two universities taking place every year in February in New Orleans and in July in Innsbruck, during which future cooperation policy is determined on the basis of past experience.

CenterAustria also attends to everything concerning the exchange program with the University of Innsbruck. In order to further enhance the already existing intensive and friendly relationships of the University of New Orleans with Austria, the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation endowed CenterAustria at the University of New Orleans with one million dollar to enable the establishment of the Marshall Plan Chair for Austrian Studies. The new chair is rotating, thus benefiting the whole university. The university institutes make annual applications for a theme for the chair. Thereafter the search begins in Austria for the most suitable candidate to occupy the chair for the following academic year.

The first Marshall Plan Professors
In the first year the Marshall Plan Chair resided with the History Department of the University of New Orleans. The historian Thomas Albrich from Innsbruck University was the first occupant of the visiting professorship. He is a leading authority in the area of Jewish history in Central Europe in general, and on displaced people following the Second World War and Jewish exiles in particular.

The College of Business was the next institute that benefited from the newly created Chair: in the academic year 2001/02 Eric Frey was engaged to work on the theme of European Monetary Union and transatlantic relations. He is a journalist for the Austrian newspaper ‘Der Standard’ and the Vienna correspondent for the ‘Financial Times’ (London).

In the academic year 2002/03 the economic historian Peter Berger from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration became Marshall Plan professor. He is currently working on a documentation of twentieth century Austrian history.

In the academic year 2003/04, Andrea Grisold from the Institute of Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration took over the Chair as Marshall Plan Professor in the field of comparative environmental studies.

For the academic year 2004/05 the University picked the historian Thomas Fröschl from the University of Vienna to fill the Marshall Plan Anniversary Chair at the College of Liberal Arts. He is a specialist in the history of the atlantic world and of transatlantic relations.

In the academic year 2005/06 the chairholder was Peter Gerlich, who served as Dean of the School of Social and Economic Sciences at the University of Vienna and previously taught at Smith College, MA, Nuffield College at the University of Oxford, Stanford University, and Webster University, Vienna, among others.

Martin Heintl, University of Vienna, was his successor in the academic year 2006/07. He taught ‘Regional Development in the European Union’.