Visitors from Ukraine, Romania and the Netherlands Include Stops in Cox Center on Itineraries
Government and communication specialists from Ukraine, Romania and the Netherlands visited the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research in March and April, where they met with Center staff and graduate and undergraduate students.
In early April, Dr. Nick Palinchak, director of the Institute for Public Administration and Regional Development of Uzhgorod State University in Ukraine and his research associated, Dr. Svitlana Slava, visited the Cox Center and the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, in which the Cox Center is located, while learning about the resources of the University of Georgia.
Drs. Palinchak and Slava were at the University of Georgia as part of a USAID/IREX Partnership Program between the University of Georgia and the State University of Uzhgorod. The program was organized by the International Center for Democratic Governance, a unit of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia.
Dr. Vlad and Cox Center Program Coordinator Kornelia Probst-Mackowiak met with the Ukrainian guests and explained the work of the Cox Center. The pair was particularly interested in workshops and programs coordinated by the Cox Center in eastern Europe.
Cox Center Director Dr. Becker was in Europe at the time of the visit by the Ukrainian and Romanian guests to conduct a workshop in Kyev, the Ukrainian capital, on coverage of environmental health issues.
Uzhgorod State University is located in the city of Uzhgorod, in the western part of Ukraine.
Shortly after the visit by the Ukrainian team, a delegation from Iasi, in north-eastern Romania, visited the Cox Center while touring Athens under the auspices of the Athens city government. Included in the delegation were Iasi mayor Dr. Constantin Simirad, Ticu Isari, president of Television Tele'M, and Dr. Vasile Grecu, Iasi city counselor.
The delegation met with Dr. Tudor Vlad, visiting research scientist in the Cox Center and a native of Cluj-Napoca, in western Romania. Dr. Vlad and the visitors from Iasi discussed the work of the Cox Center and its relevance for Romania.
The Cox Center conducted a workshop on copyright law at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj- Napoca in the summer of 1998. Dr. Vlad, who founded the journalism program at Babes-Bolyai and who hosted the workshop in 1998, and Cox Center Director Dr. Lee B. Becker have edited a book on copyright law growing out of the workshop. The book will be published by Hampton Press in late 2001 or early 2002.
In late April Drs. Bernadette Hemels from Valkenswaard in the south of the Netherlands visited the Cox Center to discuss communication training and learn of the work of the Cox Center in training journalists.
Drs. Hemels, who operates a consulting business focusing on the development of work place skills, met with the graduate and undergraduate students in the Cox Center and talked with Cox Center Director Dr. Becker about recent and planned workshops. The two also discussed various research projects underway in the Center.
Drs. Hemels was a graduate student at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands in the spring of 1986 when Dr. Becker was a visiting professor at the Dutch university. She visited Dr. Becker when he returned to the United States, and the pair conducted research on the training needed by consumers of electronic text systems. Dr. Becker was a faculty member at the Ohio State University at the time, and Drs. Hemels spent the spring and summer of 1987 in Columbus working on the research project.
