Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) 2023

EPIIC is a carefully integrated, multidisciplinary program. Through its innovative and rigorous curricula and projects, EPIIC prepares young people for informed activity in their communities, whether locally, nationally or globally.

The Course
At EPIIC's core is the year-long, multidisciplinary course -- The Sherman Teichman Education for Public Inquiry (EPIIC) Endowed Colloquium -- on a global theme. Undergraduate and graduate students of diverse nationalities, viewpoints, experiences, and interests participate in this rigorous colloquium that stresses critical, analytical, and normative thinking. Students are encouraged to confront the ambiguity and complexity of EPIIC's annual, global theme through a multi-disciplinary examination of the issues and controversies that the topic reflects. They are taught the subject under investigation by a broad range of distinguished academics and practitioners and as active participants in defining the issues through classroom discussions, extensive readings, and independent research. There is an emphasis both on individual progress and on the collaborative effort -- in essence, on growing as an intellectual team. Students produce tangible outcomes of their studies through their individual research papers or projects, the international symposium in late February, and the Inquiry simulation for high-school students in early April, as well as other activities.

In 2011, on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of EPIIC - Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship, the core program of the Institute for Global Leadership, the alumni of EPIIC endowed the colloquium in honor of their teacher and mentor, the Institute's Founding Director, Sherman Teichman. Their funds contribute to covering the expenses for the colloquium's guest lecturers, teaching assistants, seminar mentors, an annual Outward Bound weekend, syllabus materials, subsidies for text books and other EPIIC expenses. The endowment helps ensure the high standard and quality of this preparatory course of the annual EPIIC symposium and enables all Tufts students to partake fully in its activities.

Symposium
The Norris and Margery Bendetson International EPIIC Symposium is an annual multi-day public forum featuring scores of international practitioners, activists, academics, public intellectuals, and journalists. EPIIC's symposia -- consisting of presentations, panel discussions, topical forums, informal gatherings, multimedia and dramatic presentations, and workshops -- are intellectually wide-ranging and accessible. The perspectives of the participants are intentionally diverse, often competing, anda at times adversarial, providing a continuum of viewpoints on the issues being discussed.

EPIIC Colloquium

At EPIIC's core is the year-long, multidisciplinary course on a global political theme. Undergraduate and graduate students of diverse nationalities, viewpoints, experiences, and interests, participate in this rigorous colloquium that stresses critical, analytical and normative thinking. Students are encouraged to confront the ambiguity and complexity of EPIIC's annual global theme through a multi-disciplinary examination of the issues and controversies that the topic reflects. They are taught the subject under investigation not only by a broad range of distinguished academics and practitioners, but also as active participants in defining the issues through classroom presentations and discussions, extensive readings, and independent research. There is an emphasis both on individual progress and on the collaborative effort -- in essence, an intellectual team. Students produce tangible outcomes to their studies through their individual research papers or projects, the international symposium, and the Inquiry simulation.

Lecturers and | Advisers

James Hershberg

Professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington University

After teaching at Tufts and the California Institute of Technology in 1989-91, James Hershberg directed the Cold War International History Project (and edited the project's Bulletin) from 1991-96 before coming to George Washington University in 1997 as a professor of history and editor of the CWIHP book series co-published by the Stanford University and Wilson Center Presses. He received the 1994 Stuart Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Policy. Currently working on various case studies of U.S. communications with Cold War adversaries (Cuba, China, North Vietnam, Iran), he is a co-founder of The GW Cold War Group, a Cold War studies group at GWU for both faculty and students, and works closely with the National Security Archive, a declassified documents repository and research institute based at the University.

Serhii Plokhii

Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University

Serhii Plokhii is the Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History in the Department of History at Harvard University and the Director of Harvard’s Ukrainian Research Institute. He is the author of many books related to Russia, including The Cossack Myth: History and Nationhood in the Age of Empires, Yalta: The Price of Peace, The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and Unmaking Imperial Russia: Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Writing of Ukrainian History.

Carol Saivetz

Research Associate at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

Carol R. Saivetz is a research associate at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and a research affiliate at the Security Studies Program at MIT. Saivetz has consulted for the US Government on topics ranging from energy politics in the Caspian Sea region to Russian policy toward Iran. From 1995-2005, she was the Executive Director of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. She is the author of In Search of Pluralism: Soviet and post-Soviet Politics. 

Callouts

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TILIP

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[EXPOSURE]

[EXPOSURE] is the Institute for Global Leadership's undergraduate-led program for photojournalism, documentary studies and human rights.

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