Tag Archives: Europe

Winter Sports — At What Cost?

By Hannah Quinque

Not exact­ly an idyl­lic view: The future of win­ter sports lies in pro­duc­ing arti­fi­cial snow.
Pho­to cred­it: “Ski jump­ing in Ober­st­dorf, Ger­many” by Arne Müse­le

“Hav­ing the World Cup back on U.S. soil is very impor­tant in devel­op­ing the sport of Ski Jump­ing in this coun­try and across the world,” enthus­es one ski jump­ing train­er about the return of the Men’s Ski Jump­ing World Cup to his­tor­i­cal site Lake Placid, NY, after over three decades. As heart-warm­ing as this news may be for North Amer­i­can win­ter sports afi­ciona­dos, it’s hard to feel as opti­mistic about ‘devel­op­ing’ the future of snow sports when cli­mate change is already heav­i­ly impact­ing events even today.

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German Distance, American Naivety

By Michael Lederer

As an Amer­i­can writer liv­ing in Berlin, I strain to under­stand and express some of the dif­fer­ences between my two homes. So many excep­tions to any rule, no broad-brush­stroke of a short essay is going to begin to cap­ture any­thing but the most basic gen­er­al­iza­tion. Still, let me try. Here’s a sto­ry plucked from memory.

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Like Meat?

By Sunaya Mueller, Yamuna Sieber, and Lara Frey

Pho­to Cred­it: The Veg­an Burg­er: vaaseenaa/Getty Images

It’s cool to be veg­an, but are all those meat sub­sti­tutes real­ly so healthy for the envi­ron­ment and for us? Turkey or tofurkey, veg­an schnitzel or beef­steak? Stand­ing in front of a super­mar­ket freez­er, it’s up to you whether to choose between con­ven­tion­al or plant-based meat.

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Accidental New Horizons at the North American University in the Heart of Europe

By Hannah Quinque

Pho­to Cred­it: Han­nah Quinque, Win­ter on the beach

Last fall, I had the priv­i­lege of spend­ing a semes­ter abroad. What bet­ter place to go for a North Amer­i­can Stud­ies Pro­file grad­u­ate than across the pond?

Even if said pond hap­pens to be the Baltic Sea rather than the Atlantic Ocean, my jour­ney did take me to the “North Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty in the Heart of Europe”, i.e., the Repub­lic of Lithua­nia. And if you’re ask­ing your­self: “What is it doing there?” or per­haps even: “What were you doing there?” let me intro­duce you to this one-of-a-kind place called LCC Inter­na­tion­al University.

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Getting Germany Back on Track

By Markus Ziener

The Mar­shall Plan has become syn­ony­mous for mas­sive help, for bring­ing about a her­cu­la­neum task and hav­ing a coun­try rise again from the ash­es. Orig­i­nal­ly designed to help Europe get back on track after the dev­as­ta­tions of World War II, it has a much broad­er mean­ing today. In dis­cus­sions about how to rebuild Ukraine at some point in the future, there’s again talk of the need for a Mar­shall Plan. How­ev­er, it’s worth­while to take a step back and look at what the orig­i­nal Mar­shall Plan was all about.

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Role Models: Can Quotas Help Get More Women into Leadership?

By Iliana Garner, Philipp Rieß, and Thora-Marit Bilz

Pho­to Cred­it: “Board­room” by Evening_T/Getty Images

Women rep­re­sen­ta­tion on cor­po­rate boards remains a prob­lem in many coun­tries around the world. Yet the intro­duc­tion of quo­tas to address this issue has caused debates among cur­rent and future leaders.

Nor­way was the first coun­try to intro­duce bind­ing quo­tas for women on cor­po­rate boards back in 2003, and the ini­tia­tive has been suc­cess­ful. But the recent pas­sage of a law to enforce the women’s quo­ta in Ger­many, after ear­li­er efforts didn’t seem to lead to the intend­ed con­se­quences, has reignit­ed debate about the pros and cons of quo­tas for women in the U.S. and Europe alike. “When women are not rep­re­sent­ed at the lead­er­ship table, then it’s hard for women to be rep­re­sent­ed as con­sumers of your brands,” says Robin Vogel, 56, vice pres­i­dent of glob­al strate­gic sourc­ing at the Amer­i­can can­dy com­pa­ny Mars, Inc. Hav­ing majored in engi­neer­ing at col­lege, Vogel knows first-hand how under­rep­re­sent­ed women are in cer­tain fields. But through­out her career, she just pushed on. “Walk­ing into a meet­ing room where the major­i­ty of the atten­dees are men may have impacts on a num­ber of women,” she admits. “Frankly, I got used to it.”

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