Issue 48, Summer 2012The Magazine of the American University in Bulgaria

The AUBG Advantage

Academic Programs

Farewell, Class of 2012!

New MSc in Software Engineering

In thIs Issue:

AuBG: An AcAdemIc LeAder

Issue 48, Summer 2012The Magazine of the American University in Bulgaria

The AUBG Advantage

Academic Programs

Farewell, Class of 2012!

New MSc in Software Engineering

In thIs Issue:

AuBG: An AcAdemIc LeAder

Copyright 2012 AUBG. All rights reserved.

editorial BoardPavlina StoychevaSylvia ZarevaAlbena Kehayova Writers Ayna PirkuliyevaDaria GlukhovaDarya YanitskayaKsenia LukanovaVeselina ApostolovaYoana Savova and a special thank you to all faculty contributors

PhotographersAlexander Acosta OsorioAsen DimitrovDenitsa GospodinovaDiana MurzacGalina Fedulova Pavel IvanovStanislav Hristov Yanita Mircheva and a special thank you to Valentin Croitoru

Published by AUBG with the participation of AUBGstudents. For more information,please see the contact information on the back.

the AuBG AdvAntAGe 02

Our AcAdemIc depArtments 04

АrTS, LAnGUAGeS, And LITerATUre 04

BUSIneSS 09

CoMPUTer SCIenCe 15

eConoMICS 21

HISTory And CIvILIZATIonS 30

JoUrnALISM And MASS CoMMUnICATIon 35

MATHeMATICS And SCIenCe 40

PoLITICS And eUroPeAn STUdIeS 44

news @ AuBG 49

CoNTENTS:

the AuBG AdvAntAGe By david huwiler, AuBG president (2007 – 2012)

Last week I was in Dubai to attend the annual meeting of the presidents of American universities abroad. Each year, in addition to the meetings among presidents and chief academic officers, AAICU invites an outside pre-senter to talk about a subject of general interest to this group of senior university administrators. This year’s presentation was by Dr. Riel Miller, a well-known futur-ist and head of xperidox, a consulting firm that assists governments, military organizations, and academic in-stitutions as they attempt to prepare their institutions for the future.

Miller provided the assembled presidents with some in-teresting tools and some new ways of thinking about the future. He explained how futurists use science and logic to define the limits of what is possible in the future and then to use that framework to produce strategic plans and allocate resources in ways that maximize the op-portunities for success.

But in the end, there were few answers to the key ques-tions facing higher education planners. Higher educa-tion, it seems, presents a particularly complicated puzzle for futurists, as both the aims and the methods seem to be in a state of rapid and unpredictable flux. What role will technology play in higher education in 2050? Will traditional libraries – or even campuses – be ob-solete? Will a way be found to combine the efficiency of online learning with the personal attention that stu-dents expect at traditional liberal arts campuses? What will graduates need to know in 2050, and what skills will they need in order to succeed? Will a university educa-tion prepare a student to lead a satisfying and fulfilling life as well as to achieve professional success?

The truth is, we don’t know what the most important

fields of employment will be in 2050. We don’t know whether the skills that a student might learn in a class on computer chip architecture will be marketable even five years from now. The most important questions about the future are both unknown and unknowable. Even after we have firmly defined the parameters of the possible, we can imagine an infinite variety of alternate futures.

But as we discussed the presentation among presidents later in the day, what none of us could imagine was a future in which the knowledge and skills that liberal arts institutions provide will not be useful and in demand. Indeed, the core skills that a liberal arts education pro-vides are more important today than they were a cen-tury ago, and they will be even more important still in 2050. For centuries, the goal of a liberal arts education has been to produce graduates who can do three things:

Think criticallyA liberal arts education cultivates a habit of mind that leads students to challenge unsupported assertions, to question what they are told, to approach the world with a healthy skepticism. It is an attitude that makes them valuable employees, skilled problem solvers, successful scientists, and responsible citizens.

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lenging employment markets. According to the most re-cent university rankings by Bulgaria’s Ministry of Edu-cation, AUBG graduates earn more than three times the salaries of graduates from other national institutions. Each year at our annual job fair, representatives from scores of employers come to AUBG for the opportunity to hire our graduates. Often they tell us that they don’t care about the major of the employees they hire. They are just as willing to hire an AUBG history major as a graduate with a technical background. They want peo-ple who can solve problems, who can think critically, and AUBG’s graduates meet that need.

The future will be full of surprises. AUBG’s graduates will be prepared to deal with them.

Adapt to change Among the many unknowns, there is one certainty: the pace of change is increasing, and the pace of change con-tinues to accelerate. Those who are trained to respond thoughtfully and creatively to unexpected new realities will succeed.

Even today, people change careers more than three times on average. Someone who has spent four or more years studying a narrow specialty will be lost when that specialty becomes obsolete. But liberally trained gradu-ates will have learned how to anticipate change and how to use it to advantage.

Continue to learnThe very specific knowledge that one acquires in a uni-versity in order to pursue a specific career will have an increasingly short half-life and will continue to dimin-ish in importance. More important will be the capacity to assimilate new information as it replaces that which has become obsolete. A liberal arts education provides the tools to learn independently and to make use of the flood of new information with which we are confronted in the contemporary world.

The results that we see at AUBG confirm the view that a quality American liberal arts education provides the most effective preparation for a career in today’s chal-

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Аrts, LAnGuAGes, And LIterAture depArtment shakespeare, mozart, and murray: expand Your horizons with an ALL minor

You want to act in a play, learn to play an instrument, or become a better writer even as you are preparing for a career in business or politics? The Department of Arts, Languages, and Literature has it all. From American Jazz to medieval English literature, you will be exposed to the finest achievements of humanity’s creative genius.

The arts and the humanities are at the core of a liberal arts education, fostering students’ skills in writing, critical thinking and analysis as well as developing creativity and imagination. These skills are not restricted to students who wish to pursue a career in the arts but are essential characteristics of graduates from an American liberal arts university.

The Department offers a unique interdisciplinary major in American Studies in collaboration with the Depart-ment of History and Civilizations and minors in Fine Arts, Literature, and American Studies. The Department also offers courses in Bulgarian, French, German, and Spanish, which support the European Studies major by providing proficiency in one official EU language other than English.

department Overview

Over 60 courses

Interdisciplinary major in American Studies(with History and Civilizations)

Minors in Fine Arts, Literature, American Studies

20 faculty with prestigious degrees from Brown University, University of Notre Dame, and others

50 published books, more than 78 journal articles

· AUBG has an internationally recognized choir. · AUBG hosts the biannual International Festival “Meeting of Student Choirs.” · The annual Spring Artfest includes exhibitions, musical recitals, dance and theater performances.· The annual Language and Culture Week includes presentations, traditional songs, dances, and food from Bulgaria, Germany, Spain, and France.· The female folklore ensemble Svetlina has performers from Bulgaria, Russia, the United States, and Kazakhstan. · The Bulgarian Poets and Writers series hosts readings by noted writers. · Students publish their creative writing in the annual magazine Fly in the Head.· Students and professors regularly present their work at the AUBG Annual Research Conference.· The Department hosts a number of student clubs including the Spanish club, the German club, the Club Francophone, and the Literary Society. · More than 30 theater plays are staged annually. · AUBG students stage a world-famous musical every year. Past productions include Chicago, West Side Story, Hairspray, Moulin Rouge, and Grease.

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I don’t imagine myself as teacher. The best I can imag-ine is to be a helper to my young friends in their attempt of self-study. I hope I facilitate the process of sharing in class. I hope I encourage some of them to be brave enough and fight for their dreams… to discover the greatest of all pleasures – work. to work inspired, not consulting the chronometer, not counting what you did and what the others did. to do. to be… Homo faber.

Nedyalko Delchev is an artist, theater director, painter, playwright, and drama professor. He has directed and acted in numerous theater productions and appeared in two films.

nedyalko delchev

teaching and learning are collaborative, interactive, and reflective processes for both the teacher and the student. My role is that of a bridge; connecting what they bring to the classroom with the theory and skills I teach. Connecting to students’ lives and current is-sues, along with an interactive classroom setting, helps them reach even higher achievements. I particularly enjoy teaching composition courses because they help students create a strong foundation in critical thinking and communication that will serve them well through-out the rest of their coursework and beyond.

Lynnette Leonard teaches writing and composition classes at AUBG. She is the author of two survival guides on speaker-audience communication.

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Musical creativity is one of the unifying aspects of the AUBG experience. It’s happening every day, all over the campus, in Fine Arts classes, in student clubs and pro-ductions, in regular guest performances and festivals. These shared musical experiences both reflect and tran-scend our diverse backgrounds and interests. Because it helps define us as individuals and as members of this learning community, music brings us closer together and leads us toward higher planes of meaning. teaching mu-sic at AUBG has revealed to me a multitude of individual perspectives as students from a fascinating variety of cul-tural backgrounds converge in my classroom, offering unique learning opportunities for all of us as we seek new ways of experiencing, understanding, and interpreting the world.

The most important and motivating aspects of my work at AUBG are the multicultural groups and the approach proposed by the ALL Department for teach-ing Spanish. Multicultural groups greatly enrich the process of teaching a foreign language. In such groups, based on the different experiences of each member, it is much easier to build bridges of respect and com-munication between cultures. Moreover, the ALL De-partment’s approach involves speaking Spanish in lec-tures from the very first day and using materials and activities that are constantly being updated.

Geoffrey Dean is the author of three books on music and a cellist who has performed all over Europe and the United States.

Zaira Fandiño Lopez teaches Spanish at AUBG.

Zaira Fandiño Lopez Geoffrey dean

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Majors: Economics, Business Administration

Outstanding Achievement Award in German

Petya will pursue a master’s degree in Economics at the University of Cologne, Germany, on a full scholarship by the Mummert Foundation.

I am very happy to have been able to benefit from the quality of an AUBG education. The opportunity to interact and get to know students and faculty from a variety of backgrounds is, alongside with its academic quality, AUBG’s greatest competitive advantage com-pared to other universities in the region. The ability to ask questions and participate in class discussions is one of the most valuable learning experiences.

Majors: Political Science/International Relations, European Studies

Outstanding Achievement Award in Spanish

Filip will pursue a master’s degree at KU Leuven inBelgium, the world’s oldest Catholic university.

The international community, inspiring yet challenging professors, and the American model of education are the University’s main advantages. Smaller-size classes offer easy access to the instructor, which encouraged me to par-ticipate in class and helped me learn. AUBG provided me with solid theoretical and practical knowledge, irreplace-able experience gained through internships, and an overall personal progress. All these represent a solid foundation for further professional or academic development.

Majors: Business Administration, Information Systems

Outstanding Achievement Award in Vocal Music

Aleksandar will intern for Atos, Europe’s biggest IT services company, and the Summer 2012 Olympics in London, UK.

AUBG provided me with solid foundations in Business Administration and Information Systems and allowed me to explore a variety of elective courses that supple-mented my understanding and appreciation of my ma-jors. Exposure to a variety of subjects will definitely aid me in taking advantage of the internship opportunity I will be pursuing this summer. I will be working in an It company, yet my position will be predominantly busi-ness-oriented.

petya mihaylova, Bulgaria

Aleksandar nestorov, Bulgaria

Filip dobrovic, montenegro

ALL department rewards Its Outstanding students

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Ivailo minov ‘01, Bulgaria

I didn’t want to Lose touch with the studentInside me

A Fine Arts minor changed his life.By Ayna Pirkuliyeva

Ivailo Minov, Class of 2001, is a successful film director at Morning Glory Film, Ltd. in London, UK, juggling a variety of projects across the European continent. Just re-cently Ivailo completed a couple of commercials for Bul-garian mobile services provider M-tel and is now working on finalizing the pilot episode for a culinary tV show that he directed in March. He is also applying to film festivals with two shorts completed over the last several months – one is a feature short, the other a documentary about a girl fighting cerebral palsy.

Looking back at his professional journey, Ivailo says he had always felt the pull of his artistic calling – a calling the numerous Fine Arts classes he took at AUBG helped him discover. “I minored in Fine Arts, but in all honesty that was my true major program,” says Ivailo, who earned a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from AUBG.

Ivailo’s involvement with the student show More Honors, specifically his role in producing a number of creative vid-eos, introduced him to yet another form of artistic expres-sion and helped him take his first steps in filmmaking.

His decision to finally pursue his calling professionally had in many ways to do with the creation of the independ-ent theater troupe “Kunkurigashtite Pemperugi,” consist-ing entirely of AUBG graduates. “We staged several plays in Sofia and Blagoevgrad, inspired above all by our still-strong love for the experiences we had at AUBG,” Ivailo says. “We didn’t want to lose touch with the students inside us, we wanted to have something in our lives that gave us creative energy and made us laugh after a hard day’s work.”

Staying in touch with creativity in this way helped the fu-ture director realize he wanted a profession that kept him equally inspired. So in 2004 Ivailo quit his job as editor at lifestyle magazine EDNO and started working for MVM International, a film production company. At MVM, he occupied a variety of roles, including first and second as-sistant director, casting director, production assistant, and locations manager. This diverse experience helped establish his interest in directing.

In 2006 Ivailo was accepted to a one-year filmmaking course at the London Film Academy. After graduating from LFA, Ivailo went back to MVM International, this time as an in-house director. Since 2011, the young film director has divided his time between Bulgaria and the UK.

today, Ivailo has a fulfilling profession, thanks in large part to his AUBG experience, he says. to benefit from their university experience the same way and identify their true calling, he advises current and future AUBG students to “take your time finding who you are and what you want, stay positive, and always try to chan-nel your energy towards the good things, whatever they might be for you.”

Organizations our alumni work at include: KPMG Citibank The World Bank Philip Morris International L’Oreal Coca-Cola Microsoft Hewlett-Packard ALL alumni have advanced degrees from: Columbia University New York University University of Missouri University of Maine

Leo Burnett U.S. Marine Corps Thomson Reuters Harvard University Press World Health Organization American Express Ogilvy & Mather telerik Carnegie Mellon University Boston University University College London Central European University

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BusIness depArtment You enjoy a standard of Living that King henry vIII could not have

dreamed of thanks to Businesspeople

to appreciate the value of a major in Business Administra-tion, you first need to appreciate the value of business. Con-sider, for a moment, the impact that businesspeople have had on the world. We rarely pause to consider this issue, because more often than not we take businesspeople for granted. Yet, most of us would not be alive today if it were not for the work of those productive individuals who created the goods and services that have transformed our lives over the last several hundred years, significantly raising our standard of living, and more than doubling the average lifespan. Thanks to these in-dividuals, famine and poverty, once assumed to be the normal state of human affairs throughout the world, are now regarded as evils that can be overcome.

Think about your own life. You might think of your-self as poor, but thanks to businesspeople, you enjoy a standard of living that King Henry VIII of England could not have dreamed of – from simple goods, such as tin cans and toilet paper, to recent technological advances, such as the Internet and smartphones. King Henry VIII, with all his wealth and power, could not have downloaded Greensleeves on itunes, or chatted with Anne Boleyn on Skype.

If you choose to pursue a major in Business Administra-tion, you will be following in the footsteps of those creative spirits who have improved the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet; people such as Thomas Edison (who founded 14 companies, including General Electric), Henry Ford (who founded the Ford motor company), Richard Branson (who founded Virgin Atlantic and Vir-gin Galactic), Steve Jobs (who founded Apple), and many, many more, including our own business graduates, Vasil terziev and Svetozar Georgiev (who founded telerik).

How will you revolutionize the world?

· As part of a course on Entrepreneurship select business students have the opportunity to develop a business plan and start their own company, with financial support from Citibank and Junior Achievement Bulgaria.· Corporate Finance students go on trips to other countries, so that they can meet the senior management of local and international corporations. · Students and professors write about real-world case studies and publish their findings in prestigious journals.· The Business Department and the student-run Business Club hosted their first Assessment Center Simulation in spring 2012. Assessment Centers are used by major corporations to select candidates for jobs in their organization. The simulation helps prepare stu dents for the job market. · The Business Club hosts renowned business executives and policy-makers who share their experience at public meetings with students on campus. · The Department organizes case competitions for students majoring in Business Administration. The most recent competition was sponsored by Kraft Foods. · Students recently developed an online platform for their start-up e-commerce businesses. The platform is expected to meet the requirements of practical business scenarios and real-life situations. · The Department holds regular workshops on job interviewing to prepare students for the job market and for the specially organized annual Job Fair.

department Overview

BA in Business Administration and Information Systems (together with Computer Science Department) and anExecutive MBA

Business Administration is the most popularundergraduate major – over 40% of AUBG students major in business

13 faculty with prestigious degrees from London Business School (UK), Boston University, George Washington University School of Business, California State University, University of Auckland (New Zealand)

26 published books, more than 160 journal articles

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Story by Ayna Pirkuliyeva

During a two-day conference, business angels and man-agers of leading Bulgarian companies shared their ex-perience and counseled students on how to transform their ideas into successful businesses. Over 200 students attended the StartUP conference, held in Blagoevgrad on March 23-24, making it the largest business event in Southwest Bulgaria.

Guest speakers included prominent Bulgarian It leaders such as Lubomir Rusanov, general manager of Superhost-ing.bg; AUBG graduates Vassil terziev and Svetozar Geor-giev, co-founders of Bulgaria’s largest software company, telerik; and Anguel Anguelov-Mostuna, another AUBG alum and the founder and owner of three successful It firms. Anguelov talked about his triumphs and falls and gave advice on how to stay motivated throughout the pro-cess of starting a new venture. The telerik founders related the story of how they networked their path to success.

students pitch Business Ideas to eminent entrepreneurs at AuBG

Leaders from the oil, banking, auditing, clothing, and business solutions industries also shared stories of ac-complishment and inspiration. The event featured entre-preneurs whose unconventional business ideas brought them success, such as Emilia Begunova, whose company Adventure Net organizes and promotes outdoor recrea-tion and extreme sports activities.

The conference’s crowning event, Elevator Pitch gave as-piring entrepreneurs the chance to pitch their business ideas to investors. A jury of business professionals had pre-screened the proposals and selected three finalists. First-year AUBG student Sadi Qevani’s web hosting ven-ture was among the selected projects. After the presenta-tions, young entrepreneurs and veterans had a chance to discuss the projects in more detail.

Licensed by the StartUP Foundation, the conference was organized by students from AUBG and South-West Uni-versity (SWU).

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As an academic, I am entrusted with the responsibility of training individual human minds, so that each stu-dent can articulate the ideas that he or she holds, and judge for him- or herself whether those ideas have a basis in reality. When I first came to AUBG, I expected to be here for a year. Four years later, I am still here. A significant advantage of teaching at AUBG is that at other universities students are often indistinguish-able faces in a crowded lecture theater; here, one has the opportunity to work one-on-one with individual students. This, however, is only an advantage because the students here are worth working with. With few exceptions, AUBG students are self-motivated individ-uals of high intellectual potential. Which is why I plan on staying for at least another four years.

Robert White teaches business ethics and philosophy. His interests encompass social and moral philosophy, modern and contemporary political theory, and business ethics with an emphasis on moral excellence in business.

robert white

teaching at AUBG requires more flexibility and re-sponsiveness to students, more personal contact with and more respect for their multiple curricular and ex-tra-curricular activities. These traits make it a unique experience to me and force me into changing and cre-ating new approaches to teaching. Student creativity and freedom of expression make this a very open and enjoyable place where feedback is generously provided and smart and hardworking students are willing to support even my weirdest research projects. The posi-tive energy and the emotion of working with young people here fill me with enthusiasm and desire to help them find their place in the world outside AUBG and to bring in the outside world to admire their talents and skills.

Veneta Andonova’s global experience includes teaching positions in Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Colombia, and the United States. The business strategy professor is also the coordinator of an entrepreneurship program at AUBG.

veneta Andonova

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Although students have majors and minors, the actual education they get at AUBG is much larger and more complex. The student’s educational capital portfolio – that combination of in-class and out-of-class learning that occurs in the time at AUBG – consists of class work, informal learning, network development, lead-ership activities, and personal development. I have a responsibility as a faculty member to strengthen each student’s portfolio as much as possible, not just in teaching the required content of my classes, but in the facilitation of their development and the integration of educational and co-curricular experiences. This means that I am responsible for learning experiences in and out of the classroom, providing students with opportunities to develop skills and experiences to be-come creative, ethical, and rational problem-solvers, and to be productive citizens not only of one organiza-tion, but of a larger community.

Lucia Miree is a seasoned business professional and scholar with experience in the service and production industries. She teaches classes in organizational behavior and human resource management.

Lucia miree

Students are young professionals with just a few years less training and experience than I have. I approach them almost as equals, constrained only by the inher-ent difference in our current titles and job descrip-tions. And, as students’ learning increases, I become less their “teacher” and more their “coach.” My greatest reward for teaching at AUBG has been the seriousness with which most students approach the class experi-ences and the solid preparation they have had be-fore arriving at AUBG. Frankly, AUBG students have spoiled me; I could not expect most students outside of AUBG to deliver the level of performance I have grown accustomed to here. For those reasons, I cannot imag-ine my life and career without the experiences gained from having had the privilege of teaching at AUBG.

Alf Eastergard has extensive teaching experience at U.S. universities. He is the author of a book about accounting principles and the creator of a website with practical accounting tutorials.

Alf eastergard

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Majors: Business Administration, Political Science/ International Relations

Outstanding Achievement Award in Business Administration

If I had to do it all over again, AUBG would still be the university of my choice. It has all the qualities a future business professional looks for: excellent curriculum, exceptional professors, outstanding students, and limit-less opportunities. With 20 or fewer students per class, the academic experience is very personal, and you can communicate with peers and faculty closely. Professors are always there to give you additional advice and sup-port you in all your academic endeavors.

ecaterina rusnac, moldova

Bus department rewards Its Outstanding students

Majors: Business Administration, Economics

Outstanding Achievement Award in Business Administration

The international community, inspiring yet challenging professors, and the American model of education are the University’s main advantages. Smaller-size classes offer easy access to the instructor, which encouraged me to par-ticipate in class and helped me learn. AUBG provided me with solid theoretical and practical knowledge, irreplace-able experience gained through internships, and an overall personal progress. All these represent a solid foundation for further professional or academic development.

elena Fominykh, russia

AuBG prepared me for real Life

His business education comes in handy insolving practical problems.

By Daria Glukhova

Daniyar Akhmetshin graduated from AUBG in 2000, and if it wasn’t for his resume full of professional accomplish-ments, you would have thought that he was still a student. He is funny, quippy, optimistic. His snappy way of speak-ing marks him out as an interesting and lively interlocu-tor. On weekends, he often takes trips to Blagoevgrad to hang out with other nostalgia-driven former students. Like many other AUBG graduates, he never broke off his

daniyar Akhmetshin ’00, Kyrgyzstan

connection with his alma mater – and that despite a busy routine as managing director at Lactalis Bulgaria.

Daniyar calls his four years at AUBG “the elementary school of my professional journey – hard, basic, but abso-lutely necessary.” Academic rigor characterized the time he spent in Blagoevgrad. Daniyar, who completed a busi-ness degree at AUBG, felt he was learning something new all the time and was in a condition to take a test at any

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moment during the semester. Next to the intensity of the AUBG experience, he ranks the scope of a liberal educa-tion: you can try a little bit of everything and take a lot of something you like the most.

Among the most influential courses Daniyar took at AUBG were Marketing, Advertising, Persuasion, Ac-counting, and Creative Problem — Solving. The practi-cal nature of those classes was what made them so valu-able to him. He even had a chance to apply the lessons he learned in Creative Problem — Solving to a dire real-life situation: being cash-strapped in an unfamiliar place without access to a bank or a cash machine. His solution: selling some audio tapes he had on him to passengers at a train station. He managed to peddle four tapes and paid for his fare to Blagoevgrad with the profit.

Daniyar places AUBG among the top three factors that helped him become who he is, next to his family and friends. Therefore, he advises current students to treasure every moment they spend here.

After graduation, Daniyar climbed the ranks of British American tobacco, reaching the position of trade mar-keting manager for independent retail in Bulgaria’s Sofia region in 2010. He left the company in 2011 to join Lac-talis Bulgaria.

Organizations our alumni work at include: telerik Procter & Gamble Colgate-Palmolive Google PriceWaterhouseCoopers Deloitte Coca-Cola Shell Ernst & Young tanuki Films KPMGBUS alumni have advanced degrees from: Columbia University Georgetown University Duke University Cornell University Harvard University Yale University Stanford University Massachusetts Institute of technology University of Cambridge University of Oxford Vanderbilt University Johns Hopkins University London School of Economics University of Pennsylvania INSEAD King’s College London

McCann Erickson McKinsey National Public Radio Nestle Kraft Hewlett-Packard BMW Group Bulgarian National Bank Cisco Systems IBM The World Bank

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cOmputer scIence depArtment today Youngsters Opt for computer science

to make an Impact and change Lives

The way once upon a time ambitious undergraduates as-pired to become lawyers, medical doctors, and architects, today youngsters increasingly opt for computer science because of its potential for making an impact and chang-ing lives.

There is hardly a sphere of human activity that doesn’t de-pend on technology to make it run efficiently. Lawyers and judges rely on computer databases to sort through cases and evidence; medics use complex computers to help them fix ailments that in the past were deemed untreat-able; architects and civil engineers commission software developers to help them shape the modern cityscape.

Computer science is a fast-growing field offering a wide array of career options to students – from scientific in-quiry and technical excellence to entrepreneurial and business ventures. This field is particularly suitable for individuals who enjoy problem-solving through the use of technology.

As a computer science major at AUBG you will not only master technical skills but also learn to communicate your ideas effectively and work in demanding interna-tional environment. You will be able to apply your abili-ties and knowledge to coordinate and execute complex projects that change lives.

department Overview

BA in Computer Science and Information Systems (together with Business Department)

Master of Science in Software Engineering

Honors track in Computer Science, Information Systems

Over 30 undergraduate courses

Minors in Computer Science and Information Systems

36 published books, more than 140 journal articles

More than 10% of AUBG graduates complete a COS major

· Computer science students have their own interest clubs: The Computer Science Student Union holds competitions and workshops, coordinates computer science projects, and hosts distinguished practitioners in the field of Computer Science. The Engineering Club is for students interested in mechanical engineering and programming. · CSSU was awarded Chapter status with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 2008 – the only ACM student chapter in Eastern Europe.· ACM has repeatedly recognized AUBG students with Student Chapter Excellence awards. · Robot demos have become a traditional part of computer science panels at the annual Student-Faculty Research Conference. · The Department holds an annual programming competition for students. · AUBG students regularly win regional and national competitions. · two AUBG teams were shortlisted for participation in the local round of the 2012 Microsoft Imagine Cup competition. One of the teams developed C-Path, a computer-guided device helping blind people move unobstructed; the second team worked on an intelligent traffic light system that analyzes road traffic and optimizes the duration of traffic light signals based on the information. · The creators of C-Path will represent Bulgaria at the 2012 Microsoft Imagine Cup finals in Australia, the largest student computing competition in the world.

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From my first class at AUBG, I was impressed by students’ attitude, thirst for knowledge, and steep learning curves. Motivated to learn and to succeed, students tried to absorb everything I taught. This challenged me to give my best and to strive to es-tablish a learning environment that helps students not only to build and master technical knowledge, but more importantly to develop vital skills for their future careers, such as a problem — solving attitude, responsibility, the ability to work to tight deadlines, teamwork, and the passion to keep learning. AUBG is a unique institution dedicated to the future of its students and I am proud to be part of it.

Dimitar Christozov is the author of eight books and teaches classes in the fields of database systems, data structures and algorithms, data mining, and information systems.

dimitar christozov

The diversity of AUBG students provides a professor with a fantastic challenge owing to students’ differ-ent educational backgrounds, learning styles, goals, and views. teaching students of different majors and different levels of knowledge requires me to con-stantly improve my teaching methods in order to be accessible to beginners while keeping advanced stu-dents’ interest. Computer science is a rapidly chang-ing field and while students need to be trained in the fundamentals, it is impossible to teach the newest tools and approaches. My main priority is to teach students self-learning methods that allow them to keep learning, to adopt new approaches, to interpret new information, and to apply their knowledge to real problems. After all, lifelong learning is the main task of liberal arts education.

Svetla Boytcheva is a frequent participant in research conferences and the author of numerous academic papers. She teaches courses in artificial intelligence, software development, discrete structures, and visual basic programming.

svetla Boytcheva

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teaching at AUBG is an honor. teaching at AUBG is a pleasure. But above all I consider teaching at AUBG a personal responsibility. The students impressed me deeply from the beginning – all of them demonstrat-ed high motivation to study hard and absorb as much knowledge as possible. And this was not the only rea-son for me to accept the offer to become a full-time professor in AUBG’s Computer Science Department 10 years ago. I like that the same professor teaches lectures, exercises, and practical sessions, unlike at European universities. The small number of students per class is another factor contributing to students’ academic achievements. Last but not least, AUBG’s computing, communication, and library resources and services are unsurpassable.

Stoyan Bonev has published four books on dynamic web applications, computer languages, and programming. He is the mentor of the AUBG student team who will represent Bulgaria in the world finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition in Australia in 2012.

stoyan Bonev

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Majors: Computer Science, Information Systems

Minor: Fine Arts

Outstanding Achievement Award in Computer Science

Boryana is a Junior Software Developer at a Sofia-based IT company.

The essential advantage of an AUBG education can be summarized in a single word: diversity. The internation-al environment, the variety of courses, and the personal attitude of the professors allowed me to develop skills which now I find highly useful at my workplace. After I started working I realized that the ability to present my ideas clearly and a strong team spirit are as important as my technical knowledge. In this sense, I now appreci-ate every presentation and group project I did at AUBG.

Majors: Computer Science, Mathematics

Outstanding Achievement Award in Computer Science; first prize in the annualAUBG Programming Contest

Ergys will pursue a doctorate degree in Computer Science at Duke University. His area of focus will be Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.

AUBG prepared me well for life after graduation by allow-ing me to put my knowledge into practice. I had the free-dom to initiate the development of several systems now used by AUBG, such as a housing selection system and a voting system for student government elections. I also had the opportunity to participate in different competitions and conferences as well as to complete an internship at telerik, an AUBG alumni-run company.

Boryana Goncharenko, Bulgaria

ergys ristani, Albania

Majors: Computer Science, Information Systems

Outstanding Achievement Award inComputer Science

In the American style of education the desired outcome is to give students the ability to tackle real-life challeng-es. AUBG gives you a solid foundation of both theory and practical experience, but you will have to do most of the work to get there. The expectations are high and if you want to be the best you have to give your best. AUBG teaches you how to uncover your full potential and how to think outside the box when looking for solu-tions to practical problems. It gives you the opportunity to reinvent the wheel and by doing that to find three more ways to make it. christina vasileva, Bulgaria

cOs department rewards Its Outstanding students

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mirela spasova ’11, Bulgaria

AuBG taught me that Being Average Is not enough

Mirela discovered computer science – her dream field – at AUBG. By Yoana Savova

After the mortarboards have flown high and the bachelor robes have been cast aside, students face a decisive cross-roads. Placed between university and real life, some grad-uates return to academia while others navigate the maze of the labor market. Rarely do they manage to have a go at both. Among those rare few is Mirela Spasova, a 2011 AUBG graduate from Bulgaria who, barely a year out of college, already has an impressive resume of professional experience and academic achievement.

Mirela is currently a student at Stanford University in one of the world’s top graduate programs in computer science, where she attends lectures by world-renowned scholars and meets individuals who have developed an innovative Google application, built a dancing robot, or discovered a cure for a serious disease.

Following graduation from AUBG, Mirela took a summer internship at Microsoft in the United States and she has already accepted a job offer from LinkedIn for summer 2012. Her work with LinkedIn’s Data Science team will help her gain more experience in Social Network Analysis and Data Mining, two subjects that are closely tied to her academic interests.

The AUBG graduate says she feels equal to the challenge thanks to her AUBG education and the attitude her men-tors helped cultivate.

“At AUBG, I adopted the notion that being average is not enough. AUBG faculty encourage students to try their best and be confident in their abilities,” Mirela says.

As an undergraduate, Mirela double-majored in Comput-er Science and Economics, managing to excel in both dis-ciplines. Moreover, she successfully combined demand-ing academic pursuits with a number of co-curricular projects of her own. For example, she and her AUBG men-tor, Computer Science Professor John Galletly, developed News Folder, a web-based semantic application that stud-ies users’ online activities and predicts what news items would interest them. Their project received a best paper award at the Sixth International Conference – Computer Science 2011 in Ohrid, Macedonia.

AUBG not only exposed Mirela to complex theoretical concepts but also prepared her to tackle practical prob-lems and imparted vital life skills, such as the ability to take responsibility, be independent, and think on her feet. Furthermore, had it not been for the University’s liberal arts system of education, Mirela would never have taken

computer science classes (she started out taking courses in other disciplines) and would never have discovered her passion for the field. AUBG also granted the accom-plished graduate a tchaprachikoff scholarship to contin-ue her education at Stanford.

Mirela was an active member of AUBG’s Computer Sci-ence Student Union, developing the student club’s new website. She is also the recipient of a Weltner Grant and two Citi Foundation scholarships.

KPMG Google telerik Siemens EBRD UNICEF Oracle IBM Intel Corp. ING Cisco Systems

Organizations our graduates work at: PricewaterhouseCoopers Raiffeisen Bank Microsoft Corp. Hewlett-Packard Deloitte Kraft Foods Procter & Gamble Johns Hopkins University The World Bank Neuroimaging Royal Bank of Scotland Georgetown University European Central Bank Harvard University’s Center for Brain Science

COS alumni have advanced degrees from: INSEAD The George Washington University King’s College London University of Pennsylvania New York University University of Wisconsin-Madison University College London Stanford University Duke University University of Maryland Georgia Institute of technology Carnegie Mellon University Boston College

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telerik “Deliver more than expected”

Founded in 2002 by Vassil Terziev, Svetozar Georgiev, Boyko Iaramov, and Hristo Kosev

600 employees and 11 offices around the world - in Boston, MA; Houston and Austin, TX; San Diego, CA; Sofia, Bulgaria; London, UK; Munich, Germa-ny; Winnipeg, Canada; and Sydney, Australia; In-dia, New Delhi; Hudson, OH

Main business: Developer Tools, Agile Project Manage-ment, Automated Testing Tools, Web content manage-ment

Clients: Over 100,000 organizations in 94 countries, many Fortune 500 companies as well as renowned edu-cational, governmental and non-profit institutions, the World Bank, Vodafone, Reuters, Continental Airlines, Samsung, Fox, Volvo, Nike, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, KODAK, American Express

Awards/achievements: Winner in Best of TechEd 2012; In 2012 telerik’s Kendo UI Wins Trio of Accolades for Mo-bile App Development and HTML5 Tools; Top Finalist in 2011 Microsoft Mobility Partner of the Year Award; VSM Readers Choice Award: Best Collaboration, Project Management, and Agile Solutions (TeamPulse)

Partners: Microsoft Gold Certified Partner; Microsoft Visual Studio Premier Partner

Netage Solutions, Inc. Founded in 1998 by Krassen Draganov & Dilian Pavlov

Headquartered in Sofia, branch offices in Watertown, MA and New York, NY

Main business: software applications for financial insti-tutions

Clients: Organizations in the real estate, private equity, and venture capital industries in the United States

Awards/achievements: It Innovation prize of the year; first place in the Finance Website category; identified as one of the top independent software vendors in Eu-rope for 2005 by It Europa

Projects: Website for the Bulgarian Mint, Industrial Holding Bulgaria, HVB Bank Biochim, portal for Med-ical University – Sofia

Partners: Gold Certified Partner of Microsoft; Eze Cas-tle Integration, leading supplier of It services to the hedge and investment industryMelon Inc.

Founded as Melon Technologies in 2003 after merging of Weblang (founders: Krum Hadzhigeogiev, Valentin Velikov, Anguel Anguelov) and Adventure Studios (founders: Antony Ivanov, Vassil Dimov and Stanislav Angelov).

More than 130 employees and offices in Sofia and Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria.

Main business: Custom built software and new media solutions for desktop, web and mobile. Development and marketing mobile productivity and business solutions across a variety of platforms including BlackBerry®, Sym-bian OS™, Java®, Windows Phone 7®, Windows Mobile®, Android and iOS (iPhone and iPad). Development and integration of eLearning solutions and creation of custom eLearning content. Development of components for web-sites

Clients: Livebookings, Coca-Cola Hellenic, OMV, Bridgehit, Buchanan technologies, CyberArts, Mo-biltel, Vivacom, Globul, Evoke New York, Blizoo and

companies Founded by AuBG Alumni

This is a non-exhaustive list of IT companies founded and run by AUBG graduates

FinZoom Co-Founded by Deyan Vassilev, Class of 1995

Main business: FinZoom Corporation operates the lead-ing financial comparison portals in Bulgaria (www.moitepari.bg), Romania (www.finzoom.ro) and turkey (www.finzoom.com.tr). FinZoom’s mission is to empower millions of consumers to make well-informed decisions about their personal finances. Started in 2005 in Bul-garia and 2006 in Romania and turkey, the portals are well positioned as aggregators and providers of transpar-ent comparison information on all financial products and services, including consumer loans, mortgages, credit cards, pay-day loans, auto-loans, business loans, depos-its, mutual funds, current accounts, savings accounts and others. FinZoom is part of Eastisoft Inc., www.eastisoft.com – a software solutions group co-founded by Deyan Vassilev in 2000. In the period 2000-2005 Eastisoft was focused on developing boutique custom software solu-tions to customers in the USA, Europe and Bulgaria.

many more…

Awards/achievements: Winner of the Nokia App Launcher Icon Competition; World Summit Award Mobile; authorized Industry Software Vendor of Mo-torola Mobility

Partners: Microsoft Partner, member of the Bulgarian Software Association and Bulgarian Web Association

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ecOnOmIcs depArtment take a stand and change the world with the №1 economics program

AUBG’s economics program has been ranked repeatedly as one of the best programs in Bulgaria, and potentially in the region. The university ranking system developed by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education recognizes not only the program’s academic caliber but also its ability to prepare outstanding professionals who assume leading positions in government, business, the NGO sector, and academia. More than half of the Economics Department’s graduates pursue advanced degrees at world-renowned universities; the other half embark on exciting careers across the world.

The program combines rigorous theoretical training with empirical applications using the latest techniques in an

department Overview

Ranked repeatedly as Bulgaria’s leading program ineconomics

Honors track in economics

Over 30 courses

Major and minor in economics

Faculty with prestigious degrees from PrincetonUniversity, University of Southern California, Columbus State University, University of Wisconsin, Univesity of Vienna (Austria), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain)8 published books, more than 65 journal articles

Bulgaria’s leading program for career success, according to 2012 results from the University Ranking System launched by the Ministry of Education

· AUBG students and faculty have participated in the prestigious annual economics conference Carroll Round at Georgetown University, held in Washington D.C., United States, every year since 2009.· Freakonomics is a student-run initiative that aims to address pressing economic issues by bringing distinguished speakers to campus. · Economics students and faculty present individual and group scholarly work at the annual Faculty-Student Research Conference. · Economics majors have the opportunity to discuss pressing economic issues with experts at specially organized forums. · Students have the opportunity to go on field trips to research centers, such as Bulgaria’s Institute for Market Economics, and leading companies in the region. · Almost a third of economics graduates complete a senior thesis. · A fifth of AUBG students graduate with an economics major.

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intellectually stimulating and challenging environment. Students are encouraged to explore beyond the norm and challenge accepted wisdom through objective analysis.

At AUBG, we foster research among the students to sharpen their creative skills and incorporate current events and real-life examples into the learning process to make knowledge practical and useful.

The program fosters open-mindedness, creative thinking, flexible visions, and empathy with others. A degree in eco-nomics means a chance to take a stand and to change the world for the better by finding creative solutions to the eco-nomic challenges societies in transition face.

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AUBG students value creative approaches and inter-active learning more than anything else. Dogmatic approaches and simple instruction do not work! “Learning by doing” with a reliable supervisor by their side who helps to solve problems when they arise makes this process very rewarding and effec-tive. Students want to participate in their education process rather than being “instructed” by the profes-sor from the top. This is why teaching AUBG stu-dents requires a great deal of concentration and hard work on our part as professors, but it is also very gratifying because those efforts usually pay off and our graduates reap many successes.

Didar Erdinc taught at several prestigious U.S. universities prior to joining AUBG. She is the author of a book about financial crises in transitional economies and numerous journal articles.

didar erdinc

What I like the best about teaching here is that most AUBG students work summers to pay their tuition. Through this they learn to demand value in their ed-ucation. They challenge their instructors and for my part I do my best to challenge them. Students here are also tenacious. Give them a path and they’ll work hard to get to the goal. But the best thing of all, they don’t need to be taught. They apply their skills to do all that is required to learn and excel. And though not strictly needed, it sure feels good to have helped them on their way.

Jeffrey Nilsen is a Princeton graduate who teaches macroeconomics and quantitative methods in economics.

Jeffrey nilsen

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My teaching role is to develop students’ ability to examine economic information critically and to be able to identify and weigh options concerning that information. I think my most important task toward this development is to prepare our students to be my future colleagues, even if they choose to work in the corporate world. I have taught at a number of U.S. universities and I find AUBG students to be better prepared academically, but less intuitive about eco-nomics, than the average U.S. student. I have had to change how I approach topics as a result, but these changes have made teaching more interesting for me. I have to be more thoughtful about things I used to think were “obvious” and I think I am a better teacher as a result.

Mark Leonard is an expert at agricultural economics and microeconomics. At AUBG, he teaches courses in industrial organization, microeconomics, and labor economics.

mark Leonard

What I like most about teaching at AUBG is that so many of the students here have such high expecta-tions for themselves. I don’t know of any other un-dergraduate institution where such a high percent-age of its graduates go on to graduate schools – and in many cases they go to some of the best graduate programs in the world. A few years ago I received an email from a former student asking for my old syl-labus from intermediate macroeconomics – because she wanted to convince her advisor at the Wharton School of Business that she already knew everything that was covered by the first-year economics course at Wharton. When I sent her the document, I con-gratulated her on her admission to such a prestigious program. She wrote back to tell me that there were three AUBG alumni in her class!

Steve Sullivan is AUBG’s Interim Provost. His research interests include the economics of sports, international monetary theory, and macroeconomics.

steve sullivan

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Majors: Economics, Business Administration

Outstanding Achievement Award in Economics

I am very optimistic about the preparation I re-ceived at AUBG in my main fields of study. This preparation will serve as a strong base whether I choose to pursue a career or continue studying. The small class size is AUBG’s biggest advantage as it allows a great deal of in-class interaction. Among the other top advantages of AUBG are the diverse community, the many scholarship opportunities, and Bulgaria’s proximity to my home country.

sabutay Fatullayev, Azerbaijan

ecO department rewards Its Outstanding students

Majors: Economics, Computer Science

Outstanding Achievement Award in Economics

AUBG has equipped me with solid education, motivation, and the skills to be successful at any practical task. Moreo-ver, AUBG taught me to embrace and successfully meet challenges. My education here not only helped me master the ground rules, but also taught me how to apply the con-cepts and theory I learned in class to real issues. Studying in a multicultural environment has made me embrace es-sential values, such as respect for diversity, broadminded-ness, integration, and a cosmopolitan outlook. I believe that studying in small classes and being able to interact directly with peers and professors has made me more culturally aware and has positively impacted my communication skills.

Xhesika Fezga, Albania

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provost’s Associates

Stephen Auth*Yulia Berberian-Maleeva**Carl DjerassiJohn and Jean Gulliver*Thomas Higgins*Krassimir KanevTodor Mitev, in honor of Keila JedrikMobilTel EADGerard van der Sluys**

second decade contributors

Olga BorissovaVladimir Borachev ‘95**Karen Boucias*Thomas C. Celli*Bogdan Cosmaciuc ‘99Spas Dimitrov**Ronald D. Vanden Dorpel*Ann S. Ferren and Jonathan D. FifeCharles A. Fagan III*Gehard EOOD – branch BanskoIveta Gigova**Mr. and Mrs. Gates H. Hawn, in honor of Mark ColemanPenyo Hadjiev**Petya Hubenova ‘03David Huwiler and Svetlana Khamatova +Konstantin and Paulina IvanovBarbara E. Janeff , in memory of Milen D. Janeff Johnson Control SystemsJohnson & Johnson Matching Gifts ProgramTanya Kosseva-Boshova ‘96Elizabeth Kostova**Lydia Krise +Sol Polansky** Frank P. Popoff Pauline J. Porter, in memory of William R. PorterDavid L. Reich and Susan C. DesselSlavi T. SlavovRoman VasilevAnne Woodbury, in memory of Robert L. Woodbury

supporting Gifts

Anguel Anguelov – Mostuna ’00 **Nikolay Arnaudov (Kole) ’00, EMBA ‘09Avendi OOD

AUBG Alumni Top 20 EventAndrei Bachvarov ‘01Bolsa EOODCyrus Capital Partners, L. P.Borbala Deak ‘99John E. Galletly +Michael and Louise EastonVictoria EntwistleIlya and Hanna Firman ‘02International Transport “Balkan”Rossen ’00 and Elena IvanoviGeorge T. LazarLyuba Tours Ltd.Svetoslav Nikov ‘95James and Kathy Pardew, in honor of J. Dimitri PanitzaJoseph Pilov ‘96Leon M. Selig**Steve Sullivan +Cosmina Tanasoiu +

dean’s Associates

Adecco BulgariaAsya ’02, EMBA’07 and Alex ’96, EMBA’05 Alexandrovi+ Barbara E. BrittinghamPaul Fairbrook, in honor of Maia ParmakovaGoogle Matching Gifts ProgramGeorge Gueorguiev ‘00 and Kalina Slavova ‘02Andrei Gurov +Velitchka Hristova ’98,in memory of J. Dimitri PanitzaStefan A. Kantardjieff , in memory of J. Dimitri PanitzaBorislav Kavlakov ‘99Sergey Koinov ‘96Stratzi Kulinski ‘95J. Mark and Lynnette G. Leonard +Logodaj WineryIvan and Alexandra Manev*Emilian Marinov ‘96Microsoft Matching Gifts ProgramAlexander MihailovskiLucia Miree +Shane MoriarityL. Andrew NormanNu Boyana FilmSaso Ordanoski*Nickolas PanitzaSolomon Passy*Charles F. Rauch, Jr.Cyrus Reed +Francois Riston*TBC Prim OOD (Rene Catering)Sani Silvennoinen +

2012 hOnOr rOLL OF cOntrIButOrsAuBG AnnuAL GIvInG

dOnOrs In FIscAL YeAr 2012(1 July 2011 – 30 June 2012 )

Leadership Gifts

AnonymousAmerica for Bulgaria FoundationElvin Guri ’96 *Marianne M. Keler* and Michael KershowMinistry of Education, Youth and Science Open Society InstituteAnna K. Tchaprachikoff US Embassy of Turkmenistan

1991 club

Robert and Nellie Gipson

president’s circle

AnonymousBritish Airways BulgariaFabio Lopez Ceron*Chris von Christierson*Colliers InternationalEmbassy of the United States, BulgariaEquilibria Capital Management Ltd.Pavel Ezekiev*Yvonne Panitza**The Nando Peretti FoundationHRH Princess Maria Luisa of Bulgaria**Jan Protogerov Bulgaria FoundationRichard J. Ramsden**S. C. I. ValterreTelerik Bulgaria ADTurkmenistan Youth & Civic Values Foundation

sustaining Gifts

Aurubis BulgariaThomas W. Bird**David and Kathleen Flanagan**Mary Lee Herbster, in memory of William HerbsterRobert & Ardis James FoundationClaude Janssen**Anastas and Emilia KonstantinoviKPMG BulgariaLumina Foundation for EducationNational Academic Library Information System, BulgariaNetage SolutionsRaiff eisenbank (Bulgaria) EADJohn C. Whitehead

summer 2012

Konstantin Stoev ’95Steve Sullivan +Julia M. WatkinsYury Zabello ‘03

century club

AnonymousAnonymousChristo Angelov ‘95Karen Agura, in memory of the Agura brothersArtan Ajazaj ‘04Archer IdeasElizabeth BakesAlexandra Baryakova ‘02Philippe Bertherat**Stoyan Bonev +Teodora Borova, EMBA‘09Lyuba BoyaninSvetla Boytcheva +Krastanka Bozhinova +Jimmy CharGeoff rey Dean +Nikolai Dimitrov ‘99Boryana DimitrovaEltrak Bulgaria EOODAtanas GarovSimona Genkova +Goethe Institute, BulgariaChristo Grozev ‘95Nino Gugushvili ‘06Andon Ichev ’95Ivan Ivanov +Stefan Ivanov ‘95Rossana Petrova-IvanovaAndrey Jiansky ‘95Marina Kapsimalova ‘05Jordan Karabinov ‘97Marin Karageorgiev ‘98Volin Karagiozov +Sophia Katsarska +Zornitza Keremidchieva ‘97Veselina Kertikova ‘02Gevorg Khachatryan ‘08Daniela Kisova ‘96Irena KomitovaDaniela Kostova +Meglena Kuneva*Stanislav KyosevVirginia Lawton, in memory of J. Dimitri PanitzaAndrea Leskes*Dan Levinschi ‘07Dimiter LozanovDiego Lucci +Vicky Politova-Lukanova ‘95Evgeniya MacDonald +Laura M. Macinnis and Ernesto FernandezIvan Majdrakoff

The American University in Bulgaria gratefully acknowledges the following individuals and organizations for their generosity. The Honor Roll of Contributors recognizes all contributions made to the University from July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012. Please note the list only refl ects cash gifts received. Pledges are not included.

Teodora Marcheva ‘08 +Albena Markova ‘96Ambassador John MenziesAna Milicevic ‘01Lyubomir Minchev Momchil Mitov ‘95Nadia Naydenova ‘99Nickolay Nedelchev Ivo Nedkov ‘04Leonid Oknyansky ‘97Alexander Oliver ‘01Ambassador Louise V. OliverMaria Oprenova ‘97Vladimir and Gigi OssenovVictor PapazovDilyan Pavlov ‘95Ira Penza (Tisheva) ‘03Petar Petrov ‘06Svetlozar Petrov *Sevdelina Petrova ‘10Violeta Petrova ‘97Pfi zer Foundation Matching Gifts ProgramLudmilla G. Popova-WightmanElena Poptodorova**Jerome PriestGregory S. Prince Jr.**Alban Pruthi ’05, in memory of Shefqet PruthiRobert F. RothschildZlatina Ruseva-SavovaDr. and Mrs. Gian Carlo SalmoiraghiTodor SheljaskowTheodore O. SippelKamelia Slaveykova, EMBA ‘07Barbara Snowadzky, in memory of Rudolph SnowadzkySopharma TradingVarbin Staykoff ’96, in memory of Peter Staykoff Borislav Stefanov ‘01Julia StefanovaAna Stojanovic ‘06Genadi Stoyanov, EMBA ‘09Nadezhda StoyanovaSusan M. SuttonEvelina Terzieva +Wayne C. ThompsonPhilip TilneyEmil Tsenov ’95Georgi Tsvetkov ‘06Norma S. TuckerAsya Varbanova ‘03Ivan Vargoulev ‘95Krassimir Vrangov ‘96William A. WearyDiyana Yancheva ‘03Yanko A. Yankov-Bossia, MDIrina YordanovaYordan Zhechev, in memory of J. Dimitri Panitza

Friends of AuBG

Nadezhda Afendova +AIMS Human Capital OODIvailo Aksharov ’95Aisulu Aldasheva ‘02Elitsa Alexandrova +Maria Alexandrova ‘03Boriana Alexiev (Jeleva) ‘97Veneta Andonova +Dzhoni Andreev +Hristo Apostolov +Rabbi Haim and Elaine AsaBoryana Atanasova ‘09Pavlina Atke +Snezhka Bangacheva +Nikolina Ivanova-Bell +Elena Bikova +Zlatina Bogdanova ‘01Elka Bogusheva +Plamen Bonchev +Maria Boneva ‘02Iren Borissova ‘96Yanko Boyanov +Zdravka Bozhinova +Robert Burlingham, in memory of Milen Janeff Cabra EOODPlamen Cheshmedjiev ‘02Zornitsa Choukniyska ’99, EMBA ‘09Vanya Choneva ‘01Jeremy Cripps +Jean Crombois +Andrey Delchev*Viktor Dimitrov ‘05Viktor Dimitrov +Maria Dimitrova +Nestor Dinkov ’97, EMBA ‘04Velichko DinovVesela Docheva ‘05Kristina Doneva +Lyudmila Dzakova +Dilyana Dzanova ‘07Ralph Earle IIVladimir Elezov +Emilia EllisKevin Feeney +Silviya Fileva ‘11Vania Filipova +Frame RestaurantBorislava Gabrovska ‘00Angelina Georgieva +Gergana Georgieva +Ivelina Georgieva ‘02Ani Gesheva ‘07Irina Gigova ‘97Dane R. GordonTamara GordonAnca Grozav ‘02Stanislava Gurova +Xia Han ‘06Vera Hristova ‘03Maria Ilieva +

*Member, AUBG Board of Trustees **Member, University Council + Member, Faculty or Staff

hOnOr rOLL OF cOntrIButOrs

Interhotel Grand Hotel Sofi aYulia Iordanova +Diana IossifovaBoris Ivanov +Kamelia Ivanova +Nadezhda Ivanova, EMBA’10Aneliya Goryanova-Ivanova +Christina Jordanova ‘03Zdravko Jovev +Ajdan Jumerefendi ‘02Krumi KaishevBoian Kalchev ‘96Kristina Kaneva ‘01Iliya Kardashliev ‘04Metodi Kazaliev +Jennifer S. KiserBlazhka Klyumbova +Elisaveta Kokotanova ‘02Teodora Koleva ‘96Boyka Komsulova ‘05Valentin Kovachev +Daniela Kovacheva +Iliya Krastev ‘00Orlin I. Krumov, in memory of Colonel Boris DrangovHristo Lazarov ‘02Maria Lazarova +Anna Mangova ‘02Diana Manolova ‘96Raia Mantovska ‘08Niya Mantovska ‘11Tanya Markova +Mihai Matei ‘00Mariya Mehandzhiiska +Mariana Milanova +Ken MoskowitzGergana Murtova +Asie Mustafa ‘07Lyuben Mutafchiev +Dimitar Nachkov ’95, EMBA ’04Mikhail Nahorny ‘02Viktor Nasr ‘09Roumiana Natcheva ‘08Elitsa Naydenova ‘09Lyubka Naydenova ‘95Dariana Nedeltcheva ’96Nikoleta Neycheva ‘09Milena Nikolova +Venera Nikolaeva ’09 +Irina Novakova ‘05Tsvete Obreshkova ’95Natalia Oglu ‘02Martin Ouzounov ’97, ‘05Svetlana Ouzounova ‘97Tanya Papazova +Maia Parmakova +Simona Parvanova ‘00Augustina Pasheeva ‘10Yulia Pechanova +Plamen Peshov ‘97Konstantin Petkov ‘96Rossen Petkov ‘04Margarita Petkova ’04, EMBA ’09 +

Maria Petrova +Vera Petrova ‘08Manol Peykov ’95, EMBA ‘08Julian Popov *Slava Popova +Silvia Prokopieva ‘02Nikolay Raykov ‘06Anton Roussev ’96, in memory of Dr. Dobrinka RoussevaNikolay V. Rumenin ’08 *Iliana Ruseva +Kalina Saltiel ‘05George and Yvonne SchexnayderBoriana Shalyavska +Velitchka Shopova +Ivan Skabrin ’95Katherine M. SkibaDesislava Slavcheva ‘07 +Spas SlivkovMaria Sotirova +Georgi Smilkov +Krasimir Spasov +Aneta Spendzharova ‘02Mariana Stoimenova +Borislav Stoitchkov +Camelia Stoitzova +Antoni Stoyanov ‘10Aneliya Stoyanova +Pavlina Stoycheva EMBA ’08 +Vasil Strelkov ‘05Petar ’02** & Vera ’05 SvarcDessislava Tabakova ‘02Milush S. Todorov ‘96Desislava Todorova ‘00Tamara Todorova +Daniel Tomov ’97 Lyuba Tomova +Rene Tomova ‘00Danko Tonev ‘96Elena TopalovaPlamena Toteva ’05. EMBA ‘09Nikolay Trifonov ‘03Veneta Trifonova ‘03Vasil Tupalski +Borislav Tyulekov +Tzvetelina Tzvetkova ‘01Trezor RestaurantIvan Valchanov ‘95Ilko Vangelov +Nikolay Vasilev +Ilya Vedrasco ’00Rumyana Velichkova ‘09Mitko Vodenicharski +Markus and Sabina Wien +Ivan Yakimov +Yana Yaneva ‘06Emilia Zankina +Vassil Zashev +Denitsa Zheliazkova ‘03Ani Zlatkova +

class of 1995

Ivailo AksharovChristo AngelovVladimir BorachevChristo GrozevAndon IchevStefan N. IvanovAndrey JianskyStratsi KulinskiMomchil MitovLyubka NaydenovaDariana NedeltchevaSvetoslav NikovTsvete ObreshkovaDilian PavlovManol PeykovVicky Politova-LukanovaIvan SkabrinKonstantin StoevEmil TsenovIvan ValchanovIvan Vargoulev

class of 1996

Alexander AlexandrovIren BorissovaElvin GuriBoian KalchevDaniela KisovaSergey KoinovTeodora KolevaTanya Kosseva-BoshovaDiana ManolovaEmilian MarinovAlbena MarkovaDimitar NachkovDariana NedeltchevaKonstantin PetkovJoseph PilovAnton RoussevVarbin Staykoff Milush S. TodorovDanko TonevKrassimir Vrangov

class of 1997

Boriana Alexiev (Jeleva)Nestor Dinkov

Irina GigovaJordan KarabinovZornitza KeremidchievaLeonid OknyanskyMaria OprenovaMartin OuzounovSvetlana OuzounovaPlamen PeshovVioleta PetrovaDaniel Tomov

class of 1998

Velitchka HristovaMarin Karageorgiev

class of 1999

Zornitsa ChoukniyskaBogdan CosmaciucBorbala DeakNikolai K. DimitrovBorislav KavlakovNadia Naydenova

class of 2000

AnonymousAnguel Anguelov - MostunaNikolay ArnaudovBorislava GabrovskaGeorge GueorguievRossen N. IvanovIliya KrastevSimona ParvanovaDesislava TodorovaRene TomovaIlya Vedrasco

class of 2001

Andrei BachvarovZlatina BogdanovaVanya ChonevaKristina KanevaMihai MateiAna MilicevicAlexander OliverBorislav StefanovTzvetelina Tzvetkova

class of 2002

Aisulu AldashevaAsya AlexandrovaAleksandra BaryakovaMaria BonevaPlamen CheshmedjievIlya and Hanna FirmanIvelina GeorgievaAnca GrozavKalina SlavovaAjdan JumerefendiVeselina KertikovaElisaveta KokotanovaHristo LazarovAnna MangovaMikhail NahornyNatalia OgluSilvia ProkopievaAneta SpendzharovaPetar SvarcDessislava Tabakova

class of 2003

Maria AlexandrovaVera HristovaPetya HubenovaChristina JordanovaIra Penza (Tisheva)Nikolay TrifonovVeneta TrifonovaAsya VarbanovaYury ZabelloDenitsa ZheliazkovaDiyana Yancheva

class of 2004

Artan AjazajIliya KardashlievIvo NedkovRossen PetkovMargarita Petkova

class of 2005

Viktor DimitrovVesela DochevaMarina KapsimalovaBoyka Komsulova

AuBG Annual Giving Levels

In memoriam

The Agura brothersDancho Dinov ‘95Colonel Boris DrangovWilliam Herbster

Milen Janeff J. Dimitri PanitzaWilliam PorterShefqet Pruthi

Dr. Dobrinka RoussevaRudolph SnowadzkyPeter Staykoff Robert L. Woodbury

specIAL GIFts

ALumnI GIvInG

summer 2012

Leadership Gifts from $50,0001991 Club from $25,000President’s Circle from $10,000

Sustaining Gifts from $5,000Provost’s Associates from $2,500Second Decade Contributors from $1,000 Supporting Gifts from $500

Dean’s Associates from $250Century Club from $100 Friends of AUBG below $100

Irina NovakovaAlban PruthiKalina SaltielVasil StrelkovVera SvarcPlamena Toteva

class of 2006

Nino GugushviliXia HanPetar PetrovNikolay RaykovAna StojanovicGeorgi TsvetkovYana Yaneva

class of 2007

Dilyana DzanovaAni GeshevaDan LevinschiAsie MustafaDesislava Slavcheva

class of 2008

Gevorg KhachatryanRaia MantovskaTeodora MarchevaRoumiana NatchevaVera PetrovaNikolay V. Rumenin

class of 2009

Boryana AtanasovaViktor NasrElitsa NaydenovaNikoleta NeychevaVenera NikolaevaRumyana Velichkova

class of 2010

Augustina PasheevaSevdelina PetrovaAntoni Stoyanov

class of 2011

Silviya FilevaNiya Mantovska

In honor

Mark ColemanKeila JedrikMaia Parmakova

university Benefactors

America for Bulgaria FoundationGeorge Soros - Open Society InstituteAnna K. Tchaprachikoff Athanas A. Zamphiroff

panitza Fellows

Alex BalkanskiMinko BalkanskiPhilippe BertheratBrother’s Brother FoundationEliot Elieff The International Media FundMarianne M. KelerThe Salgo-Noren Foundation

davidson Fellows

Ralph P. DavidsonElvin Guri

2002 USAID Endowment

2007 Anna K. Tchaprachikoff Endowed Scholarship Michael & Louise Easton Endowed Scholarship Ann S. Ferren and Jonathan D. Fife Scholarship for Community Service

2008 Michael Iovenko Endowed Scholarship Athanas A. Zamphiroff Endowed Scholarship Ilya V. and Katherine K. Talev Endowed Scholarship David Huwiler and Svetlana Khamatova Endowed Scholarship Fund

2009 Metcalf/Ramsden Endowed Scholarship Stephane Groueff Distinguished Endowed Scholarship

2010 Robert L. Woodbury Endowed Scholarship

2012 Eugenia Shudtz Brechka and Roberta Louise Nilsen Memorial Scholarship

J. Dimitri and Yvonne PanitzaRichard J. RamsdenJohn C. WhiteheadThe Andrew W. Mellon FoundationThe Pew Charitable TrustsThe Sallie Mae Fund

presidential Fellows

Chris von ChristiersonGordon E. CadwganDavid T. FlanaganNorris Darrell Jr.Nellie & Robert GipsonWilliam J. HumeClaude JanssenLumina Foundation for EducationCharlotte S. MetcalfMobilTel EADNancy R. Newhouse-IovenkoThe Nando Peretti FoundationThe Starr Foundation

Fellows

Thomas W. BirdDuke Franz FoundationCraig HallAnn S. Ferren and Jonathan D. FifeFreedom ForumNan FrederickMary Lee HerbsterTerry HopkinsING Bank – Sofi a BranchJules T. KortenhorstHRH Princess Maria Luisa of BulgariaMinistry of Education, Youth and Science, BulgariaRaiff eisenbank BulgariaRepresentation of the European Commission in BulgariaHarrison RichardsonLeon M. Selig

AuBG sOcIetY OF FeLLOws

the AuBG society of Fellows recognizes private cumulative giving, since 1991, in support of AuBG

endOwments

endowments are permanent legacies that support AuBG in perpetuity

Note: Every eff ort has been made to make this listing 100% accurate. If, however, your name has been omitted, misspelled, or misplaced, we sincerely apologize.Please let us correct our mistake by contacting the AUBG Development Offi ce at development@aubg.bg

AuBG society of Fellows

University Benefactors from $1m Davidson Fellows from $250k Fellows from $50k

Panitza Fellows from $500k Presidential Fellows from $100k

hOnOr rOLL OF cOntrIButOrs

Artan Ajazaj ’04, Kosovо

AuBG Gives You well-rounded experience, Good set of skills

A practical focus was what made the economics program so valuable to Artan By Darya Yanitskaya

For 2004 graduate Artan Ajazaj, from Kosovo, AUBG’s economics program became a molding experience that led him to a successful international career. Artan cur-rently serves as Investment Officer at the treasury of the World Bank in Washington, D.C. and is one of the people responsible for managing all the World Bank money dis-bursed to countries for loans or for various projects.

Assessing market risk and sorting through tons of data are part and parcel of Artan’s job, but so is being a good psychologist and dealing with many different groups and interests. “I have to be very careful about what goes to the clients and counter-parties that rely on our team for information, so it’s a mixture of market and reputational risk,” he says.

His education prepared him well to handle such diverse challenges. “AUBG gives you a well-rounded experience and a good set of skills. The economics program, in par-ticular, gives you very strong fundamentals, helps you un-derstand society, and opens doors to a whole new world.”

At AUBG, Artan completed two demanding majors, in Economics and Business Administration, and also mi-nored in Fine Arts. The rigorous academic training he got prepared him to successfully meet the demands of the graduate program in finance at George Washington University (GWU), where Artan enrolled after spending some time working in his native Kosovo. The communi-cation skills he acquired as an undergraduate also helped him to excel at interviews and land his first job at auditing giant Deloitte after graduation from AUBG.

“Working at Deloitte, I found the Corporate Finance and Money and Banking classes, among others, to be very beneficial,” he says, adding that the practical focus of his studies has been very helpful throughout his career.

But it wasn’t only the formal education he received at AUBG that has helped him along the way. The AUBG alumni network and the friends one makes at the Uni-versity are an invaluable resource one can tap into to get advice about graduate schools, living arrangements, or employment opportunities.

“I applied to GWU because a good friend of mine from AUBG had been admitted there a year earlier,” Artan says. He also admits that the University’s academic reputation and the excellent education it provides helped him get the scholarship that allowed him to complete his graduate studies at GWU.

Artan’s employment with the World Bank also began with a recommendation by a trusted fellow AUBG-er. “An AUBG colleague and friend who was already work-ing there recommended me. This is how I got to the first interview and the rest is history,” he says.

NAtO Nestle Prada Rolls-Royce USAID Carrefour Citi Group Coca-Cola IBM JPMorgan KPMG Kraft Foods Google Danone Deloitte

Companies employing Economics alumni include: American Express Columbia University Deutsche Bank Duke University Ernst & Young General Electric Goldman Sachs Hewlett-Packard MarketWatch Merrill Lynch Morgan Stanley World Bank National ministries University of Maryland London School of Economics Court of Justice of the European Union

ECO graduates hold advanced degrees from: Boston College Central European University Columbia University Cornell University Dartmouth College Duke University Georgetown University Harvard University INSEAD London School of Economics Massachusetts Institute of technology Oxford University Princeton University University of Cambridge Yale University

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hIstOrY And cIvILIZAtIOns depArtment students from more than 40 countries practice dialogue in Its

purest Form at AuBG

· Students in the honors track in History and Civilizations work on original research projects over two consecutive semesters under the supervision of faculty.· AUBG is part of the oral history project “topoi of Historical Memory,” a multidisciplinary study of the national and minority realms of historical memory.· Students present scholarly work in history and philosophy at the annual Student-Faculty Research Conference.· AUBG organizes educational trips to museums, archeological sites and places of historical interest in Bulgaria and the region. · AUBG organizes a history retreat in Blagoevgrad or places of historical interest in Bulgaria and the region every year in the spring semester.· The Department hosts weekly debates, exhibitions, movie screenings, and guest lectures with the participation of prominent scholars and intellectuals from Bulgaria and abroad.· The undergraduate academic journal Thoth is run by AUBG students and publishes scholarly work in the humanities and social sciences.

History helps you discover how our world evolved and how people used to behave in particular situations. The study of History is thus crucial in organizing and assess-ing evidence, interpreting complex events and issues, and evaluating and solving problems. History and the other disciplines offered by our Department also enable you to process information and express your ideas with rigor. This is a critical skill in all fields of decision-making and research, such as academia, government, law, journalism, and other careers. It is indeed no accident that key posi-tions in politics, media, show business, and other fields have been colonized by historians, anthropologists, and philosophers.

By pursuing a degree in one or more of our programs, you will acquire concepts, methods, and perspectives that will help you develop your way of thinking and will provide you with a model for future learning. So you will follow in the footsteps of many AUBG alumni who now teach at such prestigious universities as Berkeley, Yale, and the Central European University or, like businessman Elvin Guri, have successfully pursued other careers and are now among the major benefactors of our community. And you will join a long list of people who have em-ployed their understanding of humanity to comprehend, interpret, and change the world. Those include not only renowned academics and intellectuals, but also many creative, brave, and inspirational persons, such as busi-nessman and philanthropist George Soros, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, several American presi-dents, including Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Ken-nedy, internationally famous writers like Umberto Eco and Salman Rushdie, and Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of Borat and Ali G.

department Overview

More than 45 courses

Honors track in History

Majors in History and Civilizations and American Studies (with the Department of Arts, Languages and Literature)

Minors in History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Religion, American Studies, and Southeast European Studies

Faculty with prestigious degrees from University of Oxford, European University Institute Florence, University of Sydney, University of California

38 published books, more than 55 journal articles

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What attracted me to AUBG? Probably the most im-portant factor is the diversity of the students. A sig-nificant number of our students come from regions or belong to cultures that are covered in the courses I teach – Balkan and Ottoman History, History of Is-lam. It is indeed challenging to teach history about which students already have views, sometimes con-tradictory, rooted in their educational systems. Just one example – the Macedonian issue in a group where there are Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, and Alba-nians. However, what sets our students apart from others is that they do not just have opinions; they are ready to discuss and defend them and also to listen to the arguments of others. Our students are ambitious, critical, and inquisitive. I find it really rewarding when I see their views evolve and mature.

Rositsa Gradeva is a world-renowned expert in Ottoman history and the author of six books. She gives classes in global, Balkan, and Ottoman history.

rositsa Gradeva

I teach philosophy, and teaching philosophy means to inspire in people the courage to think critically, to think for themselves, to examine themselves and the world around them. One might suppose that teach-ing philosophy is the same anywhere in the world, but AUBG has something special about it. Every time I step into a classroom, I find myself in front of 20-30 students coming from almost as many coun-tries. Now, try to imagine how different these stu-dents’ cultural, social, and intellectual backgrounds are. And imagine what it takes to lead all of them to challenge common opinions, to be independent in their search for truth, and to find ways to sustain their quest for truth. Ostensibly, it would be easier to work with students grown and educated in the same socio-cultural environment. But our diversity is one of our greatest strengths, because our students’ dif-ferent backgrounds and life experiences lead them to exchange ideas, challenge each other’s assumptions, and hence question their own certainties. Therefore, at AUBG we practice dialogue in its purest form, starting from the very source of philosophy, namely doubt, incredulity, or simply, as Plato put it, “won-der.” And our students’ ability to wonder, to inquire, and to reflect is what enables them to find their path to a wise and happy life.

Diego Lucci is the author of four books on early modern philosophy and European intellectual history. He gives courses on Medieval Europe, Rome and the Ancient World, philosophy, and ethics.

diego Lucci

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Communicating with young people from all over the world on a daily basis and teaching them history is an invaluable social experience, in the sense that it continues broadening my individual horizons. The experience also contributes to my professional devel-opment as a historian. Usually we tend to teach Eu-ropean history from a very Eurocentric point of view, taking Europe as a given entity, if not as the natural ruler of the world. This way of teaching is not possi-ble if you have students not only from Europe but also from turkmenistan and the U.S., for example, in the same class. to them, Europe looks very different. This helps me improve my teaching methods and forces me to question traditional assumptions about Euro-pean history.

Markus Wien is the author of a book about the German-Bulgarian economic relations during the two World Wars. His teaching interests are in the sphere of European History, especially the history of East and Southeast Europe.

markus wien

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htY department rewards Its Outstanding students

Major: History

Minors: Anthropology, Political Science

Outstanding Achievement Award in History

The preparation in my main field of study has been liberat-ing: Assistance was always available, but even more valu-able was the freedom allowed for individual development. AUBG’s liberal arts frame has made it possible to pursue subjects that interested me personally and contributed to my intellectual improvement. Last but not least, easy ac-cess to and direct interaction with faculty members also benefited my education immensely.

Major: History

Outstanding Achievement Award in History

I see the diversity of both the faculty and the student body as AUBG’s main advantage; that was one of the top rea-sons I came here in the first place. Beyond the diversity, I find the small size of the school and its liberal arts struc-ture to be most appealing. The ability to interact directly with the professors is a product of the small class sizes, which I find to be more conducive to learning. I think small class sizes are more comfortable for both students and professors, and open up channels of communication that build a sense of mutual respect. I also feel I’ve been very well prepared in my main field of study. Now that I’m at the end of my time here, I’ve really enjoyed watching how subjects I studied in other classes crossed paths with what I’m studying now, and how courses outside of my major have become relevant to those within it. I can see liberal arts working!molly may, united states

martin trenkov, Bulgaria

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natalya chernyshova ’01, Belarus

By pushing us to work hard, AuBG prepared us well for the Future

Natalya’s career was minted in AUBG history classes. By Ksenia Lukanova

Despite a strong affinity for history and all things histori-cal, 2001 graduate Natalya Chernyshova had never con-sidered pursuing history as a profession. That is, not until she enrolled at AUBG and got a first taste of what it might be to become seriously involved in the study of history.

Natalya, who is currently a Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Winchester, England, double-majored in Journalism and Mass Communication and History as an undergraduate. She admits that being a historian “certainly wasn’t the plan” when she came to AUBG. She loved history since she was a child and devoured history novels, but she never thought about making it her profes-sion. When she graduated from AUBG she first worked in media and later earned a master’s degree in European Studies at King’s College, University of London.

However, the history classes she took at AUBG had culti-vated her appetite for serious scholarly work. “The pull of doing history was always there,” she says. After complet-ing her master’s degree, she finally gave in and went for a doctorate in history. “I was attracted by the possibility of doing in-depth research on something I was interested in,” Natalya says. “Being a researcher gives one amazing freedom: to pursue a subject that is of interest and impor-tance to you, while also feeling that the results might be useful to others.”

Natalya says that AUBG helped her become what she is today in more than one way. Allowing her to major in two subjects and introducing her to a number of fascinating people are among the top factors that made AUBG such an incredible place to be. Natalya met one of the major influences in her life at the University: Professor Craig McCaughrin was a visiting professor of politics from Vir-ginia, USA for several years and one who “always put his students first, encouraged them and supported their de-velopment, often going out of his way to help,” she says.

Natalya liked that AUBG challenged her to give her best and be ambitious. “We were pushed to work hard, which prepared us well for the future.” Most of all, Natalya en-joyed the variety and the freedom of choice AUBG gave her. She said she felt encouraged to do subjects she prob-ably would never have tried otherwise and doing history at AUBG built important foundations for further study.

today, Natalya teaches courses on Soviet, East European, and 20th century European history to undergraduates at the University of Winchester. “I love my job,” she says, add-

ing that the best part of her job is the research and writ-ing. “I like going after a question – it is a bit like detective work.” She also likes teaching, although she did not think she would. “It is very rewarding to get a student become so interested in something you talked about in class that they want to investigate it further,” she says. “It is great to see young people develop and mature as they move from their first year to being graduates and to feel that perhaps you, too, contributed your little bit to this process.”

Boston CollegeINSEADUniversity of OxfordUniversity of PittsburghUniversity of ChicagoUniversity of Maine

HTY alumni work in a variety of spheres andorganizations: Deloitte Georgetown University Hewlett-Packard Johnson & Johnson Kraft Foods Leiden University United States Marine Corps University of Maine University of Oxford University of Winchester National ministries

HTY alumni hold advanced degrees from: Georgetown University Harvard University King’s College London Princeton University University of Maryland University of Michigan California State University Central European University George Washington University

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JOurnALIsm And mAss cOmmunIcAtIOn depArtment

Jmc equips students with a diverse skill set, the Ability tothrive in a Fast – paced and Interconnected world

The world is moving rapidly to a 24/7 connection with in-formation. Although most news and commentary contin-ue to be provided by major news organizations, and most advertising, marketing, and public relations work still oc-curs through traditional media channels, this reality is unstable. The integration of information flows through converging distribution technologies increasingly calls for agile communicators, using multiple skill sets, to re-main relevant in a fast-paced and interconnected world. JMC is where these skill sets are developed, where the attitudes necessary for participation in this new media world are nurtured, and where the collaborative cross-cultural realities necessary to respond effectively to tech-nological change, distribution channel shifts, and content development expectations are learned. JMC taps into per-haps the most crucial sensibilities required for personal and professional success in this twenty-first century of communication.

What should you expect as a JMC major? In a word: chal-lenge. You don’t succeed in the communication profes-sions by just intellectual effort, but also by practice, prac-tice, practice. You will write, and re-write, and re-write again. You will learn to think of your audience and craft your message appropriately. You will encounter ethical principles and apply them to real-world cases. You will encounter esthetic principles and apply them in design, and camera work, and editing. You will learn how to use language to tell a story and learn the basic requirements for conducting a persuasive campaign. You will learn how to relate to other people in mediated environments, how to contribute to democracy, and how to always put people first in your efforts to communicate.

department Overview

Honors track in Journalism and Mass Communication

two tracks: Journalism track and Mass Communication track

Major in Journalism and Mass Communication

Minor in Journalism and Mass Communication

Faculty with prestigious degrees from tulane University, Syracuse University, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

6 published books, more than 20 journal articles, 8 documentary films

· AUBG students practice journalism in a variety of student media: Defacto (online and print), AUBG Daily (online), Verve magazine (print), Radio AURA, AUBG tV, Defacto tV, and the academic journal Thoth (online). · AUBG students organized the University’s first ever short film festival in November 2011, screening shorts by both established and aspiring filmmakers. A special guest at AUBG Film Fest was Scott Hillier, cinematographer and director of photography of the Academy Award-winning short documentary Twin Towers.· AUBG’s Documentary Club hosts weekly film screenings and talks by professionals in the film production industry. · The Department supports trips to film festivals, competitions, and journalism simulations. · The annual student-organized party JMC Rocks celebrates the Department’s achievements over the academic year.· The Department sponsors practical workshops and lectures with professionals from the media world.· Award-winning journalists have coached JMC students. · The Department helps students get internship placements in media organizations around the world. · The Department hosts exhibitions of student work.

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My teaching methods are mostly collaborative, not authoritative. I try to nurture and nudge and bring out the best in students. I try to teach by example. I share everything I know. I help them with network-ing. I introduce them to my world. My goal is to cre-ate successful students who can find their happiness in life being a journalist or making documentaries, just like I have. What inspires me to teach is the mo-ment that always gives me chills: it’s when the “light bulb” goes off in a student. The moment they “get it” and everything clicks. And you both know that their life has been changed forever. Since 1996, I have been watching those light bulbs go off. I started teach-ing documentary filmmaking and journalism at the University of Minnesota after leaving a long and suc-cessful career in broadcast journalism. Since then, I have taught at several schools and universities. I can honestly say that AUBG has been the best place I’ve ever been a teacher and I believe it boils down to this: AUBG students are enthusiastic, appreciative, and curious about the world. Why else would they come from 44 countries to Blagoevgrad to take courses in English (for most students, English is their second language) at an American University in Bulgaria? It’s a potent mix of students in a true melting pot of learning.

Melody Gilbert is an award-winning freelance documentary filmmaker and producer. She teaches courses in television news reporting, documentary filmmaking, and multimedia journalism.

melody Gilbert

My message to students is fairly simple: show up and work hard. There are many things students can’t control (where they were born, the quality of instruc-tion they received before coming to AUBG, and any of a thousand other factors). One thing they alone control: how hard they’re willing to work; how often they’re willing to show up. My great delight is that in this, my first teaching assignment, I’ve come across many inquisitive, passionate, and self-motivated stu-dents who want nothing more than an opportunity to turn today’s lesson into tomorrow’s knowledge. I can’t rightly say what makes teaching here different from teaching somewhere else. I do know that a pro-fessor wants nothing more than an audience of will-ing students who listen, participate, and push them-selves to achieve. I see a lot of that here at AUBG.

Mark Wollemann is a journalist and editor with 30 years of experience in news and sports journalism at the Minneapolis Star tribune and several other publications, including the Los Angeles times and The National Sports Daily in New York City. He teaches writing and reporting at AUBG.

mark wollemann

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What makes me tick as a professor is to walk into a classroom at the start of a semester and observe that students have sat at desks beginning with the front row rather than starting at the back of the room and moving forward. Walking into such a classroom, I am pushed against the white board by a wave of faces that exert curiosity and eagerness for new challeng-es. First impressions are seldom wrong. This will be a good class, I tell myself when it occurs… and it is so, until the very last day of the semester. Knowing that my students are truly interested motivates me to continue searching for ways to engage them with the material, to facilitate meaningful discussions, and to assign projects in which they find real value.

Dinka Spirovska is a design and photography professional who has participated in various prestigious exhibitions and video festivals in the U.S. She teaches design, photojournalism, and visual communications classes at AUBG.

dinka spirovska

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Majors: Journalism and Mass Communication, Business Administration

Outstanding Achievement Award in JMC

Anna has enrolled in a PhD program in Slavic Languag-es and Literatures at the University of Virginia, USA

Having worked with Sergey Ivanov and John Mullen, I discovered my passion for literature and Slavic lan-guages, whereas Melody Gilbert’s passionate attitude towards teaching made me realize I only want to do something I absolutely love doing. I see my AUBG ex-perience as a great and very solid stepping stone that has led me to where I am right now, and I am not in the least scared or intimidated to embark on the grad school journey, because I know that along with my two majors, I got a solid background in fields like foreign languages and literatures, thanks to the general educa-tion curriculum at AUBG.Anna Kromin, russia

Jmc department rewards Its Outstanding students

Majors: Journalism and Mass Communication, Business Administration

Outstanding Achievement Award in JMC

My favorite thing about AUBG is the diverse and en-riching extra-curricular activities that give you so much more than regular classes. At AUBG you can study JMC and write for student media, organize events, coordinate promotional campaigns as well as create websites and commercials. This is what distin-guishes AUBG from other universities: students enter the workforce already prepared, full of new and crea-tive ideas and ready to put them into practice.

Major: Journalism and Mass Communication

Outstanding Achievement Award in JMC Alexander works as a digital media professional forGoogle

AUBG’s liberal arts program gives students the re-sources and skills needed to thrive professionally. With the right mix of class participation, hands-on work as-signments, lectures, and extra-curricular activities, students always find ways to explore and develop their potential. The small campus and classes allow for a closer interaction with your professors. Sharing the classroom with top students from all over the world also enhances the experience as a whole. It made it richer and more challenging for me.Alexander Acosta Osorio,

colombia

Anna ceachirova, moldova

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monika evstatieva’05: Bulgaria

AuBG Is an Integral part of who I Am and what I represent

She practiced journalism at Radio AURA and in hands-on class projectsBy Ayna Pirkuliyeva

“You don’t have to follow everyone else’s path. Create your own life and don’t be afraid to challenge yourself,” says 2005 graduate Monika Evstatieva, from Bulgaria, who dared brave the U.S. media market and today serves as an associate producer on All Things Considered, the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio and one of the most listened-to radio shows in the United States.

AUBG laid the foundation of Monika’s journalistic career by exposing her to practical assignments in her journalism classes and allowing her to work in the University’s radio station, AURA. In addition to majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication, Monika completed a second major in Business Administration and minored in Fine Arts.

Born in Sofia, she came to Blagoevgrad for the first time in May 2001 for an Open House Day at AUBG. “It was the perfect combination of a picturesque town, with warm weather and a great, youthful spirit. I just fell in love with it,” she recalls.

Monika says that AUBG has entirely changed her life. “It has become an integral part of who I am and what I rep-resent,” she says. “My closest circle of friends consists of AUBG-ers, even here in Washington, D.C. My profession has everything to do with me working for four years in Ra-dio AURA and the patient guidance of three remarkable journalists and professors – Dinka Spirovska, Aernout van Lynden, and Laura Kelly.”

After completing her studies at AUBG, Monika pursued a master’s degree in International Broadcasting from the American University in Washington, D.C. That’s when she decided that she wanted to live and work in a country where journalists can report as freely as possible. “I wanted to learn the craftsmanship of being a solid journalist and I also wanted to live in a place that offers you the opportu-nity to succeed, no matter how minute that chance might be,” Monika says.

She first started working at NPR in 2006 as an intern on another signature program called Morning Edition. She became an associate producer on All Things Considered in May 2011.

NPR’s oldest “magazine” program, AtC includes news, analysis, commentary, interviews, and special features and is broadcast live daily to over 13 million listeners. More than 700 stations across the U.S. carry the show. Monika’s responsibilities include directing the live broadcast, as well

as picking all the music played during the program. She is also the one inviting various artists and musicians to the program.

“I get to write scripts, book guests, and pitch story ideas. No day is the same as the previous, because I get to work with some brilliant journalists and meet some of the most interesting people in the world today,” Monika says. “I love my job.”

AVONBayer BBCCNNCoca-ColaDanoneDHLNAtOShellKraft FoodsL’OrealGoogleMarcus EvansMarketWatch

Boston UniversityDuke UniversityOxford UniversityPurdue UniversityRoosevelt UniversitySyracuse UniversityYale UniversityColumbia University

Organizations JMC graduates work at: British Airways British American tobacco European Parliament Harvard University Press Ministry of Finance National Public Radio, USA Ogilvy & Mather Oxford University Press Procter & Gamble Publicis Marc Rolling Stone The Wharton School McCann Erickson Thomson Reuters World Bank

Our graduates have advanced degrees from: Georgetown University Istituto Europeo Di Design King’s College London New York University University College London University of California University of Maine University of Maryland University of Notre Dame du Lac George Washington University University of Pennsylvania Carnegie Mellon University Central European University

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mAthemAtIcs And scIence depArtment discover the Beauty, symmetry, and Logic of nature and Its Laws

“A scientist worthy of the name, above all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature.”

Henri Poincaré, French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science

The Department of Mathematics and Science of AUBG consists of a small group of faculty members devoted to their profession. They are diverse in age, career paths, sci-entific interests, and educational backgrounds but share a common value – they are curious people, fascinated by the beauty, symmetry, and logic of Nature and its laws, which are written in the language of mathematics. If you are like them, if you have an inquisitive mind and like to find out how things work or solve puzzles, then you may have the “right stuff” to become a mathematician. Math-ematics will make you a smarter, more logical person. More importantly, it will make your life interesting.

The mathematics major at AUBG will give you the neces-sary foundation and real chances to continue your edu-cation at top graduate schools in Europe and the USA. What is more, you will get a taste of the really exciting interwoven advanced subjects. Whether you want to con-tinue with a Ph.D. in pure mathematics, or a master’s in fi-nancial mathematics, or do graduate work in economics, or perhaps pursue a career in computer science, a diploma from the Department of Math and Science has proven to be a great asset.

department Overview

More than 20 courses

Major and minor in Mathematics

Honors track

11 faculty with prestigious degrees from Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of technology, University of Cambridge, the Pennsylvania State University, Virginia tech, Purdue University

8 published books, more than 200 journal articles

· Several of our students have done in the past or are doing now mathematical research, leading to original results – in number theory, algebra, geometry, topology and braid groups. This is not a small achievement, considering the complexity of the field. · 2006 graduate Vesna Stojanoska and AUBG Science Professor Orlin Stoychev won the 2009 Allendoerfer Award of the Mathematical Association of America for best expository article in Mathematics Magazine. · two AUBG students, under the leadership of Mathematics Professor Hristo Iliev, won silver medals at the South Eastern European Mathematical Olympiad for University Students (SEEMOUS) in spring 2011. · A large number of students majoring in mathematics continue their education in some of the most prestigious graduate programs in the world. · AUBG students and professors organize initiatives to raise awareness of environmental degradation. D

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I was so excited about my senior thesis in college that I had a need to talk about it with my friends and room-mates – who were not math majors – in addition to the weekly meetings with my adviser. Then I discovered how intellectually fulfilling it was to find ways to ex-press deep and abstract mathematical ideas in simple down-to-earth language. At AUBG, as I am explaining mathematical concepts, I search for every-day analo-gies that illustrate what is actually going on behind the curtain of equations and formulas. Perhaps it is the challenge and the rewarding experience of making mathematics accessible to a broad audience that makes teaching at AUBG truly exciting for me.

Kaloyan Slavov is a Harvard and MIT graduate and holds a certificate of advanced study in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. He gives courses in calculus, algebra, and geometry.

Kaloyan slavov

When I embarked on my graduate studies at Penn State University in 2000, my specific goal was to teach at AUBG. A few years earlier I had met a group of AUBG students who so impressed me with their caliber and diversity that I was gripped by an aspiration to become a member of the University’s faculty. I’ve been teaching at AUBG for five years now and my daily interaction with students continues to motivate and energize me. teaching biology and environmental science to non-science majors is both a challenge and a joy. My aim is to make science relevant to each student regardless of his or her academic focus. I don’t expect that many of my students will remember the details of DNA synthe-sis or the complexities of atmospheric chemistry; and there is a slim chance any of them will become career scientists. I do hope, however, they are enriched both personally and professionally as they gain insight into how science touches upon business, economics, cul-ture, and society at large.

William Clark’s research interests include sustainable use of natural resources (especially water) and the links between religion and environmentalism. He teaches biology and environmental science at AUBG.

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math & science department rewards Its Outstanding students

Majors: Economics, Mathematics

Outstanding Achievement Award in Mathematics and Economics

Elitsa was admitted to the Young Talent MBA Program at IESE Business School which includes a mandatory two-year work placement at one of the school’s partner companies.

At AUBG I had the pleasure of working with outstand-ing professors of economics, who melded academic rigor with practical insight to make us think about real-life is-sues from multiple angles. The AUBG difference is in the level of interaction and open discussion between students and faculty. Our professors never force-feed us theories; instead we are challenged to think independently and reason through complex issues from day one. It’s mind-boggling how much my horizons have expanded during those lively discussions in the classroom!elitsa dermendzhiyska, Bulgaria

Majors: Mathematics, Economics

Outstanding Achievement Award in Mathematics

Herta will pursue a master’s degree in finance atSabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey

I strongly believe that AUBG has prepared me for a competency- and skill-based business environment after graduation. With guidance and support from my professors from the very beginning, I completed two demanding but very complementary majors, in eco-nomics and in mathematics, which will help me pur-sue my career goals in the future. Being able to take a variety of courses has helped me discover what I am really passionate about and also built a strong set of related skills and knowledge, which will be useful in any career.

herta Kalemaj, Albania

Majors: Mathematics, Computer Science

Outstanding Achievement Award inMathematics and Computer Science

The academic preparation I got at AUBG was very valuable in the sense that it allowed space for inde-pendent research and deeper study of a subject. At the same time, the math and computer science programs provided me with a thorough overview of interrelated subjects in the two fields, which is essential for a bach-elor’s degree. Another important aspect of the AUBG education is that professors here are always willing to aid you in your individual efforts.

plamen dimitrov, Bulgaria

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dimitri Avramov ’11, Bulgaria

AuBG provides excellent Instruction and encourages personal Initiative

The University provided both the necessaryacademic preparation and financial support for his graduate studies. By Sylvia Zareva

Dimitri Avramov singles out his AUBG math professors as some of the most inspiring influences on his life. Not only did they make the fascinating world of numbers ac-cessible to him, they also accommodated his individual interests and helped him acquire an in-depth under-standing of his favorite subjects.

In the four years Dimitri spent at AUBG he discovered what he wanted to do professionally and how to get there, he says. Moreover, the University continued to support his ambitions by awarding him a $35,000 tchaprachikoff scholarship to help cover the cost of the graduate program in Financial Engineering at Cornell University, which he joined in 2011 due to his strong interest in finance.

today, Dimitri is well on his way to realizing his plans. He successfully passed the CFA Level I exam in June 2011 and intends to pursue the CFA Charter. In the summer of 2011, Dimitri interned at the market risk department of MKB Unionbank, a subsidiary of Bayern LB. At Cornell, Dimitri is taking advanced classes in finance and consid-ering a career in financial services.

Dimitri graduated with honors from AUBG where he completed two demanding majors – in Mathematics and in Economics. “I believe that AUBG gives a balanced edu-cation. I am impressed by the quality of the Mathematics and Economics courses,” he says, adding that “it is up to the student to make most of what the university has to of-fer. University education is not only a collection of cours-es. A student should do more than what is required for his\her degree to get prepared for the global marketplace.”

Personal initiative and the quality of instruction in his majors helped Dimitri excel in his studies.

“AUBG offered me the majors and courses that are es-sential for someone pursuing a graduate education and career in quantitative finance. What I found most useful is that I was able to switch majors half way through with-out losing an extra year. I started a Business major that I switched to Mathematics after my fourth semester.”

For his academic achievements, he earned a place on the Dean’s List and President’s List several times and was awarded a Vehip and Natasha Guri Scholarship twice. In Dimitri’s senior year, both the Economics and Math-ematics Departments at AUBG recognized his work by presenting him with Outstanding Achievement awards in their fields.

Dimitri also held teaching assistant positions in math-ematics and economics. He completed a senior thesis on Credit Risk Price Discovery and earned a place to present his research at the Carroll Round Conference at George-town University in 2011.

KPMGOracleMorgan StanleyRaiffeisen BankBaron CapitalDuke University

Organizations our graduates work at include: Intesa Sanpaolo Bank United Bulgarian Bank University of Pennsylvania University of Pittsburgh University of Virginia Johns Hopkins University Karlsruhe Institute of technology

Math & Science alumni have advanced degrees from: Brandeis University Central European University Columbia University Duke University George Washington University Johns Hopkins University Karlsruhe Institute of technology London School of Economics tilburg University University of London University of Maryland University of Oxford University of Pittsburgh University of Virginia Northwestern University Cornell University Virginia tech MIt

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pOLItIcs And eurOpeAn studIes depArtment Brussels-bound Journey to the european union’s top employment Opportunities Begins at AuBG

We live in a globalizing, digitalizing, integrating, disin-tegrating, trade liberalizing, resource depleting, climate changing, migrating, warring, peace-making world.

It can be difficult to make sense of it – but you have this nagging feeling that somehow it affects you.

That’s because it does.

So how to make better sense of it?

A stronger understanding of the world and global forces will help you approach problems from other viewpoints, see through mental walls, and develop solutions that oth-ers may not see. So, whether you end up running your own business, working in a multinational corporation, serving your government in a ministry, tackling global issues in an international organization, or leading social change in a nongovernmental organization, you will need more than textbook job skills to chart your own life path.

The majors in European Politics and Political Science/International Relations prepare and encourage you to recognize, analyze, and evaluate the role of major actors, structures, and processes in Europe and in our broader world.

In short, we can help you make better sense of the world.

department Overview

Honors track in Political Science/International Relations and European Politics

Majors in Political Science/International Relations and European Politics

Minors in Political Science/International Relations and European Politics

Faculty with prestigious degrees from City University of New York, University of South Carolina, University of Notre Dame, University of West of England, Florida State University, University of Limerick, University of Pittsburgh

6 published books; more than 35 journal articles

· Simulations of European and international institutions are an integral part of the Political Science/ International Relations and European Politics curricula. · AUBG hosts an annual Model United Nations simulation with participants from many foreign countries. · Political Science and European Politics majors have received institutional support to attend simulations, conferences, and student meetings abroad. · AUBG students majoring in Political Science and/or European Politics normally participate in exchange programs at major European and U.S. universities.· The student-run European Youth Parliament and the Political Science Club, which partners with the Political Science Club at Sofia University, organize activities and host guest lecturers from the field of politics.· Some of the guest lecturers to speak at departmental activities include ambassadors, current and former ministers and prime ministers, renowned scholars, and civil society leaders.· The Department holds public discussions of important world events.

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As a student, I could not forgive two things from a professor: incompetence and boredom. I see a class as a performance, mixing virtuosity (for which you have university degrees to show) and improvisation (which is subject to adjustment to the audience). A combination of classical music, jazz, and rock’n’roll. It needs rhythm, punch lines and some degree of the unexpected (though hopefully not crashing guitars) to introduce students to what otherwise could remain, despite best intentions, an abstract subject. For me, teaching European Politics is an opportunity to mix storytelling with conceptual material on EU institutions, policies, constitutional politics, party politics, electoral systems but also sports, culture and the media. teaching is more than academic ping-pong (I say, they write), but rather a conversation though not necessarily a democratic one (if as a profes-sor you lose control over the classroom there is no point for you to be there in the first place). I’d rather push students than regret not pushing them enough. It is a risk I am willing to take. The point is not to make the students’ life miserable, but to give them the satisfac-tion by the end to say: I did this! My promise, as you enter my classes, is to offer an intellectual training you can rely upon whether for further academic studies, in the job market or simply reading news.

Cosmina Tanasoiu is the founder of the European Studies major at AUBG. Tanasoiu’s teaching interests range from European intellectuals and comparative politics of Europe to European Union institutions.

cosmina tanasoiu

In the 1960s, media guru Marshall McLuhan commis-sioned an iconic mural. Called “Pied Pipers All,” it de-picted stylized human figures writhing in a psychedelic dance against the background of an easily recognizable tV screen. McLuhan wanted the painting to represent vividly the way in which television was mesmerizing the young and leading them away from the adults – as the proverbial “pied piper” had once done with the children of a medieval German town. A few decades later, the role of tV has been taken over by the inter-net and the multiple devices offering potentially inces-sant access to the virtual world it creates. As McLuhan thought television had done in the 1960s, the virtual reality created by “ubiquitous computing” threatens to open a growing generation gap between students (the “digital natives”) and us (the “digital immigrants”). I believe my main task as a teacher is to reach across that deep divide in order to help students stay con-nected to adult concerns – and to learn from their ability to navigate multiple, often confusing streams of information.

Ivelin Sardamov has published widely in scholarly journals. He teaches politics, conflict and conflict resolution, and global political economy.

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My goal as a teacher is to empower students to discover and develop their talents, build confidence, and grow intellectually. I aim to cultivate in students a discipline and curiosity for learning, a solid knowledge base, and strong analytical skills. Such qualities, I believe, would make them well-equipped to continue their higher edu-cation or enter professional careers. AUBG provides the perfect environment for my teaching credo. A liberal arts institution with a small student to professor ratio, I am able to develop a close relationship with students, engage in their interests and follow their progress. A multidisciplinary curriculum and an extremely diverse student body assure vivid in-class discussions and ex-change of ideas. My efforts as a teacher are greatly re-warded as I see my students enter graduate programs in some of the best universities and occupy prominent professional positions.

Emilia Zankina’s research interests span East European politics, dance, modern languages, and journalism. She teaches classes in comparative politics, Bulgarian government and politics, and public policy analysis at AUBG.

emilia Zankina

We live in an increasingly complex world. Things often happen so quickly and so constantly that we don’t have time to stop and make sense of them. A large part of my work in the classroom is designed to help people devel-op frameworks to better work through this complexity. Depending upon the course, it could be a framework to better understand how humans make decisions or a framework to see how political parties relate to each other. These frameworks can help people analyze the complexity. The combination of analytical skills with the ability to communicate their analysis can make them better business persons, better government offi-cials, and (my favorite) active democratic citizens.

Among Robert Phillips’s research interests are mass media and the impact of the Internet on politics. He is a long-standing advisor to the Student Government at AUBG and a renowned politics expert whose commentary on current issues has appeared in numerous publications and broadcasts.

robert phillips

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pOs & eur department rewards Its Outstanding students

Majors: Political Science/International Relations, Business Administration

Outstanding Achievement Award in Political Science/International Relations

The ability to interact directly and frequently with pro-fessors is the main advantage of an AUBG education. It is professors’ lectures and the advice and thoughts they shared in private that have most profoundly impacted my personal growth and academic development. Moreover, the diverse classes I took at AUBG provided me with a rather wide base of knowledge in both of my study fields and I feel ready to build upon these foundations in the coming years.Aleksandra Ivanov, serbia

Majors: Political Science/International Relations, European Politics

Outstanding Achievement Award in Political Science/International Relations and European Politics

In today’s globalized world which offers many opportuni-ties, an education in English is indispensable. Since AUBG is an American institution based in Europe, students get to experience the best of both worlds. In a close-knit community, students learn the values of other cultures as they have a unique chance to get to know their peers and professors. The small size of classes allows professors to pay more attention to individual student needs and to give students feedback. Above all, AUBG professors are friendly and approachable and try to help students as much as possible – with their studies at AUBG and with advice about their future after graduation.Amanda Orza, serbia

Majors: European Studies, Political Science/ International RelationsMinor: Journalism and Mass Communication

Outstanding Achievement Award in European Politics

Martin has been admitted to several master’s programs at such prestigious institutions as the London School of Economics, Central European University, and the Uni-versity of Groningen.

The Politics and European Studies Department is a small and united community, which allows its students to ben-efit from close interaction with the faculty members. The instructors inspired me to do well in all classes and as-signments by fostering a challenging yet friendly atmos-phere. It was a stimulating place to develop my keen in-terest in European law and governance and to shape my understanding of European Union policies and enlarge-ment. Moreover, my AUBG professors prepared me well for my graduate studies – both in terms of the application process and in terms of developing my career interests. martin Angelov, Bulgaria

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Irina novakova ’05, Bulgaria

From AuBG to Brussels

What she learned in European Studies classes helped Irina not only get a high-powered job at the European Commission but also excel at it. By Veselina Apostolova

Meet Irina Novakova, the right hand of European Com-missioner Kristalina Georgieva, at least when it comes to handling international media. Irina is a 2005 AUBG graduate whose Brussels-bound journey to the European Union’s top employment opportunities began in Euro-pean Studies and Journalism classes at AUBG. And it is exactly what she learned in those classes that prepared her to stand out once she got there.

“I use what I learned at AUBG every day – whether it is the intricacies of comitology which I had to master for my Policy-making in the EU course, or the invaluable KISS rule (standing for ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid!’ – we learned that in Journalism class).”

As a press officer for Commissioner Georgieva (who is Bulgaria’s EU Commissioner for International Coopera-tion, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response), Irina is in charge of organizing campaigns and writing articles, website content, press releases, and briefings. In addition, Irina organizes press events and advises the commission-er on media issues. She attends high-level Brussels sum-mits as often as she visits disaster sites around the world.

Irina says that AUBG helped her develop many skills that have proven to be invaluable in her career; among these skills are team work, concise writing, research abilities, critical thinking, curiosity, and perspective. Thanks to the excellent instruction by and guidance of professors like Cosmina tanasoiu, Robert Phillips, Aernout van Lynden, and others, Irina developed the knowledge and confi-dence necessary for professional success.

When Irina first came to AUBG, she intended to pursue a major in Computer Science. But as she proceeded to take courses that interested and compelled her, she grew aware of the possibilities fields like political science and journal-ism would open up for her. “This is how I ended up with two majors and a minor – in Journalism and European Studies, along with a minor in International Relations – and a secret regret that I could not do more courses.”

The broad interdisciplinary nature of the European Stud-ies major and the imminence of European accession in Bulgaria at the time determined the geographical focus of Irina’s academic pursuits. European Studies combines studying history, political philosophy, diplomacy, and mac-roeconomics – all fields a European Commission press of-ficer needs to be competent in to thrive in their profession.

Irina also has a master’s degree in European Studies from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. to sup-

port herself, she worked as a correspondent for Bulgarian newspapers Dnevnik daily and Capital weekly for four years. “It was an exciting time, as I got to report on the last stages of Bulgaria and Romania’s preparation for EU accession and the first years of their membership in the EU,” she says. Irina has also worked as a freelance jour-nalist and stringer for international publications like The Economist. She joined the European Commission in 2010.

NAtOIBMErnst & YoungGoogleDeloitteRed CrossMercedes-BenzEuropean Commission

Oxford UniversityColumbia UniversityCornell UniversityDartmouth CollegeGeorgetown UniversityHarvard UniversityINSEADNew York UniversityPrinceton UniversitySimon Fraser UniversityStanford UniversitySyracuse UniversityWebster University

Organizations our alumni work at include: National governments Procter & Gamble Hewlett Packard University of Houston Leiden University Duke University Fox International McKinsey and Company European Parliament Interest groups in Brussels United Nations and UN agencies National and international NGOs London School of Economics

POS & EUR graduates have advanced degrees from: Yale University Duke University Boston University University of London University of Maine Johns Hopkins University University of Amsterdam University of California University of Delaware University of Manchester University of Maryland University of Pennsylvania University of Pittsburgh University of Warwick London School of Economics Central European University Diplomatic Academy of Vienna Massachusetts Institute of technology Monterey Institute of International Studies University of Notre Dame du Lac University of North Carolina American University in Washington

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$6 million in scholarships Available for top Bulgarian studentsDecember 21, 2011

The American University in Bulgaria received a $6 mil-lion grant from the America for Bulgaria Foundation. The funds will be used to support outstanding Bulgarian students who enter the University during the next three years. They will be distributed for full and partial scholar-ships covering students’ 4 years of study at the University. This is the third ABF grant received by AUBG from the Foundation.

Oxford professor Kicks off Joint series by AuBG & Balkanski-panitza Institute forAdvanced studyJanuary 18, 2012

Dimitar Bechev, head of the Sofia office of the European Council on Foreign Relations and a Professor at Oxford University, kicked off a new lecture series with a discus-sion titled “The End of Europe?”. The series is organized by AUBG in cooperation with the Balkanski-Panitza Institute for Advanced Study. The Institute is the brainchild of the close friends Professor Minko Balkanski and the late Dimi Panitza. Established by prominent European and Ameri-can academics, the Institute is an autonomous association bringing together institutional and individual members.

Bulgarian Filmmaker discusses Afghanistan documentary at AuBGFebruary 6, 2012

Venelin Petkov, a btV anchor, journalist, and documen-tary producer, screened his Afghanistan film Opium and Roses and discussed filmmaking with journalism stu-dents. The event was organized by the newly established Documentary Movie Club.

news @ AuBG

AuBG hosts 4th International model united nations conferenceFebruary 17-19, 2012

AUBG hosted the fourth annual Blagoevgrad Interna-tional Model United Nations conference in February. More than 70 participants from Bulgaria, Russia, Germa-ny, Serbia, Macedonia, and Albania came to Blagoevgrad to assume the roles of UN diplomats and debate pressing international issues.

AuBG math students win 2 silver medals in regional math contestMarch 6-11, 2012

Sophomore Zlatko Joveski, from Macedonia, and first-year student Gheorghe Pupazan, from Moldova, won sil-ver medals in the South Eastern European MathematicalOlympiad for University Students (SEEMOUS), a prestig-ious competition that attracts the region’s best university math students.

Alums throw Anniversary Bash, takenostalgia trip to AuBG’s pastMarch 16, 2012

The alumni-organized AUBG top 20 event commemo-rating the University’s twentieth anniversary took place in Sofia. More than 600 graduates, students, faculty, staff, and guests came together to celebrate party-style.

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noted Bulgarian philosopher, Artist Opens exhibition at AuBGMarch 19, 2012

A photo exhibition by the distinguished Bulgarian phi-losopher and artist tsocho Boyadzhiev opened at AUBG in March. The exhibit was preceded by a seminar titled “The Philosophy of Photography,” at which Boyadzhiev questioned some widely held notions about the purpose of photographic expression and also read some of his most recent poetic work.

Bulgarian ministry of education Gives AuBG top ratings Once AgainMarch 22, 2012

The American University in Bulgaria once again leads most Bulgarian universities in graduates’ employment and the incomes they earn, according to 2012 results from the Ministry-developed ranking system. Moreover, all five academic fields at AUBG evaluated by the system – Economics, Computer Science, Business Administra-tion, Political Science, and Journalism/Mass Communi-cation – ranked among Bulgaria’s best.

students pitch Business Ideas toentrepreneurs at AuBGMarch 23-24, 2012

The two-day StartUP Blagoevgrad conference brought to-gether successful businessmen and young entrepreneurs at AUBG. In addition, business angels and managers of leading Bulgarian companies shared their experience and counseled students on how to transform their ideas into successful businesses. Over 200 students attended the conference, making it the largest business event in South-west Bulgaria.

environmental week promotes Green Living, helps community March 26-31, 2012

More than ten AUBG, local, and national organizations joined hands in organizing the fourth edition of Envi-ronmental Week, held March 26-31, 2012. This year’s program included healthy living workshops, recycling and composting drives, tree planting, and a movie shorts competition, and aimed to promote Earth-friendly prac-tices among students and Blagoevgrad residents at large.

Lacey Cope and Galina Chuleva, the 2012 and first everPresidential Medalists

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community Activist & Folklore Buff Is 2012 presidential medalistApril 1, 2012

AUBG’s highest distinction – the Presidential Medal – went to fourth-year student Lacey Cope this year for her academic achievements and active participation in com-munity life. Along with Cope, the University administra-tion recognized more than 400 students for their academ-ic and co-curricular accomplishments at the 19th annual Honors Convocation. The keynote address was delivered by Galina Chuleva, a 1995 graduate and the University’s first medal recipient.

AuBG students stage popular u.s. musical, tour around BulgariaApril 2-14, 2012

This spring, AUBG students staged the critically ac-claimed U.S. musical Grease, with performances in six Bulgarian cities. Grease was the fifth major musical pro-duction to be staged by AUBG students after Chicago, West Side Story, Hairspray, and Moulin Rouge.

Job Fair Attracts 40 Leading companies; Google recruits at AuBGApril 3-4, 2012

Forty organizations took part in the 19th annual Job and Internship Fair held at AUBG. Returning as well as first-time participants, such as Google, came to look for talents among AUBG students and alumni. Companies from a wide array of industries, such as banking, food, It, audit-ing, electronics, and hospitality, came to fill internship and job vacancies.

undergraduate research tackles Academic themes, practical IssuesApril 7-8, 2012

AUBG hosted the annual Student-Faculty Research Con-ference “The Fellowship of the Mind” in April. The sixth edition of the conference drew together students and professors from several universities and featured panels in economics, EU politics, journalism, philosophy, public health, education, and modern languages.

students Organize prestigious tedx event, host noted speakers April 20, 2012

AUBG hosted its first ever tEDx event, attracting nine distinguished speakers from Bulgaria, the UK, and the U.S. Organized by AUBG students, tEDxAUBG is an in-dependent event licensed by tED, the nonprofit organiza-tion dedicated to “ideas worth spreading.”

Bulgarian volleyball Legend Attends AuBG Olympic Games April 22, 2012

Around 300 students, faculty, and staff took part in the 2012 AUBG Olympics, the biggest annual sports event at the University. Bulgarian volleyball legend Lyubomir Ganev was a special guest and an active participant at the games.

AuBG team to represent Bulgaria at Global computing contestApril 23, 2012

AUBG students Samer al-Bakhlul and Agim Kopali, and Sofia University student Nikolai Georgiev, under the mentorship of AUBG computer science professor Stoyan Bonev, will represent Bulgaria at the world finals of the

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prestigious Microsoft Imagine Cup competition in 2012, one of the largest computing events for students inter-nationally. Their invention – C-Path, a computer-guided device helping blind people move unobstructed – was judged by a Microsoft jury to be the best project from Bulgaria.

more honors turns 15: A student Legacy that Lives OnApril 27, 2012

The More Honors Academy staged the fifteenth edition of the increasingly popular show, which was attended by more than 1,000 people this year.

princess maria Luisa, education minister salute 2012 GraduatesMay 13, 2012

Bulgarian Education Minister Sergey Ignatov and H.R.H. Princess Maria Luisa of Bulgaria extended greetings to the graduating class at the Eighteenth Commencement Ceremony on May 13, 2012. A longstanding member of AUBG’s Board of trustees and University Council, Prin-cess Maria Luisa also received an honorary doctoral de-gree from the University. AUBG awarded 238 bachelor’s degrees and 24 EMBA degrees to graduates from 24 countries, among them Poland, the United States, Bul-

garia, Serbia, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Colombia. Keynote speaker at the ceremony was 1995 AUBG graduate Dilyan Pavlov, an entrepreneur who started several successful software companies.

Former AuBG president easton Appointed successor to dr. huwilerMay 14, 2012

Following its meeting in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, the AUBG Board of trustees announced that it has selected Dr. W. Michael Easton as the next President of the Uni-versity. Earlier this year, Dr. Huwiler notified the Board of his intention to retire after completing his second term as President. Dr. Easton accepted the Board’s offer and will assume his responsibilities as President on September 1 this year.

In memOrIAm

Dr. Wm. Cyrus Reed, AUBG Provost (2010 – 2012), passed away on July 19, 2012 in Michigan, USA. Cyrus, you will be missed!

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American university in BulgariaBlagoevgrad

Main Building1 Georgi Izmirliev Sq.Blagoevgrad 2700, BulgariaPresident’s Office: (+359 73) 888 307Development: (+359 73) 888 366Fax: (+359 73) 888 344

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