Professors and students in the international relations program are expecting a change of direction after its director, a political science professor,
was replaced this fall by German Professor Christiane Zehl Romero. Many professors criticized Robinson's leadership approach as too narrow and said she was not effective at securing funds from the administration.
Romero took over the program from Pearl Robinson, whose second three-year term as director ended last semester. Her appointment marks a shift for IR - a program usually dominated by economics, history, and political science professors. The two previous directors were professors in the political science department.
Many faculty members welcome the change in leadership, saying Romero will be better able to broker compromises and make even-handed decisions. They see her as an able lobbyist for IR funding from the administration and believe she will balance the needs of smaller departments against larger ones.
As director, Robinson had "great credibility in her own work, her own field," sociology Professor Paula Aymer said. But some say that Robinson, a self-proclaimed "ideas person," used her position to further her own research projects. Aymer described Robinson as a motivated leader whose "boundless energy" sometimes alienated those who did not share her passions. Robinson's critics say she was a weak lobbyist who neglected University politics and let IR fall by the wayside.
"I did in fact find myself unable to meet all of the demands of what I was doing," Robinson said, explaining that her research activity and work on a distance learning project demanded much of her energy.
Romero's leadership will focus on expanding the resources available to IR students and increasing student scholarship and research. As director, she says she will promote interaction between faculty and among students.
Economics Professor David Dapice said he looks forward to working with a director from outside the three central departments and hopes she can emphasize the importance of culture in international relations. "Cultural components are extremely important," he said. "She makes us understand why they are important."
Romero's admirers say she has a strong reputation for negotiating finesse in working with the administration on financial issues. Although not an Arabic professor herself, Romero is credited with building the six semesters of Arabic now offered in the department of German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literature, of which she is a former chair.
Romero has also been a voracious committee member, chairing several committees charged with controversial tasks where she was able to foster compromises on contentious decisions. In 1995, she served on a faculty committee evaluating the relationship between IR and the Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) program. The two were long thought of as rivals with strained relations.
"She has the respect of students and faculty, and she knows how to deal with the administration," said Leila Fawaz, who appointed Romero as director in her former capacity as dean of Arts and Humanities. "She knows how to get consensus around an issue."
These strengths will be helpful in increasing the visibility of the IR program, which has long seen itself as neglected. With a small office on the sixth floor of Cabot, the program went seven months without an assistant for Associate Director John Jenke.
While the IR office benefits from its proximity to the Fletcher School, some at Tufts say it deserves increased space. Romero says she will find a larger, more suitable space, which may require constructing a new building. "Buildings are a big investment and last a long time, but IR does need more space," she said.
The number of IR majors has more than doubled over the past decade, but the program has not seen its budget significantly grow. As the program grew in popularity, Robinson failed to obtain a proportional increase in funding.
Professors also criticized the direction in which Robinson took IR, saying the concentration of the program mirrored the director's own research interests and failed to account for the larger core faculty. "Professor Robinson had her own priorities and followed them," Dapice said. "Maybe Professor Romero will canvas a little more carefully."
Aymer also said that under Robinson, IR focused on political science. "I think that the IR program was strongly political science because that was the research area and academic skill of the director," she said.
Instead of focusing on bureaucratic issues, Robinson undertook three major programs as IR director: a conference on IR and jazz, a small states conference featuring the chief of state of Barbados, and a distance-learning program with two African universities.
Professors say privately that the IR program's priorities too closely mirrored Robinson's African and African-American politics specialty.
This left some professors feeling alienated by the program. IR core faculty come from various departments and many professors focused more energy on their departments at the expense of the IR program, because of the lack of "clear intellectual leadership," said one professor, adding that Robinson's leadership style was "idiosyncratic."
Robinson does not dispute that she followed her research interests, saying that each director brings the program in the direction he or she knows best. "Being director of IR enabled me to do things I wouldn't otherwise have been able to do," said Robinson, who teaches African and African-American politics. "One of my goals of being director was to make Africa more central."
Romero, who does not list making comparative German literature a focus in IR among her priorities, says she will target undergraduate research as an area for growth. "What I want to do is get some more resources for Tufts IR in general," she said. "I want to use this for small IR research scholarships, to offer them small stipends to do research projects."
Robinson implemented structural changes to the IR program that will help Romero institute her goals. When Robinson first took her position, only the director and assistant director decided which courses could count towards the major. Now a standing Curriculum Committee makes the decision.
The small states conference attracted international attention, though was not necessarily well-attended at Tufts. Aymer, the sociology professor, chaired a panel at the small states conference and says it was well-run, attracting undergraduates and professors from many countries.
Beginning with $10,000 for a conference on jazz and IR in 1997, Robinson aggressively sought outside funding for her initiatives instead of for the IR administration. To pay for the small states conference held in the spring of 2000, she raised $80,000 and the administration contributed an additional $10,000.
Her most recent project, the distance learning program, included several trips to the African universities, a joint website, and a curriculum developed between the three schools. For this project alone she has raised $400,000 from the Ford and Carnegie Foundations and the federal government.
"Being director of the IR program was an ideal position to launch this effort," Robinson said. "It was a project that required an awful lot of time."
One University staff member who traveled with Robinson to work on the Uganda and Tanzania program says outsiders hold Robinson in the highest regard. "She's been great for the project," said Steve Cohen, who works in Computing Services and helped Robinson on the distance learning initiative. "If she's doing anything, it's leading by example."
Now, with the new director, faculty and students hope that Romero's background outside of the social sciences will bring diversity to the program and a larger emphasis on culture.
But not all faculty and students are enthusiastic about a stronger emphasis on culture. Some students see it as a softening of the curriculum and fear that her background may lead to a shift away from IR's traditional core.
One professor who teaches IR courses went so far as to say that Romero "doesn't know anything about IR." Romero, who chaired the program when Robinson went on sabbatical in 1997, says she will leave theory to the specialists, emphasizing her focus on administration.
"In terms of theory, I count on my colleagues," Romero said. "I study literature in the social and political context. In the context of my work, I have to deal with the politics of the time."
