CEU Trustee Matthew Nimetz Supports School of Public Policy with Scholarships

Matthew Nimetz, a trustee of Central European University and an advisory director at General Atlantic, has made a $200,000 five-year commitment to CEU’s School of Public Policy (SPP). Nimetz’s gift will provide scholarship funding for six students from southeastern Europe, enabling them to join the inaugural class of SPP’s two-year Master of Public Administration degree program in September 2013.

 “I am hopeful that CEU’s new School of Public Policy will have a profound and positive impact in the region,” Nimetz said. “I particularly want to encourage young people from southeastern Europe to benefit from the school and to go on to contribute to public life in their respective countries and to the region as a whole.”

Scholarships are critical factors in CEU’s ability to attract the most promising students from around the world, regardless of their financial standing.

 "We are delighted that Matt Nimetz has directed his generosity to CEU toward SPP's future students,” said SPP Dean Wolfgang Reinicke. “The school has the ambition to empower exceptional individuals as committed to public service as Matt has been over the last five decades."

Nimetz's special ties to southeastern Europe date to the late 1970s and early 1980s while he was supervising U.S. policy on the eastern Mediterranean and US relationships with eastern European countries as Under Secretary of State for security assistance, science and technology and as Counselor to the US Department of State. The connection deepened in the 1990s when Nimetz served as President Clinton’s special envoy in the mediation of a dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). In 1999, he was appointed Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in the continuing negotiations between those two parties, a position he continues to hold today. Since 2000, Nimetz has worked for General Atlantic, a global growth investment firm.

 With a partial matching grant from CEU, the gift will fully support six students from Greece, FYROM, Bulgaria, and Albania during their two years of study. More information on the application process for the Master of Public Administration program is available here.