School News AGS

AGS Alumnus Brandon Roddey, M.A., and his AGS thesis advisor Phillip A. Cartwright (Professor of Economics at ESG Management School), had their article "A Note on Preliminary Tests of a Public Choice Framework for Understanding Welfare Effects of IMF Lending" accepted for publication in University College London's International Public Policy Review (Fall 2012, forthcoming).

The paper presents preliminary results on the relationship between the use of International Monetary Fund credit, conditionality and welfare for both the IMF and recipient countries in the context of a public choice model proposed by Bird (1995). While the model is familiar, this paper uses a data set constructed from the Monitoring of Fund arrangements Database for 2002 – 2009 covering 85 countries (of which 78 are used in the analysis), preliminary tests bases on correlation analyses are reported. Overall, preliminary results from aggregate data supports the hypothesis that IMF utility (pass rate) increases as the amount of lending to a recipient country increases. Increasing conditionality is associated with lower Pass Rates. Based on bivariate tests, the work rejects the hypothesis that IMF utility decreases when lending increase relative to conditionality. For the borrowing or recipient country, the hypothesis that higher conditionality is associated with lower welfare (Real GDP, Purchasing Power Parity per capita) is rejected at any reasonable level of significance. The findings do support the hypothesis that recipient country utility and fund credit are positively correlated.

AGS hosted a presentation and debate on the subject "Can credit rating agencies invoke freedom of speech?" on the occasion of the first "Wine and Cheese Evening" of the semester, September 21. The discussion was led by Professor Regis Bismuth who teaches International Law at La Sorbonne and Université de Poitiers in France.

The discussion stressed the disctinction between information and opinion, raising the question of which applies to credit rating agency reports. Other questions raised included: "Can a statement issued as 'expert opinion' be perceived as information?," "Why is there a substantial discrepancy between unsollicited ratings and sollicited ratings?," "Is there a correlation between the source of income of credit rating agencies and the credibility of the information they deliver?," and questions relating to the legitimacy of their influence on global markets.

Professor Bismuth's doctoral dissertation on International Cooperation Between Financial Regulatory Authorities and International Public Law was published last year by Belgian publisher Bruylant.

The new Fall semester has started at AGS, with the first week of classes of the International Relations and Diplomacy Master's and Ph.D. programs beginning September 6th. In line with AGS's strong tradition of welcoming students from all over the world, this semester's new students come from the US, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa, Nigeria, Iraq, Mexico, and Trinidad & Tobago. The faculty teaching in these programs are also very international, coming from over fifteen different countries.

Three new professors have joined the AGS faculty this semester. H.E. Wilfried Bolewski, former German Ambassador to Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas and a professor at Sciences Po, will teach a course on Diplomacy and International Law. This course is a new addition to the AGS curriculum. It will draw from Professor Bolewski's background as a lawyer and a diplomat.

May Akabogu-Collins, an American-Nigerian professor of Economics who graduated from the University of Southern California, will teach the course on Principles of Economics.

Finally, Patrick Bratton, an expert on security and strategic studies who chairs the Political Science department at AGS's partner Hawai'i Pacific University, is joining AGS for a semester as a Visiting Professor. He will teach the course on Factors and Theories of Analysis in International Relations and Diplomacy.

More information on the AGS faculty can be found here.

Also to be noted is a new course entitled "Extreme Crisis Situations: Terrorism, Government and Media". This course will be taught by Professor Joav Toker, a Columbia University graduate and a professional international affairs journalist who regularly appears as a political analyst on TV5 Monde, France 24 and other international TV networks.

Sarah Pedersen, Academic Coordinator of the International Relations graduate programs and an AGS alumna, says: "As always, the very diverse backgrounds of the students, interacting with those of the professors, will surely make for interesting debates in the classroom!"

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Taking place on June 20, the annual graduation ceremony of the American Graduate School in Paris featured Canadian diplomat and democracy activist Ambassador Jeremy Kinsman as commencement speaker. Commencement exercises were followed by graduation dinner in the French Senate near AGS.

The graduating class was composed of twenty-five students representing eight different national origins: United States, Malaysia, Nigeria, Germany, Canada, Lebanon, Poland, and France. Twenty-one graduates were awarded the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations and Diplomacy in partnership with Arcadia University (Philadelphia), and four graduates were awarded the degree of Executive Master of Science in Finance in partnership with Baruch College at CUNY (New York). Some of the International Relations students are also receiving a second degree as part of one of AGS’s dual programs: Master’s in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from Arcadia University, or Master’s in Diplomacy and Strategic Negotiation from Université Paris Sud 11.

A Canadian experienced diplomat, Jeremy Kinsman retired in 2006 from a 40-year career in the Canadian foreign service and now practices as a democracy activist, writing, lecturing internationally and collaborating with NGOs. Among other diplomatic assignments, Jeremy Kinsman was Canada’s Ambassador to Russia, High Commissionner to the United Kingdom and Ambassador to the European Union. Today he is a member of the Council for a Community of Democracies (Washington, DC), where he heads the Diplomat’s Handbook on Democracy Development Support project. He also is lead writer for Foreign Affairs at Policy Options magazine and regularly contributes to Canadian and international media, including The International Herald Tribune. On the academic side, Ambassador Kinsman is a Resident International Scholar at UC Berkeley in the US, and a former Diplomat in Residence at the University of Princeton.

See Jeremy Kinsman's full profile on the Diplomat's Handbook website.

Read Ambassador Jeremy's Kinsman full speech

In his commencement speech, Ambassador Kinsman talked at length about the values of democracy and the role that AGS students can play in supporting the emergence of new democracies. “We can’t export democracy. It has to emerge from the people in question, each in its own way. (…) Democracy is not a process – an “app” that can be downloaded. It’s about more than elections. It’s about what happens after the elections. Especially about managing pluralism – tribes, religions, sects, regions, winners and losers. People need our help to build the capacity to do that. Not to tell them how WE do things but to support their own learning process.”

Addressing the students, Ambassador Kinsman added: “You have some brand-new and valuable credentials as foreign affairs experts. (…) There are lots of different ways to exercise your knowloedge (in this field) – in business, law, teaching, and public service, as diplomats or with development and humanitarian NGOs. (…) The principles of tolerance and inclusivity are issues you can bring into whatever profession you are following.” 

Previous commencement speakers at AGS include French Foreign Affairs Minister Alain Juppé, former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard,  Pulitzer Prize winner Serge Schmemann, and former Lebanese Ambassador to Japan and UNESCO Samira Hanna-El-Daher, and journalist and best-selling author Alan Riding, among others.

Also speaking at the ceremony was Steve Michael, Provost of AGS’s partner institution Arcadia University, through which AGS’s Master in International Relations and Diplomacy is accredited in the US. Steve Michael explained that Arcadia’s expertise in global education has come full circle with AGS’s partnership as it started with a study abroad trip to France over sixty years ago. On behalf of Arcadia’s President Carl Oxholm III, he told the students: “I am proud of the quality the AGS faculty embody, the vision they pursue and the excellence they represent.

In the name of the entire graduating class, Amber Christino announced the class gift to the school - a couch for the student meeting room! - and pronounced a speech about the place and impact of AGS on the lives of all of the students. She said: "Paris is known as the 'City of Light,' and we have all been enlightened by our education here at AGS. Not only have we studied the theoretical and fundamental building blocks of international relations, we have also been given the unique opportunity to experience this first-hand through daily interaction with the Parisian culture. (...) But beyond the academics, theses, and other aspects of graduate life, the core of our experience at AGS lies in our interactions with one another, sharing in the cultural differences that we each bring to our community. (...) Obviously, each one of us has grown in different ways through our experiences here, but I think this statement is a good summary shared by all of us; one student summed up his experience at AGS by saying: "This is probably the most unique and special experience I've ever been through. It's been quite a journey, a process of discovery through and through. I think what I'll remember the most is how, thanks to all those around me, Paris became my second home.”

Read Amber Christino's full speech.

Students enrolled in the Arcadia study abroad summer progarm at AGS in Paris took a day-trip to Giverny in Normandy, where they visited Claude Monet's house, now a museum, and the magnificent gardens around it which inspired many of Monet's most famous paintings.

Students were able to tour the house where Monet lived for 43 years until his death in 1926. The house and artist workshop were preserved to look the same as they did at the time the painter and his family lived there. Many of the painter's personal objects are displayed, as well as his collection of Japanese prints. The students could also visit the flower garden ("Clos Normand") and water garden ("Jardin d'Eau") which Monet - who was a gardening passionate and once said "It may be because of flowers that I've become a painter" - had arranged the way he would have arranged an impressionist painting: finely arranging the composition, colors and perspectives.

"One of the most amazing parts of the visit was the waterlily gardens that are pictured in many of Monet's paintings. We have two Art History Majors in the group were particularly excited with the visit as they got to see for real what they have studied in the classroom." says AGS study abroad coordinator Jennifer Wright.

This field trip was organized as one of the cultural extra-curricular activities in their six-week summer program in Intensive French and Politics organized with Arcadia University's College of Global Studies. See more about that program.

On 23-25 May 2012, AGS participated in the 2nd International Conference of GAUC (Global Advancement of Universities and Colleges) at Voronezh State University, Russia. Started on the initiative of Arcadia University, this organization promotes internationalization of higher education to prepare global citizens and leaders. As part of its mission it organizes a yearly conference that brings together scholars, administrators, and students from universities around the world to discuss the challenges of globalization of higher education and foster transnational collaboration and relationships.

Representing AGS, Professor Yates presented a paper entitled “The Guéant Memorandum: What are the Effects on Internationalization of Higher Education?”. Yates's paper focused on the memo issued in May 2011 in France by then Minister of the Interior Claude Gueant, which ordered French administration to scrutinize more closely international students in France seeking to change their status to permanent residency. The memo was highly criticized by the public for being nationalistic and by higher education professionals for countering their efforts to internationalize French universities. The memo is no longer in effect but illustrates the power of politics on higher education. 

Other presentations discussed such issues as the international ranking systems, resource sharing among universities around the world and the importance of institution relationships, as well as specific country cases such as the shift from the elite model to a "mass" educational system in Russia, or the internationalization of private education in China and the role of the government.

Arcadia University Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Steve Michael provided the driving force behind the debates by asking what type of university we need in the 21st century. Starting with the definition of a university given by the late Cardinal Newman (one of the founders of Cambridge University) as a “physical place,” an “assembly of strangers,” a “school of universal learning,” dedicated to “knowledge and truth,” and one that produces “gentlemen, statesmen and scientists,” he then proceeded to show how that original model had become outdated. The university is no longer a physical place, as online enrollment has risen from 9% to 26% in recent years.There is a push for specialization and career-orientation, and a “massification” of higher education that has all but eliminated the old model of producing elites. A combination of technology and globalization is now creating a need for what he called “global scholars,” i.e.culturally diverse, multilingual transnationally experienced, mobile, and crossculturally competent. He then asked what kind of university could produce such global scholars. “Only a university with a global mission, a global curriculum, a global faculty, and global students, one that offers joint-degree programs, dual-degree programs, and major abroad programs.”

Last year's GAUC conference was hosted at Xi'an University in China, and next year's will be at Danubius University in Romania.

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Six AGS students enrolled in the dual program in International Relations and Diplomacy/Diplomacy and Strategic Negotiation with Université Paris Sud 11 (Sceaux, France) went on a trip to Tangier (Morocco) to participate in an international negotiation simulation and seminar on April 23-26.

The focus of the three-day negotiation and seminar was Media Ethics. The objective was to discuss the roles and responsibilities of the media with regard to international political, socio-economic and cultural issues. The discussions started with a theoretical reflection on media as one of the pillars of democracy, and ended with the adoption the Tangier Charter for Media Ethics (Charte de Tanger pour l'Ethique des Médias). The two-day negotiation was followed by a one-day seminar on the same topic, and by a full day of site visits to the nearby town of Asillah and to the fortified medina of Tangier.

Over 60 students participated in the experience. They were from three partner universities in France (Université Paris-Sud 11), Morocco (Université Abdelmalek Essaadi) and Lebanon (Université La Sagesse). The assembly was very diverse in national origins - besides those three countries, some students came from as far as Brazil, Mexico and Russia. The six AGS students alone represented four national origins: US, Mexico, Columbia, and Germany.

Every year, students enrolled in the dual program with Université Paris-Sud 11 participate in a moot negotiation in an international location. Previous locations include Alexandria (Egypt), Athens (Greece), and Beiruth (Lebanon), among others.

"One of the most interesting parts of this experience was having people with such international backgrounds come together and debate about subjects that affect everyone and that all were passionate about. And of course, the wonderful Moroccan setting was a plus!" says Rachel Minor (class of 2012) who was one of the participating AGS students.

As part of the "Issue Roundup" series, AGS hosted a special talk and discussion on the US election and the American media coverage on May 30th. This session was animated by Professor Mark Grabowski, who teaches media law and journalism at Adelphi University in New York, and previously worked as a journalist and lawyer.

Some of the topics covered in the talk include the "horse race" style of coverage that is popular among political journalists (i.e. how the media tends to focus on who's winning rather than examining the actual issues and politicians' policies), the perceived liberal bias of the U.S. media, along with studies which suggest that Americans actually prefer partisan news over objective/neutral reporting, how informed average U.S. voters are, and the role of social media and citizen journalism in election coverage.

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Seven AGS students participated in the Catalonian Model United Nations (C'MUN) in Barcelona on May 2-5, 2012. The AGS team was the most awarded team of this United Nations simulation as in each committe where AGS delegates were present, a prize went to one of them.

Carolyn Meyer and Amy Pope were both nominated "Outstanding First-year Participant" as they represented - respectively - Kenya in the Environmental Committee and Spain in the General Assembly; Etienne Rosas was awarded the "Oustanding Delegation" prize as he represented Portugal in the Security Council, and MUN student advisors Ryan Godfrey and Andrea Badiola both received honorable mentions for their participation as Chinese delegation in the Security Council and Guatemalan delegation in the Human Rights Council. Also receiving high praise for their participation were Jhinni Awotar (Australia in the Environmental Committee) and Lisa Albright (Democratic Republic of Congo in the Environmental Committee). All of these students are enrolled in the Master's in International Relations and Diplomacy at AGS.

Here is a testimonial by MUN student advisor Andrea Badiola (class of 2013):

"At the beginning of the negotiation the nerves were tangible, but after jumping into the arena everybody started adapting to their new role and enjoying the game. The first day every committee started with the sometimes complex procedures, but we AGSers knew our way through. After debating the subjects that were on the agenda of each committee, we worked on drafting the resolutions to be voted. 

We went to this MUN with our hand-luggage and came back full of energy, experience and hope. Hope for the future, knowing that we are getting ready to be the decision-makers of tomorrow. No matter where each one of us ends up whether in a diplomatic career or in other fields, we have learned ways to deal with very complex current issues and negotiate with diverse people, and we have proven to ourselves what we are able to accomplish. New ideas, new solutions, new friends and a lot of sun - so much have we learned and so much have we shared!"

See more information on the C'MUN website

On April 28th, AGS's partner institution Arcadia University in the greater Philadelphia area (PA, USA) inaugurated its 20th President, Carl (Tobey) Oxhom III. As a member of what Arcadia calls its "global family", Eileen Servidio, President of the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at AGS, was one of the speakers during the ceremony, along with Michael A. Nutter, Mayor of Philadelphia, Bette Landman, President Emerita of Arcadia, Margaret Wright Steele, Chair of the Arcadia Board of Tustees, and representatives of the various constituencies of the university - students, alumni, faculty, trustees and staff.

Dr. Servidio declared to the President: "When I first met you Tobey, I was impressed by your energy, your modesty, and your humanity." She added: "My AGS colleagues here, those in Paris and myself are honored and enthusiastic about continuing to be part of the Arcadia family as it embarks on its next journey under your leadership."

See video of Eileen Servidio's greetings to Arcadia's President at inauguration on April 28

AGS's partnership with Arcadia includes many academic bridges between the two institutions. AGS's Master's in International Relations and Diplomacy and International MBA are both accredited in the U.S. as affiliated programs of Arcadia University. In addition to this core connexion, AGS and Arcadia have developed dual programs and faculty and student exchanges, notably with Arcadia's International Peace and Conflict Resolution department, as well as study abroad opportunities through Arcadia's College of Global Studies.

Carl (Tobey) Oxholm III took office as President of Arcadia last July. A native of Pennsylvania, Oxholm did his undergraduate studies in Political Science at Amherst College, MA, where he graduated summa cum laude. During his four years there, he was a choir singer in the Amherst College Glee Club, going on two world tours. Oxholm then went to Harvard University, where he graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School (cum laude) and a Master's in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government. For the next 22 years, Tobey pursued a successful attorney's career in Philadelphia, including five years in the City Solicitor's Office and a large amount of pro bono legal work for the poor, receiving many awards along the way for exemplary public service, helping to create one of the best public interest, pro bono communities in the country, and rising to leadership in the Philadelphia Bar Association.

Tobey Oxholm went on to pursue an academic career when he joined Drexel University as its General Counsel in 2001. He rose quickly from Vice President and Secretary to the Board of Trustees, to Senior Vice President, to Executive Vice President, and played a major role in all main intiatives of the university during the following decade, including the acquisition of MCP Hahnemann University, the creation fo Drexel Law, and, as the Founding Dean, the design and operation of Drexel's West Coast Graduate Campus in Sacramento, CA.

Tobey and his wife Kimberly met at Harvard University and have two children, Geoff (Lafayette '04), who is pursuing his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Drexel University, and Ted (Yale '07), who is finishing his second year at Penn Law.

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