 
Το ACT λειτουργεί στην Ελλάδα ως Κέντρο Ελευθέρων Σπουδών
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The "Michael S. Dukakis Chair” in Public Policy and Service at the American College of Thessaloniki (ACT), the university division of Anatolia, was inaugurated in 1999. It is a leading forum in Northern Greece and the Balkans for discussion and debate of the pressing issues of our times, with a principal view toward motivating young people to become involved in public service.
Under the aegis of the Dukakis Chair, ACT has hosted numerous events involving esteemed guests from all walks of life including among them: US Ambassador to Greece, Nicholas Burns; former Greek National Ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros; Deputy Prime Minister of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Radmila Sekerinska; Mayor of Tirana, Edi Rama; Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Nadezhda Mihaylova; United Nations Under-Secretary-General, Alvaro de Soto; President of AHI Cyprus Chapter, Van Coufoudakis; Former US Ambassador in Greece, Monteagle Stearns; Director of the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Eleftherios Venizelos Professor, Kevin Featherstone; Vice President of the Board of Trustees and Senior Advisor on Transatlantic Relations, ELIAMEP, Theodore Couloumbis, and award-winning authors Thea Halo and Peter Balakian.. Topics have ranged from US foreign policy, to EU and NATO enlargement, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, and historical remembrance.
ACT also welcomes on a regular basis Resident Dukakis Short-Term Fellows for variable periods of between five days and three weeks. Dukakis Fellows have included MIT Professor Emeritus and former US Presidential Science Advisor, Eugene Skolnikoff, World Environment Center Executive Vice President, James Veras, best-selling author, Thea Halo, Dickran Kouymjian, holder of the Haig and Isabel Berberian Chair in Armenian Studies at California State University at Fresno, and Nicholas Burbules, Grayce Wicall Gauthier Professor in Education Policy Studies at the University of Illinois.
 Former Massachusetts Governor, Michael S. Dukakis is returning to Anatolia and to the American College of Thessaloniki for a ten-day visit April 14-26 accompanied by his wife Kitty Dukakis. He will spend time on campus and will be briefed on recent campus additions and will meet with Anatolia and ACT faculty and students from Greece, the US and the Balkans.
Mr. Dukakis will participate in a discussion on "International Relations, Politics and Publics Service" with Anatolia IB students, offer a Master Class in "Government" for ACT students and also give a lecture to Anatolia Lykeion students and discuss with them the "Greek American immigrant experience". He will also take part in two live video teleconferences with university students from ACT in Thessaloniki and the University of Iowa and Boston College in the U.S. Mr. Dukakis will also make the opening remarks at the 10th Annual American Studies Seminar organized by the University of Macedonia and the Public Affairs Office of the American Consulate General and titled "Cycles of Change in US Politics and Culture".
On Monday, April 16, 2007 Mr. Dukakis will participate among a panel of esteemed guests in a significant Symposium on U.S.-Greek relations that will be held at the new Raphael Hall on Anatolia's campus. The panel will include Mr. Evripides Stylianides, Deputy Foreign Minister; Mr. Nick Gage, world renowned author; and Mr. Dimitris Keridis, Associate Professor and occupant of the Constantine Karamanlis Chair in Hellenic and Southeastern European Studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
Governor Dukakis’ visit to Thessaloniki will end with a Gala Dinner organized in his honor by Anatolia and the American College of Thessaloniki, and the Anatolia College Alumni Association. The dinner will be held on Monday, April 23, 2007, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel’s Grand Ballroom.
 Michael Stanley Dukakis was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on November 3, 1933. His parents, Panos and Euterpe (Boukis) Dukakis both emigrated from Greece (Vrisohori Zagoriou, Epirus) to Lowell and Haverhill, Massachusetts before marrying and settling down in the town of Brookline, just outside Boston. Dukakis graduated from Brookline High School (1951), Swarthmore College (1955), and Harvard Law School (1960). He served in the United States Army, and spent time with the support group to the United Nations delegation to the Military Armistice Commission in Munsan, Korea.
Dukakis began his political career as an elected Town Meeting Member in the town of Brookline. He was elected chairman of his town's Democratic organization in 1960 and won a seat in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1962. He served four terms as a legislator, winning re-election by an increasing margin each time he ran. In 1970 he was the Massachusetts Democratic Party's nominee for Lieutenant Governor and the running mate of Boston mayor Kevin White in the year's gubernatorial race which they lost to Republican Frank Sargent and Donald Dwight.
Dukakis won his party's nomination for Governor in 1974 and beat Sargent decisively in November of that year. He inherited a record deficit and record high unemployment and is generally credited with digging Massachusetts out of one of its worst financial and economic crises in history. But the effort took its toll, and Dukakis was defeated in the Democratic primary in 1978 by Edward King. Dukakis came back to defeat King in 1982 and was re-elected to an unprecedented third, four-year term in 1986 by one of the largest margins in history. In 1986, his colleagues in the National Governors' Association voted him the most effective governor in the nation.
Dukakis won his party's nomination for Governor in 1974 and beat Sargent decisively in November of that year. He inherited a record deficit and record high unemployment and is generally credited with digging Massachusetts out of one of its worst financial and economic crises in history. But the effort took its toll, and Dukakis was defeated in the Democratic primary in 1978 by Edward King. Dukakis came back to defeat King in 1982 and was re-elected to an unprecedented third, four-year term in 1986 by one of the largest margins in history. In 1986, his colleagues in the National Governors' Association voted him the most effective governor in the nation.
Dukakis won the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States in 1988 but was defeated by George Bush and soon thereafter announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election as governor. He left office in January 1991 and spent three months at the University of Hawaii where he was a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of Public Health. While at the University of Hawaii, he taught courses in political leadership and health policy and led a series of public forums on the reform of the nation's health-care system. There has been increasing public interest in Hawaii's first-in-the-nation universal health insurance system and the lessons that can be learned from it as the nation debates the future of health care in America.
Since June 1991, Dukakis has been a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University and visiting professor at the School of Public Policy at UCLA. His research has focused on national health care policy reform and the lessons that national policy makers can learn from state reform efforts. Recently, he and former U.S. Senator Paul Simon authored a new book entitled "How to Get Into Politics-and Why," designed to encourage young people to think seriously about politics and public service as a career.
Dukakis was nominated by President Clinton for a five year term as a member of the new Board of Directors of Amtrak, The National Railroad Passenger Corporation on May 21, 1998 and was confirmed by the Senate on June 25, 1998. He currently holds the position of Vice-Chairman of the Amtrak Reform Board.
Mike and Kitty Dukakis have three children: John, Andrea, and Kara, and are the proud grandparents of Alexandra Jane Dukakis, age 11 and Harry Nicholas Hereford, 21 months and Josephine Katharine Hereford, who arrived on Sept. 18, 2000.
Previous Dukakis Chair Events
Dukakis Chair Miscellany
Contact:
For further information please contact Dr. David Wisner, Director of the Dukakis Chair in Public Policy and Service, on ++302310-398-227 or email him at drd@act.edu.
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