This young university exchange program has its roots in the year 1998. The Rector of the University in Cologne Dr. Jens-Peter Meincke, followed an invitation of Dr. Heinz Machatzke and Richard White and visited Duquesne University. Dr. Machatzke, born in Germany, was the Dean of the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Science for Bayer AG in 1998. Richard White, also a former staff member of Bayer AG, was at this time the chief executive officer of Duquesne’s Board of Directors. During the visit of the Rector from the Cologne University to Pittsburgh, the idea to organize a university exchange between Cologne and Duquesne was born. In 2000, the Duquesne School of Law Dean Nicholas P. Cafardi and Professors Robert D. Taylor and Kirk W. Junker and Cologne University Rector Meincke, as well as Professor Mansel met in Cologne and the foundations of a university exchange were built.
In the following year, then former Dean Professor Peter J. Tettinger from Cologne and former Dean Nicholas P. Cafardi from Duquesne signed a partnership agreement between the Law School of Cologne and the Duquesne University School of Law. The Pro-rector Professor Barbara Dauner-Lieb and Professor Stephan Hobe supported this project intensively. On May 4, 2001, Rector Meincke and Professor John E. Murry Jr., President of Duquesne University, signed an agreement for a comprehensive partnership between the entirety of both Universities.
In October 2003, Rector of the Cologne University Dr. Tassilo Küppers and Dr. Christine Wille of Cologne’s foreign program office visited Duquesne University. President Charles J. Dougherty of the Duquesne University and Rector Küpper signed an addendum to the university exchange.
All of this work paid off in enabling substantive exchange between the universities on the whole and the law school faculties in particular. In the Autumn Semester of 2001, Professor Stephan Hobe came to Duquesne University School of Law as a visiting professor. Dean Cafardi, Professors Taylor, and Junker and the International Law Society welcomed Professor Hobe and provided him with an array of the flavors of Pittsburgh. In fall 2002, Professor Barbara Völzmann-Stickelbrock visited Duquesne, at the invitation of the Wecht Institute, to deliver a paper at the Wecht Institute’s annual symposium. While visiting, she also provided a guest lecture on legal process and procedure in the German System to Professor Robert S. Barker’s legal process and procedure class. In the same year, Professor Junker and Professor Kenneth Gormley presented a paper at a symposium about the European Constitution, organized by Professor Hobe at the Cologne Law School. In the winter semester 2003, Professor Junker lectured as a guest professor at Cologne’s International Master of Environmental Science program. During the spring of 2003, Dr. Sandra Wagner was a semester visitor to Duquesne’s Center for Environmental Research and Education (CERE), directed by Professor Daniel K. Donelly. At the same time she gave guest lectures in environmental economics and European environmental regulation at the Duquesne University School of Law. In November 2004, the Duquesne University School of Law welcomed Professor Peter J. Tettinger. He was invited to present a paper about Federalism in Germany at the conference “Federalism in the Americas… and Beyond…” held at the Duquesne University School of Law.
Many Cologne students have been enrolled at the Duquesne University School of Law for one or two semesters and have had the possibility to participate in the usual American university life. Cologne Law students especially like the small classes and the personal atmosphere at Duquesne. Other Cologne students went to Pittsburgh for an internship at the public defender office, with a judge or in other places, organized through Duquesne’s clinic programs. Cologne Ph.D. students have travelled to the Duquesne University School of Law to conduct research in the large Duquesne law library.
Furthermore, since 2005, the Duquesne University School of Law offers an LL.M. for Foreign Lawyers Program. The first LL.M. degree student ever to be enrolled in Duquesne’s new program, Dorothee Kaulen, is also from Cologne. Other Cologne students are very interested in the program.
In the winter semester 2007/08, Matt Roy, a Duquesne J.D., has begun the LL.M. for foreign lawyers program at the Cologne Law School.
This very intensive exchange between the universities shows that professors and students are very interested to go abroad and to get to know other cultures and foreign scholarly work.
A very successful element of the partnership is the collaboration in Cologne’s International Master of Environmental Science (IMES) program. This program was opened in fall 2003, while Professor Junker was teaching at Cologne University. After teaching IMES-students one semester he was asked to continue to teach on the IMES program. To discuss this idea, in the following summer, Professor Klaus Klein, from the Institut für Biologie und ihre Didaktik of the University of Cologne, visited Duquesne University. There, the Center for Environmental Research and Education (CERE) of Duquesne University and the Duquesne School of Law developed a blended learning system with online classes and live lectures. The Interim Director of the CERE, Robert D Volkmar, teaches a blended class for Cologne IMES students in Environemental Policy. Additionally, Professor Junker offers blended courses in environmental law— in the winter semester in Comparative Environmental Law and in the summer semester in International Environmental Law. This means that he teaches in Cologne twice per year for two weeks to complement the online portion of the courses. Additionally, Professors Paul M. King and Volkmar from the CERE have taught summer courses to the IMES students in Cologne. Professors Junker and Volkmar have been advisers for many theses in IMES as well. In the academic year 2006-2007, two Cologne IMES students visited Duquesne University to complete their master theses guided by Duquesne Professors.