by Laurențiu Ștefan – Political Elites Blog

The popularity of the workshop dedicated to building a proper and effective research project went beyond the borders of Bucharest. I would not mention here that we continued to add new members to our team of dedicated and hardworking (mostly) graduate students. What is worth a post is the kind, warm and friendly invitation to interact with the students of the West University of Timisoara. The invitation came from my old friends Dan Lazea, Robert Reisz and Silviu Rogobete (alphabetical order, please). A dream team any other political science department would like to have at the helm.

Time was short, so I divided unevenly the morning and the afternoon sessions between the graduate and the undergraduate students. They are smart and committed to good work – therefore I would like to come back to assist them – alongside their supervisors – to deliver high-quality dissertations.

New Year, New Job

Yes, as most of you know by now, the beginning of the new year came with an interesting job offer: I was invited to join President Iohannis’ team as senior adviser for internal political affairs. An offer I could not resist. Sadly I had to say goodbye to my wonderful colleagues at the Embassy of United States and store fond memories of ten years full of enriching experiences. It goes almost without saying that without the experiences, networks and personal and professional development of the last ten years I would not have been in position to be offered this job and even less so to accept it with the feeling that I can indeed contribute to the changes that everybody expects.

The change of gears in my professional career should not mean less time for my students, my classes or my research projects. We will see how this goes, but my commitment to my academic career remains unswerving. And there have been events I would like to tell you about in my next posts.