Spring Semester Starts, Former US Ambassador Joins AGS Faculty

The spring semester has started at AGS. As always, the new students who have joined us this semester come from all four corners of the globe. This term we are welcoming students from the United States, India, Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana, Italy, and Argentina.

Theresa Verdoscia, the Director of Admissions, who has been working with these students over the past few months to guide them through their decision to study in Paris, says: “Our students are not just international; they are internationally minded. They all have interesting educational or professional backgrounds, and a desire to think out of the box. This cohort promises to make for interesting class discussions.”

AGS is also welcoming a new faculty member this semester. Ambassador Michael Einik is a US senior diplomat who spent most of his career in Central and Eastern Europe. He was posted in Russia during the Soviet era when Gorbachev rose to power, in Yugoslavia when it broke up, in Bosnia and Slovenia when those countries declared independence. He was in charge of evacuating the US populations during two wars, and has extensive experience in defining policies as well as making urgent decisions during crises. He will be teaching the course on Foreign Policy Formulation and Diplomacy. He says: “I have always wanted to teach to transmit my experience. My course will complement the theoretical courses at AGS with the practicality of diplomacy and policy making. Both are equally important to give students knowledge as well as skills. When your decisions count, when your words count, you need to be prepared.”

See Ambassador Einik’s profile on the AGS website.

Ambassador Einik is one of two former Ambassadors who are on the AGS faculty. The other is Dr. Dominique Dreyer, who was Ambassador of Switzerland to India, then to China for several years, and teaches Asian studies at AGS.

Also to be noted this semester is a course entitled “Extreme-Crisis Situations: Terrorism, Government, and Media”, taught by journalist and international affairs specialist Joav Toker. Prof. Toker says: “In this course, we will look at media not only in terms of its role and responsibility, but also the other way around, as a tool that is used for the making of diplomacy. We will therefore not only look at the headlines, but we will approach the complex issue of terrorism beyond the headlines, in its intricate link with international relations and politics.”

Dr. Eileen Servidio, the president of the school, says: “In all of our classes, our interactive teaching style takes advantage of the multiple perspectives brought to the classroom by our international students. At AGS, we don’t just teach international relations and diplomacy in abstract, we practice the diversity, dialogue, and understanding of the other that should always sustain international politics. For this is what is at the core of the AGS mission: Education, Empathy, and Peace.”