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Secretary of State Clinton Launches U.S.-Pakistan Women's Council
American University and the U.S. Department of State are co-founding a U.S.-Pakistan Women's Council, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on Sept. 24. The Council will be housed at AU and co-chaired by AU President Cornelius Kerwin and Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer. Read more. MORE HEADLINES - 10/09/2012
HonestTea Founder Speaks to Students HonestTea Founder Speaks to Students
Social Enterprise students invited President and TeaEO of Honest Tea Seth Goldman to address students, faculty and staff at a reception last week. Goldman worked with Social Enterprise students who helped him respond to a request from Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley to identify ways to make the state a fertile ground for new entrepreneurs. His talk focused on the evolution of his business, and how it mirrored today's growing corporate emphasis on three factors - health and wellness, social responsibility and environmental consciousness. Founded in 1998 in Goldman's kitchen, Honest Tea's annual sales grew from about $250,000 that first year to over $70 million in recent years. The venture began as a partnership between Goldman and his former Yale School of Management professor, Barry Nalebuff. Their first account was with retailer Whole Foods; ten years later the Coca-Cola Company bought a 40 percent share of Honest Tea and in 2011 purchased the company as an independent operating unit - something Goldman said he never would have imagined 15 years ago. SIS Offers World's First Online Disability Policy Degree
In April 2011, SIS launched the Comparative and International Disability Policy (CIDP) degree program, the world's first virtual master's degree in disability and public policy and one of American University's first completely virtual degrees. While admission to the program is open to anyone with or without disabilities, the majority of the 15 current students are blind, deaf or mobility-impaired. "We're giving people access to higher education that in their home countries they may not have access to. It's inclusive education," said Maya Aguilar, communications coordinator for the SIS-based Institute on Disability and Public Policy (IDPP), which facilitates the CIDP degree. Read more. U.S. News and World Report Raises AU Ranking In its "College Rankings 2013" segment in September, U.S. News and World Report ranked American University 77 among 218 national universities, up from 82 in 2012. Foreign Policy magazine ranked SIS's international relations master's program 8th in the world, and the undergraduate international relations program 10th on the list of schools. Foreign Policy also named American University 13th in its "Pipeline to the Beltway" ranking.
Why would a defense budget expert venture from Washington's political theater to appear on its theatrical arts stage? For SIS professor Gordon Adams, who served as the senior White House budget official for national security in the Clinton administration, it's an outlet for creative, right-brain work. "It brings balance to my life," he said. Adams straddled both theater worlds for several weeks this summer, watching the Budget Control Act drama unfold on Capitol Hill and also taking to the theatrical stage - literally - as an actor in We Happy Few's production of Shakespeare's Hamlet. He played Polonius, Bernardo, Player King and Priest during the Capital Fringe Festival. Read more. Professor Judith Shapiro Debuts China's Environmental Challenges 
Professor Judith Shapiro of the Global Environmental Politics and Natural Resources and Sustainable Development programs unveiled her newest book, China's Environmental Challenges (Polity Books 2012) on Oct. 2 at SIS. As an environmentalist and China specialist, Shapiro focused her book on the implications of globalization, the challenges of governance, contested national identity, the evolution of civil society and problems of environmental justice and equity. Read more.
By Mary Dempsey Serge Okogo has a very specific-and personal-reason for pursuing a master's degree in the Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs program at the School for International Service. He believes it will help him further the rights of disabled people in developing countries. It's an area in which he is knowledgeable. Okogo himself is deaf. Read more. Council on Foreign Relations Offers Nuclear Security Fellowships The Council on Foreign Relations is offering a 2013 - 2014 International Affairs Fellowship in Nuclear Security (IAF-NS) course, sponsored by the Stanton Foundation, which is open to tenured or tenure-track faculty at accredited universities who propose policy-relevant research on nuclear security issues. The IAF-NS places its fellows in U.S. government positions or international organizations for a period of twelve months to work with practitioners. Fellows are awarded a stipend of $125,000. Interested candidates must submit a cover letter, CV and a proposal of up to 1,000 words. Each applicant should arrange to have two letters of recommendation sent assessing the policy relevance of the applicant's proposed project as well as the applicant's qualifications for carrying it out. All application materials must be submitted to fellowships@cfr.org by Nov. 1, 2012. For more information, visit the Council on Foreign Relations website. Alumnus Welcomed In Sudan
Ronald Hawkins, public affairs officer for the U.S. Department of State, thought he was going to a Sudanese elementary school to talk about the late astronaut Neil Armstrong. But the visit turned out to be much more than a discussion of recent American history. "I spoke about what this man meant to Americans and how he exemplified pushing boundaries and accepting no limits," Hawkins said. "I was touched to see how many Sudanese students were so welcoming, and how many wanted to talk about Mr. Armstrong. They read a passage from the Koran and we had a moment of silence. In many ways, this became a simple memorial service, and I wish the Armstrong family could know how he had touched so many lives so far away from the United States." Read more. SIS Welcomes Associate Director of Alumni Relations
Stephanie Block joined SIS as the new Associate Director of Alumni Relations. She came to us from the University of Maryland, where she was also in alumni affairs. She also worked at Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies as manager of communications. Please join us in welcoming Stephanie to the SIS community.
Class Notes We welcome all submissions of class notes to SISComm@american.edu. Please include your year of graduation and degree.
Agnieszka Lukaszczyk, SIS/MA '05, was profiled by NASA for the online "Ask the Academy" segment on Sept. 27. Lukaszczyk serves as the director of the Brussels office of the Secure World Foundation, which promotes cooperative solutions for space sustainability.
Pickering Scholar Garrett Harkins, SIS/KSB/BA/BS '11, passed his Foreign Service Oral Assessment for the U.S. Department of State. Recipients of the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship receive up to $40,000 annually to defray costs of their senior year of college and first year of graduate school. Harkins will graduate from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 2013. Getting to Know You: Amitav Acharya 
Job Title: Professor, U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance. Job Duties: Teaching, serving as the SIS faculty president for 2012 – 2013 and chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Studies Center. I also run a global network called TRANSCEND (Transnational Challenges and Emerging Nations Dialogue). How long have you worked at SIS: Four years. What would your colleagues be surprised to learn about you: I am writing a novel set in 361 B.C. about a war (called the Kalinga War) that was fought in India between the people of Kalinga and the Maurya Emperor Ashoka, which transformed the emperor from a warmonger to the greatest champion of Buddhism and peace in the known world. What's the best part of working at SIS: My colleagues and the new SIS building. What was your first job: In 1982, I worked as a field researcher to a remote coal and iron ore mining belt in eastern India to survey and study the impact of mining on the quality of life of the miners. Where did you grow up: In a village called Kaduapada (muddy village), in the state of Orissa (now Odisha), India. Family & where do you live: I live with my wife, who is Chinese, named Ying Dai, and my son, Arun Aparajit Acharya (age 6). We live in Bethesda, Md. Hobbies: Travel, camping, tennis and swimming. What do you enjoy doing on the weekend: Laze around with my family, if I'm not traveling. What are you reading these days: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (it's free on Kindle). Favorite Book or Movie: "Sholay" ("Flames"), a 1975 Bollywood classic about two outlaws fighting a major gangster who terrorizes rural folks and robs speeding trains in the Chambal Valley of central India. It stars Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Kumar, Dharmendra, Amjad Khan and Jaya Bhaduri. I am a great fan of James Bond films. Favorite D.C. hangout: My home (it's inside the Beltway). Favorite Food: Thai. What was your last vacation: Last summer - Goa, India with family. Next, Florida. 
Tara Sun Vanacore, SIS/MA '13, a student in the Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs program: Author, "Tainted: Why Gay Men Still Can't Donate Blood" (with Abigail Barnes), The Atlantic, Oct. 1. Ambassador Akbar Ahmed: Author, "The Plight of the Rif: Morocco's Restive Northern Periphery" (with Ibn Khaldun Chair Research Fellow Harrison Akins), Al-Jazeera, Sept. 28. Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Professor Sarah Cleeland Knight: Authors, "A 3-Year B.A. Program Sees High Demand," The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 28. 
Professor Asiya Daud: Interviewed in "News Analysis: Experts Say Blasphemy Laws are Undercurrent of Unrest in Middle East," The Deseret News, Sept. 27. Professor Robert Pastor: Interviewed in "Fraud Concerns Swirl Around Florida's Unregulated Absentee Ballot Brokers Ahead of Election," FoxNews.com, Sept. 26. 
Professor Gordon Adams: Author, "Budgeteers to the Rescue," Foreign Policy, Sept. 26. Professor Matthew Taylor: Interviewed in "Cientista Político Diz Que Julgamento Pode Criar 'círculo virtuoso,' " Folha de S. Paulo, Sept. 25. Ambassador Akbar Ahmed: Interviewed in "Is Islam's Prophet Muhammad to Have More Screen Time?," Los Angeles Times, Sept. 25. Professor David Bosco: Interviewed in "Obama Skips Potentially Awkward U.N. Meetings," The Washington Examiner, Sept. 24. 
Professor David Bosco: Interviewed in "Gillard Bids for Australian Seat on U.N. Security Council," the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sept. 24. Ambassador Akbar Ahmed: Interviewed in "Dangerous and Deepening Divide Between Islamic World, West," Reuters, Sept. 23. Professor Derrick L. Cogburn: Interviewed on Thailand's 3 Dimension News regarding the Comparative and International Disability Policy degree program, Aug. 23. 
Professor Tazreena Sajjad published two book chapters: "Rape on Trial: The Promises of International Jurisprudence, Perils of Retributive Justice and the Realities of Impunity" in Rape: Weapon of War and Genocide, edited by Carol Rittner and John K. Roth (Paragon House, 2012), and "Women and Peace Processes" with SIS Professor Julie Mertus and Malathi de Alwis in Women and Wars, edited by Carol Cohn (Polity Books, 2012). Professor Craig Hayden was named one of three research fellows for 2012 – 2014 by the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School. Hayden's research project, "Communication Power and 21st Century Statecraft," will examine contemporary efforts of digital engagement conducted by the United States Department of State through two primary case studies: the e-diplomacy of the Tech Camp Initiative and the coordinated new media consultancy efforts of the Office of International Information Programs. The project will provide a research-based contribution to the growing public attention to e-diplomacy, strategic engagement and power. 
AU's School of International Service invites you to Election Night 2012 on Thursday, November 6, from 7:30 until the election is decided. View the returns. Food and drink throughout the evening. Expert commentary by SIS faculty. Games, prizes and surprises. The event is free and open to the public. RSVP here by October 26, 2012. SIS is located at the intersection of Nebraska and New Mexico Avenues NW in Washington, DC. Parking is free in the SIS building after 5:00 p.m. Former CIA agent William D. Murray will give talk on "The Role of Intelligence in Crafting U.S. Foreign Policy" on Tuesday, Oct. 9, from 3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m. in SIS room 300. The event is free and open to the public. As part of the SIS Colloquium Series, Joshua Mitchell, professor of political theory at Georgetown University, will present "Tocqueville in Arabia" on Wednesday, Oct. 10, from 12:30 p.m. - 2 p.m. in SIS 300. Lunch will be provided; please RSVP to the luncheon at this link. This event is for faculty and doctoral students. Professor Carl LeVan will host a roundtable discussion on African diaspora democracy at the Institute for Policy Studies (1112 16th Street, NW) on Thursday, Oct. 11, from 12:30 p.m. - 2 p.m. SIS alumni Kizito Byenkya, SIS/MA '10, an Associate Fellow at the Open Society Institute and Jumoke Balogun, SIS/MA '11, a Nigerian-American blogger and public relations expert with the Service Employees International Union, will participate. This event is free and open to the public. Monday, Oct. 15 Geetha Rao Gupta, deputy executive director for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), will deliver the keynote address at the 10th Annual Irene Tinker Lecture on Women and Development from 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m. in the Mary Graydon Center, room 200. The event is free and open to the public. Senior Gender Advisor in the U.S. Agency for International Development's Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning Caren Grown will deliver the 10th Annual Irene Tinker Lecture on Women and Development, "Transformation is Possible: Moving Feminist Economics into Institutions and Policies," from 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m. in the Mary Graydon Center, room 200. The event is free and open to the public. Mai'a K. Davis Cross, assistant professor of International Relations and Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, will speak on "Public Diplomacy & Smart Power: The Case of Europe" from 3 p.m. - 4 p.m. in SIS room 300. The event is free and open to the public. Chaiwat Satha Anand, professor of political science at Thammasat University, Thailand, will speak on Islam and nonviolence from 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. in AU's Butler Boardroom. Light refreshments will be provided, and the event is free and open to the public. Wednesday, Oct. 17 The Comparative and Regional Studies program is hosting the panel discussion "America and Global Capitalism" in the Mary Graydon Center, room 4, from 12 p.m. - 2 p.m. Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin will discuss their book, The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire. SIS Professors Randolph Persaud, James Mittelman, Stephen Silvia and Carl LeVan will also participate. The event is free and open to the public. Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara D. Sonenshine will speak in the Abramson Family Founders Room from 12 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Cuban Missile Crisis Events 
Tuesday, Oct. 16: The Armageddon Letters: Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis with James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang. Abramson Family Founders Room, 12 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. Pizza will be served. The Armageddon Letters is the culmination of more than 25 years of research and writing about the Cuban Missile Crisis. In a half-dozen books and in dozens of articles, Blight and Lang have told and re-told the story of humanity's closest brush with nuclear catastrophe. This time, however, rather than telling the story yet again, they intend to show it. Readers will feel the tension and danger of late October 1962 as they become flies on the wall in Washington, Moscow and Havana. The Armageddon Letters is a time machine for a journey back to the most dangerous moment in human history. James G. Blight is the Centre for International Governance Innovation chair in foreign policy development at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo, and a professor in the Department of History, University of Waterloo, Canada. Janet M. Lang is a research professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and the Department of History, University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Blight and Lang are the authors of the book The Armageddon Letters, which now serves as inspiration for their current transmedia project by the same title. View the website at http://www.armageddonletters.com/ Moderator: Dean James Goldgeier, School of International Service, American University and author of Leadership Style and Soviet Foreign Policy: Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev. (The Johns Hopkins University, 1994). Thursday, Oct. 18: Blind Over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis (Foreign Relations and the Presidency): Book talk with authors Max Holland and David Barrett. Abramson Family Founders Room, 1 p.m. - 2 p.m. In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, questions persisted about how the potential cataclysm had been allowed to develop. A subsequent congressional investigation focused on what came to be known as the "photo gap:" five weeks during which intelligence-gathering flights over Cuba had been attenuated. In Blind over Cuba, Barrett and Holland challenge the popular perception of the Kennedy administration's handling of the Soviet Union's surreptitious deployment of missiles in the Western Hemisphere. Rather than epitomizing it as a masterpiece of crisis management by policy makers and the administration, Barrett and Holland make the case that the affair was, in fact, a close call stemming directly from decisions made in a climate of deep distrust between key administration officials and the intelligence community. Holland is a prize-winning author and editor of Washington Decoded, an online publication. Barrett is a professor of political science at Villanova University and a specialist on the history of the CIA, especially in the 1960s. Moderator: SIS Professor Michael Dobbs, author of One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Krushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War (Vintage, 2009). Monday, Oct. 22: The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Discussion with SIS Professor Svetlana Savranskaya. Mary Graydon Center 203/205, 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m. It wasn't just 13 days and it wasn't only October 1962: Some of the most dangerous moments of the Cuban Missile Crisis came in November 1962. With U.S. strategic forces still poised at DefCon-2, Deputy Soviet Premier Anastas Mikoyan traveled to Cuba to force Cuban leaders to return bombers and cruise missiles so that the crisis could end peacefully on Nov. 20. Savranskaya is a senior scholar at the National Security Archive and a professor in the School of International Service. She is the editor of the just published book by Sergo Mikoyan, The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Missiles of November. (Stanford University Press, 2012). Moderator: Philip Brenner, Professor and co-author of Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpower after the Missile Crisis (with James G. Blight, Rowman and Littlefield, 2007). Wednesday, Oct. 24: Fifty Years of Revolution: Perspectives on Cuba, the United States, and the World. Book Talk with Philip Brenner, Robert Pastor and Ronald Pruessen. SIS 300, 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served. In the years since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, 11 men have served as president of the United States, arguably the most powerful nation on earth. Yet none of them has been able to effect any significant change in the stalemate between the United States and Cuba. Fifty Years of Revolution features contributions from an international Who's Who gallery of leading scholars. The volume adopts a uniquely nonpartisan attitude, a departure from this topic's generally divisive nature. Emerging from a series of meetings, conference panels and lectures, the book is more coherent than the typical essay collection. Organized to analyze - not describe - Cuba's foreign relations, the work examines sanctions, the embargo, regime change, Guantánamo, the exile community and more. Drawing from personal experiences as well as recently declassified documents, these essays update, summarize and explain one of the prickliest political issues in the Western Hemisphere today. Pruessen is a professor of history at the University of Toronto and co-editor of Fifty Years of Revolution: Perspectives on Cuba, the United States, and the World (with Soraya M. Castro Mariño, University Press of Florida, 2012). Brenner and Pastor each contributed a chapter to Fifty Years of Revolution; Brenner co-authored his chapter with Mariño, the book's editor. All Cuban Missile Crisis events are free and open to the public. American University offers free parking in the SIS garage after 5 p.m. on weekdays and on weekends. The SIS building is located at the intersection of Nebraska and New Mexico Avenues, NW. |
ALUMNI NEWS 
Ronald Hawkins, public affairs officer for the U.S. Department of State, thought he was going to a Sudanese elementary school to talk about the late astronaut Neil Armstrong. But the visit turned out to be much more than a discussion of recent American history. Read more. GETTING TO KNOW YOU 
Job Duties: Teaching, serving as the SIS faculty president for 2012 - 2013 and chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Studies Center. I also run a global network called TRANSCEND (Transnational Challenges and Emerging Nations Dialogue).Read more. GETTING INK
Tara Sun Vanacore, SIS/MA '13, a student in the Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs program: Author, "Tainted: Why Gay Men Still Can't Donate Blood" (with Abigail Barnes), The Atlantic, Oct. 1. Read more. INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS 
Professor Tazreena Sajjad published two book chapters: "Rape on Trial: The Promises of International Jurisprudence, Perils of Retributive Justice and the Realities of Impunity" in Rape: Weapon of War and Genocide, edited by Carol Rittner and John K. Roth (Paragon House, 2012), and "Women and Peace Processes" with SIS Professor Julie Mertus and Malathi de Alwis in Women and Wars, edited by Carol Cohn (Polity Books, 2012). Read more. EVENTS 
SIS will host an election night open house Tuesday, Nov. 6 at 7:30. CONNECT WITH SIS |
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Located in Washington, DC, American University's School of International Service is ranked consistently among the top ten schools of international relations. More than 3,000 students, from undergraduates to PhD candidates, representing 150 countries, are taught by over 100 full-time faculty. SIS's policy-practitioner relationships and global university partnerships help to place 80 percent of its students in internships, and enable 40 percent of graduate students, and 80 percent of undergraduates, to study abroad. The School's faculty, practicing adjuncts and interdisciplinary curriculum prepare graduates for global service in government, non-profits and business. © School of International Service | American University | Washington, DC |
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