IGL Newsletter: May 2020

Enes Kanter, who plays center for the Boston Celtics and is an education and human rights advocate, shared his reflections on his immigration journey, playing in the NBA, and his public service with the Tufts community at the end of February. His visit was made possible by Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) Board Member, Ed DeMore, who has longstanding ties to the Turkish community. Read more...

The campus is quiet. The IGL has not had its doors open in over a month, since March 16. In its 34-year history, this is unique for the Institute. On February 28, the IGL hosted an event for more than 200 people with Boston Celtics Center Enes Kanter and on March 13, we were saying goodbye to our students as the campus closed and prepared to move online. Responding to the potential threat of COVID-19 happened very quickly. Many of the programs that the IGL and its student groups had planned for the spring had to be postponed or cancelled. Read more...

“We wanted to start our groups on campus because we saw a gap in undergraduate discourse about the South Asian subcontinent. We spent some time talking to our peers on campus and saw that there were so many people who would be interested in a club like this, so we were inspired to start it. We wanted to house our group at the IGL because after my participation in this year’s EPIIC class, I was introduced to the amazing resources and alumni network it has. I knew it would be the perfect fit for our group because we have the same mission, which was to encourage people to engage in critical thinking and analysis of the world and its current affairs.” – Meera Rohera (A’22). Read more...

This year, the university is unable to hold graduation ceremonies on its campuses. While the graduate schools will have virtual graduations, the undergraduate Class of 2020 opted for an in-person graduation once large gatherings are permitted again. The IGL wanted to celebrate its graduating students by featuring them in the newsletters student spotlight. We wish them the very best in this challenging year and welcome them to the IGL Alumni Community! Read more...

The United States has traditionally taken an active political role in the Middle East and its involvement in the region is always an important issue in a presidential election year. In February, the Tufts Institute for Global Leadership held a discussion on “The Future of U.S. Engagement in the Middle East” featuring three alumna who are experts on U.S. foreign policy towards the region. Sarah Arkin (A’06), Rachel Brandenburg (A’05) and Negar Razavi (A’06) returned to campus to share their insights on a region that has changed significantly since their undergraduate days. Read more...

Inquiry held its 29th annual simulation this year, albeit in a very different format than it usually takes. The more than 200 high school students and 19 EPIIC students who were part of Inquiry spent the last few months preparing for the simulation, which focused on the Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Just three weeks before the simulation, the country began its shutdowns, closing universities and school systems. While EPIIC was able to postpone the symposium, given the breadth of Inquiry participation and that a number of the high school students were seniors, as well as the structure of secondary school academic calendars, it would not have been feasible to hold Inquiry in the fall. With these factors, the IGL decided to hold Inquiry online, via Zoom. Three schools, with 60 plus students, were able to participate, while others felt that they would not be able to with the demands they and their students were facing in moving to online learning. Read more...

There is virtually no part of the world that has not been gravely affected by the COVID19 pandemic. Democracies and tyrannies alike have suffered the consequences of a health crisis – with significant political, social, and economic impacts – of proportions never seen before. Although this situation has given birth to many events that attest to the beauty of human empathy and cooperation, it is also seen by many to be an opportunity for dictators and totalitarians to consolidate their power by cracking down on civil liberties in the name of public health. From China to Uganda, from Iran to Venezuela, the world has seen an increase in state censorship, disinformation, surveillance, and abrogation of civil liberties. Read more...

The 2020 EPIIC symposium, originally scheduled for March 2020, has been postponed until October 2020. The gathering will be three days of far-reaching discussions on issues critical to understanding and thinking about preventing mass atrocities, from early warning and prevention to transitional justice, from intervention to the role of the media, from prosecution to memory and memorialization.

Participants include: Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect; John Cox, Associate Professor of Global Studies and History at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, where he directs the Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Studies; John Packer, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa; Theary Seng, Cambodian-American human-rights activist and lawyer who founded the Cambodian Center for Justice & Reconciliation and is the founding president of CIVICUS: Center for Cambodian Civic Education; and James Siguru Wahutu, Assistant Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University and an expert in the sociology of media, with an emphasis on genocide, mass violence, and ethnicity in sub-Saharan Africa. Learn more...

EPIIC 2020-21
China and the World
EXP 0079, Tuesdays/Thursdays 3-5pm

The rapid rise of China as a major political, economic, military and diplomatic power is one of the most significant developments in world affairs. As a global actor, China impacts every region, from Asia to North America, from Africa to Europe, from Latin America to the Middle East. Its influence is felt in every issue area from climate change to global health, from digital technology to the global economy, from cybersecurity to trade, as well as on global norms and institutions.

China’s growing role is shifting the balance of power and raising fundamental questions about the nature of the contemporary global order. Some of the questions the EPIIC Colloquium will address include: What are the factors that shape Chinese foreign policy? How will the world adapt to a rising superpower? How can the U.S. better engage with and respond to China’s rise? What is the future of China’s evolving multifaceted relations with Africa, Southeast Asia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, and the European Union? How is China’s engagement in the United Nations changing in the areas of peace and security? What is China’s role in global economic governance?

Achieving Flow: Learning to Breathe and Developing Your Full Human Potential
EXP 0076, Tuesdays 6-8:30pm

The IGL is offering a new course in the fall, led by IGL External Advisory Board Member Ed DeMore. This is a course in maximizing your potential. It will include discussion of the biology and neuroscience of the brain, breath training to optimize your brain function and achieve flow, an analysis of your skills and passions and identification of where they intersect, identifying what is the most important thing in your life-your guiding light, and creating a list of objectives to achieve that goal. DeMore has been pivotal in enabling Boston to have the most robust technology infrastructure of any urban public school system in America. He is Founder and CEO of the Boston Global Bridge Institute and Overseer of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and a member of the International Council at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School at Harvard University.