Don Alper, Western Washington University’s director of the Center for Canadian-American Studies and Border Policy Research Institute and a professor of political science, will be resigning from those positions at the end of September and retiring from the university at the end of the year.

A search for his successor will begin soon.

Alper has a doctorate in political science from the University of British Columbia and has taught at WWU for 42 years. He has been director of the Center for Canadian-American Studies at WWU since 1993. The center, which has won nine Title VI federal grants from the U.S. Department of Education, is a nationally recognized center of excellence for American scholarship on Canada.

In 2004 Alper led the effort to create the Border Policy Research Institute, a multi-disciplinary institute housed at WWU that undertakes research that informs policy-makers on matters related to the Canada-U.S. border.