Wolfram Hoppenstedt
The University of Central Arkansas Division of International Engagement will welcome Dr. Wolfram Hoppenstedt, director of the Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation in Germany, and a former UCA exchange student, for a talk on the UCA campus.
Hoppenstedt will give a lecture on “America, Europe and Germany — Bonds That Cannot Be Severed” on Wednesday, March 13, at 3 p.m. in the College of Business Auditorium. The talk and a subsequent Q&A is free and open to UCA faculty and staff, students, and the general public.
A native of Conway’s German sister city Quakenbrück, the historian will focus on post-war transatlantic relations, as well as differences between our cultures and the current crisis in Europe. He will also discuss how former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, in the long run, paved the way for German reunification and the strengthening and enlargement of the European Union.
In 1988 and again in 1991, Hoppenstedt was awarded a work-study assistantship, thanks to a sister city agreement between Conway and Quakenbrück, Germany. He completed his master’s degree at UCA in 1992 and, two years later, obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Bamberg, Bavaria. His dissertation was about the German-American economist Gerhard Colm (1897-1968), who, inter alia, served as economic advisor to President Harry Truman. In 1994, he started his career as an expert with the Federal Office for Refugees in Nuremberg. In early 1996, he was appointed as founding director of the Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation.
The Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation is a non-partisan institution in Germany that serves to commemorate the Social-Democrat politician, outstanding statesman and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. It is one of six memorial foundations for outstanding German statesmen, and it exercises the same task as a presidential library in the US.
Not only in Germany, but all over Europe, the name Willy Brandt is synonymous with democracy and freedom, understanding between nations and peace, justice, solidarity and social responsibility.
As part of his visit, Hoppenstedt will also meet his colleagues at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock for an exchange and will visit Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.
For more information, contact Mehmet Ulupina, international partnership coordinator, Division of International Engagement at mehmetu@uca.edu or (501) 852-0971.
