On Wednesday, September 13, the Dukakis Center and the US Consulate General of Thessaloniki will co-sponsor the keynote session at this year’s Reworks Agora event, a Dukakis Lecture by Elizabeth Barry on "Reports from the Frontiers of Democracy: Implications for Urban Design."

The lecture will take place at 2:15 at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall (Maurice Saltiel Hall) and will be an integral part of the 17th annual Reworks contemporary music festival.

As director of urban environment at Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, Liz Barry develops geographic tools and civic science methods for collaborative cities. She holds an undergraduate degree in landscape architecture from NCSU, and a MSA+UD from Columbia University. She teaches at Columbia University and Parsons the New School for Design. Previously, she worked at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill planning international new cities and campuses, at Durham Inner-city Gardeners (DIG) coordinating youth urban agriculture enterprise, and traveled around the country catalyzing interaction among strangers with a “Talk To Me” sign – a project that received considerable international press.

Ms Barry is also co-founder of TreeKIT, in which capacity she has launched a project to map all the trees in New York City.

We are saddened to report that Chryssa Nikoleri has passed away.

Ms Nikoleri collaborated with the Dukakis Center on multiple occasions, notably in the spring of 2014, when she conducted a masterclass in environmental portraiture for five talented young photographers, who subsequently exhibited their work at the State Museum of Modern Art, Port Annex, in an exhibition entitled "Would you vote for me?"

This past month Ms Nikoleri took and exhibited photographs of a local research project involving students and faculty from ACT and North Carolina State University, in what will surely have been one of her last public exhibitions.

I was an International Relations major at the American College of Thessaloniki from 2013 to 2017. Since my first semester at ACT I was involved at the Dukakis Center, first as a volunteer, and then as an intern. It was a life-changing experience for me because it allowed me to participate in multiple activities that I had never done before.

Initially, I started as part of the Honors program at ACT, through which I did an internship at the Navarino Network in Thessaloniki. Then, I was involved in shooting a documentary for the Dukakis Center, which allowed me to develop new skills and learn new things about filmmaking with the help of producer Christos Nikoleris.

During my second and third year at ACT, I participated in multiple projects organized by the Dukakis Center, primarily as a photographer, which contributed to the development of my self-discipline and my time management skills. Finally, during my fourth year of studies, I was nominated senior intern at the Dukakis Center, working simultaneously on four different projects, coordinating the rest of the interns of the organization, and producing and co-starring on an in-house radio program with Dr. Wisner. 

All this contributed to the positive development of my personality and played an important role in the process of becoming the person, who I am today. For this reason, I believe that the Dukakis Center is place where students learn that public service is a “must” for all of us to live in a better society and, hence, in a better world.

The Dukakis Center piloted a new project in April and May, 2017, amid sixth grade pupils at the First Elementary School of Panorama.

The pupils in Ioannis Vrettos' ΣΤ2 class deliberated and voted on a resolution to address the problem of graffiti in public spaces near their school, in such a way as to develop a common area for children to express themselves freely and take responsibility for the upkeep of this same space.

The purpose was for the pupils to learn through their petition and subsequent communications with municipal authorities the proper steps for young citizens to take in order to address concerns about, and propose solutions to, local issues that matter to them, and thereby develop a more mature relationship with the public spaces in their neighborhood. The workshop was designed to reinforce one of the pupils' lessons in their social studies class, which had to do with citizenship and civic responsibility.

The pupils eventually proposed to the Mayor of Panorama that one or both of the small out buildings next to the basketball court at Gallanou Park in Panorama be transformed into a sort of three-dimensional blackboard, on which chalk images could be drawn and then erased by users.

The project subsequently entailed being in contact with the mayor's office, with the school director, Athanasios Nikas, with the president of the Parents’ Association of the First Elementary School, Areti Valatidou.

As an interim step, the Dukakis Center procured three unused white boards from Anatolia College, which the class offered in turn to their school via the good offices of the parents association, to be affixed in covered recreational spaces at the school, in response to part of the pupils' original request.

The workshop was designed and conducted on behalf of the Dukakis Center by cultural and financial advisor Fotinie Efstratiadou, who also liaised with the Parents’ Association, the Municipality, and school authorities. Dora Psoma, a specialist in civic education projects and an elementary school teacher in Thessaloniki, provided technical assistance. In attendance during the workshop were Mesers Vrettos and Athanasios Nikas, director of the school.

The boards were mounted before the pupils’ end of year festival with the support of staff from Anatolia College.

The workshop was piloted in advance of a major event the Dukakis Center will host in Thessaloniki in October 2017 on graffiti and vandalism in public spaces, at which the outcomes of the Center’s efforts with young people in Panorama will be showcased.

The Dukakis Center at ACT has invited Scott Townsend to visit Thessaloniki to share the fruit of recent research in Greece, in the form of an exhibition entitled "Social Capital," to be hosted at the French Institute of Thessaloniki from June 21 till July 17, 2017.

Mr. Townsend is Associate Professor of Graphic Design at North Carolina State University. His work in the last thirteen years has taken the form of specific projects concentrating on issues of globalization.

"Social Capital" is actually one of a series of ongoing projects, begun in 2013, using various forms of audience and community research. The individual projects in this series have taken place in Florence, Belgrade, Kefalonia, and Corfu, as well as in Cairo, and will be exhibited in the United States at the end of 2017.

The current exhibition will consist of material drawn from community dialogue in Kefalonia in 2015-17, at a moment when global attention was focused on the prospect of "Grexit." The research tells the story of how communities have persevered through their own social capital – community resources and relationships -- while undergoing increasing hardship.

The exhibition will consist of projected animations exhibited alongside interviews and visualizations, to explore such themes as "borders and exchanges," "community," "negotiation," family at a distance," allegiances," etc. The exhibition will also serve as a venue to begin new research and engagement in Thessaloniki regarding the Malakopi Arcades as a contemporary urban space.

"Social Capital" marks the second occasion in eighteen months that the Dukakis Center and the French Institut of Thessaloniki have collaborated in a public service initiative. In November 2015 French journalist Jean Quatremer delivered a Dukakis Lecture at the Thessaloniki City Hall under the auspices of both institutions.

John Koenig, former US Ambassador to Cyprus, visited ACT and the Dukakis Center last week to deliver a Dukakis Lecture, and to visit with various constituencies at the College.

The highlight of Ambassador Koenig's visit was a Dukakis Lecture entitled "The Cyprus end-game: Unification or permanent partition?" The event was co-hosted by the Navarino Network, and took place at the Daios Hotel, on the site of the old US Consulate General. 

The Dukakis Center has had a longstanding interest in the Cyprus question going back to 2002. Guest speakers have included Van Coufoudakis (twice) and Alvaro de Soto, the latter in his capacity as Special Representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for Cyprus. The timing of Ambassador Koenig’s lecture was meant to coincide with the current phase of bi-communal talks on the island, in which he had played an active role as mediator.

Ambassador Koenig, who spent three years as Consul General of Thessaloniki in the early 2000s, is an Honorary Advisor of the Dukakis Center, and met with ACT Provost Karamouzis and Executive Director Wisner as follow up to the Advisory Board meeting of November 2016. During his visit he also met separately with ACT students for an informal discussion on multilateral diplomacy, and was the guest of honor at a reception at Nelson in Panorama. (He had previously participated in a round table discusion on the 2000 US Presidential election, and, more recently, in an event dedicated to the 2016 Democratic primaries.)

Ambassador Koenig was accompanied in his visit by his Greek-American wife, Natalie.

Former Greek Ambassador to the United States Alexandros Mallias spoke to ACT students on January 30 under the auspices of the Dukakis Center, on the siubject of his most recently published book, The Middle East and Pandora's Box.

Ambassador was in town to promote his book at various venues and graciously accepted an invitation to return to ACT, which he first visited for a Dukakis Lecture in 2011, following a long period of gestation dating back to 2004.

Ambassador Mallias enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the Greek foreign service, which included a stint as Director of the Department of Balkan Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. More recently he had been an active member of To Potami, the centrist political party created in 2014.

This is Ambassador Mallias' third book.

This past November 29, some 150 students and faculty from the Universities of Macedonia and Thessaloniki heard ACT instructors Lambrini Nassis and David Wisner speak at a public conference on the recent US elections, hosted by the Greek Association of Political and Economics Science Students at the University of Macedonia.

Wisner offered an overview of the US system of government, followed by some of the more unusual features of the 2016 elections. Dr. Nassis then spoke on the Electoral College and on voting behavior in 2016.

This is the third time the Dukakis Center has collaborated with the Association, more popularly known as GRAPESS, whose members are drawn from the two public universities in Thessaloniki. GRAPESS members had previously taken part in three Dukakis Center events dedicated to the 2016 election in May, in October, and again in November.

The University of Macedonia conference was also attended by Professor Theodosios Karvounarakis, while Evangelos Plakas, a journalist at TV100 and Makedonia newspaper, moderated the event.

This was the first such event co-hosted by the Dukakis Center since its transformation in 2011 from endowed chair to academic and outreach center. The current strategic plan of the Dukakis Center calls for the Center gradually to incubate and otherwise support efforts of local non-profit start-ups.