Several graduates of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy are finding their way back to their alma mater, but this time as professors rather than as students.
According to Nathaniel Eberle, director of public relations at Fletcher, former Fletcher students have the potential to excel as professors, in part due to their advantageous familiarity with its academic approach and traditions. "Fletcher has a tendency to hire its graduates because they understand the multidisciplinary approach to what Fletcher teaches," he said.
Most Fletcher graduates spend a period of time away from Tufts -- either in the workforce or at other universities -- before returning to teach. "Graduates go out, make a name," Eberle explained. "Then [they] either want to come back, or Fletcher gets them to come back."
Jenny Aker, a 1997 Fletcher graduate, returned to the school this semester as an adjunct professor, teaching a course on the microeconomics of development.
"I very much wanted to return to a university and school that was a good balance between academia and practical development work. I think that Fletcher provides that balance. ... Students are eager to learn economics but at the same time want to understand how it can be used as a tool to develop and evaluate real world problems," she explained in an e-mail to the Daily from Niger, where she is currently experimenting with using cell phones as platforms for literacy and market information.
Aker, who worked for a non-governmental organization for six years in Africa before returning to the United States to get her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, said that she chose to teach because it provides her with constant stimulation.
"I am inspired by teaching," she said. "I not only learn a lot from students, their questions and their interests, but I hope that I have something to offer by mixing my academic background with my practical development background."
Aker does not believe she has an advantage because of her history at Fletcher. "My time at Fletcher was quite a while ago, from 1995 to 1997, so the school has changed quite a bit," she said. "The students, however, are just as smart and interesting as they were when I was a student there."
Crocker Snow Jr., director of the Edward R. Murrow Center of Public Diplomacy at Fletcher, followed a similar career trajectory, taking time to explore alternatives after graduating from Fletcher. After receiving his master's degree from Fletcher in 1968, he pursued a career in journalism. Snow eventually founded an international newspaper, The WorldPaper, published in 27 countries.
Snow, who had been the first Murrow Fellow to study at Fletcher and had already taught several courses at Fletcher as a visiting professor, said that his return in 2001 went smoothly. "It was a very natural progression," he said.
Brian Ganson, who received his master's degree in law and diplomacy from Fletcher in 1989, currently teaches a course on the processes of international negotiation as an adjunct professor. Although Ganson's career path has taken him as far away from Tufts campus as Texas, where he worked on civil rights issues with Texas Rural Legal Aid, he has always felt bonded to Fletcher.
"In some ways, I've never left," Ganson said. "I've had a strong connection to Fletcher ever since being a student here."
A common theme among returning Fletcher graduates is their strong pride for Fletcher and the educational opportunities it provides. Ganson, in particular, called his Fletcher experience "absolutely fantastic.
"I saw the value of the Fletcher education, even doing something that wasn't directly what the school prepares people for," he said.
Although most people disengage themselves from the school for at least a short time period, Assistant Professor of International Politics Sung-Yoon Lee never left the Hill after obtaining his degrees there in 1994. Lee spent 16 years engaged in various roles at Tufts, including receiving his master's in law and diplomacy and a Ph.D. in international relations, and teaching an undergraduate Korean history course from 2000 to 2005.
Lee, who currently teaches courses about relations between the United States and East Asia and the Korean peninsula, stayed on at Fletcher immediately after receiving his Ph.D. in 1998. He attributes his decision in part to the people there, citing the "tremendous good will on the part of Fletcher professors" as a major reason for his choice not to relocate.
"What better place to teach than at Tufts, at the Fletcher School?" he said.
