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Phone: 888-2799
E-mail: occhipij@canisius.edu
John D. Occhipinti joined the faculty in 1996 and is director of the European Studies program. He earned his BA from Colgate University, where he majored in international relations and German literature and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. While an undergraduate, Occhipinti studied in Freiburg, Germany. After graduation, he returned to Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, this time in Tübingen in 1989-1990, when the Berlin Wall was opened. He earned his MA in government and politics and his PhD from the University of Maryland at College Park. His doctoral field research was done in Berlin on the transformation of the East German police after German unity.
Each semester, Occhipinti teaches Comparative Government and Politics (PSC 150). This course introduces students to politics outside the United States and employs the cooperative team learning approach in which students learn from each other while working in small groups. Each fall, he teaches a course on the European Union (EU) (PSC 355/HIS 331), which relies on a mix of multi-media power point presentations, active learning and student presentations. Related to this course, Occhipinti is the advisor for the EuroSim student club, which helps students prepare for an annual international, intercollegiate simulation of the EU.
He has published several scholarly articles and book chapters on internal security in the EU, as well as his first book, The Politics of EU Police Cooperation: Toward a European FBI? (Lynne Rienner, 2003). He has also lectured for the U.S. Foreign Service Institute and spoken at the U.S. State Department for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). In August of 2005, Dr. Occhipinti was invited by the State Department to brief the newly appointed US Ambassador to the European Union on internal security policy in the EU.