The popular Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) program turns 20 this year and the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL), which runs the EPIIC program, plans to celebrate the milestone with events throughout the academic year.
EPIIC Director Sherman Teichman said that the anniversary will serve to review "20 years of EPIIC's inquiry into sovereignty and security, as well as celebrate throughout the University the program's mantra: 'thinking across boundaries, acting across borders.'"
Anniversary plans include outreach to EPIIC alumni as well as making extra efforts toward diversifying EPIIC programming and guest lectures.
There are also two exhibits in the Aidekman Art Gallery honoring EPIIC's anniversary -- Evidence: the Case Against Milosevic, about the former Yugoslav dictator, and Envoys of War, a photography exhibit depicting wars in Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Indonesia East Timor and Iraq.
The EPIIC program was first offered to students in 1985, when Teichman came to the University. It started out as a half-credit course culminating in a one-day symposium and has grown into a much larger class with a widely-lauded four-day colloquium.
This year, close to 60 students were selected, an "extraordinary" group that represents 22 different countries, according to Teichman.
"The imperative for [EPIIC's] growth was intellectual restlessness and a commitment to understand the complexity of globally profound issues in many different frameworks," Teichman said.
Associate Director of EPIIC Heather Barry agrees that it was an "organic process" fueled by "the interest to really share this type of education."
EPIIC students participate in a rigorous course featuring numerous guest lecturers, often the authors of the books and articles that are required reading. Open discussion and debate is a cornerstone of the program.
Each year the EPIIC colloquium members explore an important and timely global issue. In 1988, the year George H.W. Bush ran against Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis, EPIIC's colloquium was "Foreign Policy Imperatives for the Next Presidency." Last year's theme was "Dilemmas of Empires and Nationbuilding: America's Role in the World".
Former EPIIC students rave about their experiences and how it has affected their lives.
Senior Matan Chorev, a student in last year's colloquium, called participating in EPIIC "the best decision I've made as an undergraduate at Tufts, in terms of course selection," he said. "The primary thing I got out of EPIIC is that it helped me pinpoint more accurately, through my readings [for EPIIC], my passion."
Chorev said his passion turned out to be issues involving the Middle East and central Africa. After the colloquium, Teichman got Chorev in touch with a non-governmental organization called Solis which deals with U.S.-Middle East relations.
During his summer internship there, Chorev helped design a curriculum that is now implemented in four universities in the Middle East and four in the United States, including Tufts. Chorev and sophomore Emily Andrews teach the class through the Experimental College in collaboration with the University College of Citizenship and Public Service.
Erica Levine (LA '04) also participated in the colloquium last year. Today she is the program assistant at the IGL, working with all of the Institute's programs, including Inquiry, a nationwide high school program on global issues, and the Tufts Institute for Leadership and International Perspective (TILIP), which is run out of Hong Kong University.
"Being in EPIIC gave me a really good set-up to working here," Levine said.
A former student of Teichman's herself, Barry is inclined to agree. "Over the years we've developed an excellent track record," Barry said. "It's the students, their questions, dedication, and what they do, that determines the quality of what happens."
EPIIC's theme this year's is "Oil and Water," an issue which covers the role of these two important resources in a world where population, industry, and economy are ever expanding.
New EPIIC student and sophomore Rachel Leven finds the topic "really exciting and dynamic."
"It's so all-encompassing," she said. "Not only is it prominent in policy all around the world, these resources are essential to us on the much more basic level of survival."
EPIIC is known in part for bringing important figures to speak on campus. This year the program has already welcomed Steve Coll, the Pulitzer prize-winning managing editor of The Washington Post, who came for four days of lectures on topics such as terrorism, U.S.-Saudi relations, U.S. foreign policy and oil politics.
Consistent with EPIIC's goal of inviting diverse speakers this year, the program also brought physicist David Goodstein to campus yesterday with the help of the physics department.
This year's EPIIC Practitioner/Scholar-in-Residence is Peter Droege, who is a professor at Sydney University in Australia. He is also the leader of United Nations Development Program missions in Africa and the Middle East, as well as being the Asia-Pacific chair of the World Council for Renewable Energy.
Droege is scheduled to lecture on the "Oil and Water" theme throughout September and October.
- Zosia Sztykowski contributed to this article.
