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- Professor & Department Chair; Director, European Studies Program
John D. Occhipinti, PhD Professor & Department Chair; Director, European Studies Program
Office: LY-222
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 was elected Department Chair in 2009.
Dr. Occhipinti has published extensively on internal security policy in the EU, including The Politics of EU Police Cooperation: Toward a European FBI? (Lynne Rienner, 2003). His recent publications include “Justice and Home Affairs: immigration and policing” in Smith, Weber, and Baun, Governing Europe’s Neighbourhood (2007), “A secure Europe?” in Bomberg, Peterson, and Stubb, The European Union: How Does it Work?(2008), “Parallel Paths and Productive Partners: the E.U. and U.S. on Counter-Terrorism,” in Frederic Lemieux (ed.), Emerging Initiatives and Contemporary Obstacles in Police Cooperation (2010), and “Partner or Push-Over? EU Relations with the US on Internal Security” in Dan Hamilton (ed.) Shoulder to Shoulder: Forging a Strategic US-EU Partnership (2010).
Dr. Occhipinti has spoken at several college and universities, lectured for the U.S. Foreign Service Institute and presented his research at the U.S. State Department. In 2005 and 2009, he briefed newly appointed U.S. Ambassadors to the European Union regarding transatlantic relations on internal security.
At Canisius, Dr. Occhipinti’s course on Comparative Government and Politics (PSC 150) 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. Dr. Occhipinti also teaches on “International Crime after 9/11” (PSC 345), which features guest speakers from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
Each fall, Dr. Occhipinti teaches a course on the European Union (EU) (PSC 355) that relies on a mix of multi-media power point presentations, active learning and student presentations. Related to this course, he is the advisor for the EuroSim student club, which helps students prepare for an annual international, intercollegiate simulation of the EU, held in Europe and the US in alternating years. When EuroSim is hosted in Europe, Dr. Occhipinti guides his students on two weeks of travel and touring in several European cities. He will take his students to EuroSim at Widender University in Philadelphia in April 2011 and to Wrocaw, Poland in January 2012, with travel to Krakow and Warsaw.
Dr. Occhipinti is a native of Buffalo and a graduate of St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute. 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, Dr. 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 and PhD in government and politics from the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Occhipinti’s doctoral field research was conducted in Berlin on the transformation of the East German police after German unity.
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