Thursday and Friday, Jan. 26-27, Wayne State’s Center for Peace & Conflict Studies, together with the university’s Society of Active Retirees (SOAR) and the Free University of Brussels, will host a symposium on the topic of immigration and ethnic relations in European and North American cities. The symposium will be held from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Jan. 26, and from 9 a.m. to noon, Jan. 27, in the Community Room on the third floor of the David Adamany Undergraduate Library.

"Given the recent upheavals about immigrant relations in cities of Europe, Australia and the Middle East, it is crucial to discuss successes and failures in the integration of immigrants,” said Fred Pearson, director of the Center for Peace & Conflict Studies. “This seminar will feature a delegation of European policy-makers and scholars, who will compare experiences with their Detroit counterparts. The presentations will focus on police-community relations, housing, health, education and social relations. This is an opportunity for each side of the Atlantic to learn from the other."

European and American scholars, public officials and health practitioners will discuss immigration and ethnic relations. The issues include policing in diverse communities, immigrants’ health, policy perspectives and the integration of immigrant populations in the United States and Europe.

Richard Lewis, senior research fellow at the Institute for European Studies of the Free University of Brussels, will be the keynote speaker. Lewis, the former head of the Asylum and Immigration Unit at the European Commission, will give two presentations, “Belgian Exceptionalism,” and “The European Perspective on the Integration of Migrants.” The Commissioner of Police for Brussels North; the Senior Advisor on Social Affairs for the city of Rotterdam; and Fulbright Scholar Melissa Schnyder, with the Institute for European Studies Vrije Universiteit Brussel (The Free University of Brussels), who is researching European immigration, will accompany Lewis.

Metro Detroit participants include several Wayne State faculty members, Southfield, Mich. Chief of Police, Joseph Thomas and representatives of two, local, non-profit organizations -- the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) in Dearborn, and the Piast Institute, a Hamtramck-based think tank and resource center for Polish and Polish-American topics.

For more information, contact Jason Lane, program manager at (313) 577-8270.

The Center for Peace and Conflict Studies develops and implements scholarly programs, curricula, research and publications related to international and domestic peace, war, social justice, arms control, globalization, multicultural awareness and conflict resolution.

Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 11 schools and colleges to more than 34,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.