It is with great sadness that we announce the loss of George William Ross on April 2, 2025 at the age of 84. George was an integral member of our community since its pioneering days. In the early 1970s, he was part of a group of young faculty members who helped Peter Gourevitch, Founding Dean and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of UC San Diego, set up the first study groups – a hallmark of the discussions and debates at CES through today. George also played an important role in 1989, the year that CES moved to its permanent home at Adolphus Busch Hall and was renamed the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. For the inaugural event, European Commission President Jacques Delors attended and gave the keynote address initiated by George’s invitation. Ross also collaborated in one of the earliest publications of the Center, a two-volume set of papers on European labor entitled Unions, Change, and Crisis: French and Italian Union Thought and Strategy in the Political Economy Since 1945 (Routledge, second edition 2016). From 1998-1999 Ross also served as the acting director of CES and remained a Local Affiliate.
George held a Ph.D. from Harvard and joined the faculty at Brandeis University in 1970 where he taught at the Departments of Sociology and Politics as well as the International and Global Studies Program until his retirement in 2009. He then served as ad personam Chaire Jean Monnet at the University of Montreal-McGill Center for Excellence on the European Union. He also served as chair of the European Union Studies Association (2003-05), executive director of the European Union Center at Harvard University, chair of the Council for European Studies (1990-97), and director of the Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis (1998-2008).
A prolific writer, among his many noteworthy books were What's Left of the Left? which he edited with James Cronin and James Shoch, (Duke University Press, 2010) and The European Union and Its Crises: Through the Eyes of the Brussels Elite (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
George was a dear friend and an important contributor to the intellectual life of the CES community, and his loss is deeply felt.
