FROM THE DESK OF EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MAGGIE DILLON

For 119 years, Princeton in Asia has fostered mutual appreciation and cultural understanding by connecting service-minded graduates and partner organizations in Asia through immersive work experiences that transform perspectives, cultivate long-lasting relationships and benefit local and global communities. For 20 of those years, PiA has been doing so through journalism fellowships. In 1997, Hilary Roxe, the inaugural Media Fellow at PiA, embarked on a two-year fellowship with Time Magazine in Hong Kong. This experience launched a successful career in journalism, international development and education and planted the seed for what would become one of PiA’s most distinctive, immersive and impactful programs: the Roxe Media Fellowships, made possible through the generous support of The Roxe Foundation.

In 1999, Sarah Van Boven and Leila Abboud pioneered posts at Viet Nam News and China Daily, respectively. Moving forward, The Roxe Foundation worked with the legendary PiA Executive Directors Carrie Gordon and Anastasia Vrachnos to grow the program to offer fellow- ships and internships in print, broadcast and digital media, including posts with local news dailies (The Nation, JoongAng Daily and Viet Nam News), western media publications with Asian offices (Time, The Economist Intelligence Unit, and Business Week), a television station (ABS- CBN Broadcasting) and a digital multimedia outlet (Rappler Multimedia). Now, 20 years later, 84 Roxe Media Fellows have cut their journalistic teeth in 10 countries, at 15 media outlets. These fellowships have proved to be amongst PiA’s most valuable and unique, in that they offer the opportunity for authentic cultural immersion while providing rewarding and marketable professional experiences for aspiring journalists. In addition to gaining insight into another culture, many of the Roxe Media Fellows have gone on to accomplished careers in journalism – in fact, nearly half of the Roxe Media fellowships are still working in the field today. The 2017 cohort has hit the field, and we will keep you posted on their adventures!

Our Roxe Media Fellows and alumni find that their experiences in Asia have shaped them in profound ways, and our partners in Asia are grateful that PiA has provided them with access to a pool of talented young journalists whom otherwise they might not have the opportunity to reach or the resources to support. We are grateful to the Roxe Family – Mr. and Mrs. Joseph and Maureen Roxe, Ms. Hilary Roxe (Hong Kong ’97 and PiA Trustee), Mr. Jay Roxe (Singapore ’95) – for making this possible through the support of The Roxe Foundation. We are grateful to our partners for providing our Fellows with these unique opportunities, and we are grateful to our Roxe Media Fellows for their service. We kicked off the celebration of Roxe Fellowships at the annual dinner, where Katherine Zoepf (Viet Nam News ‘00) and Emmanuella Bonga Bikele (Wall Street Journal - Asia ‘16) rocked a packed house with insightful and inspiring keynote speeches. We wish all of you could have been there and hope you will join us now in celebrating 20 years of this impactful program.

With immense gratitude,

Maggie Dillon

If you’d asked me as a child where I wanted to live when I grew up, I can promise you that “suburban New Jersey” wouldn’t have been my first choice. But as I soak up the beauty of autumnal Princeton, I couldn’t be happier with where I am now.

My Princeton in Asia experience - two years teaching at KIMEP University in Almaty, Kazakhstan - emerged out of a fascination with Russia and the former Soviet Union that I had developed ever since I started studying Russian as a middle-schooler. As a Slavic Languages and Literatures major at Princeton, I gorged myself on Dostoevsky (and never care to read another work of his again), wrote a 120-page senior thesis on Russian profanity, and cultivated an interest in minority languages of the former Soviet Union.

My senior year, I was fortunate enough to be offered a position at KIMEP and it didn’t take me long to realize that a year in Kazakhstan was an adventure that excited me far more than the prospect of returning to Russia for a fourth time. Living in Almaty allowed me to use my Russian while also exposing me to an entirely new language and culture. Instead of subsisting only on Russian pelmeni and borscht, I was introduced to Kazakh beshbarmak, Uyghur laghman, and Uzbek plov. I sang along to the Russian songs I already knew and learned new ones by local Kazakh artists.

PiA is one of the best communities I’ve ever been a part of, and the opportunity to transition from being a Fellow to being a Program Director was irresistible. Now managing our posts in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, and six cities in China, I’m eager to explore Asia even further. With every story and picture I receive from my Fellows in the field, I’m reminded how lucky I am to be a part of the PiA team.

- Robin Palmer

For me, it all began after college during my first job. I was working as a coordinator for social services for refugees in Philadelphia. Part of my job was conducting home visits, which gave me an intimate opportunity to learn more about my clients past the bureaucratic X’s and O’s. Trying Bhutanese food, learning a word or two of Burmese, and chatting with the Cambodian and Vietnamese shopkeepers was invigorating and made me realize the world was much bigger than my little slice of the Northeast.

By chance, my Dean of Fellowships and I were chatting and he threw out the idea of PiA and I never looked back! I spent two years in Phnom Penh, Cambodia as a teaching and NGO Fellow. I walked away from my Fellowship with so many memories from that first moto ride, to stumbling upon beautiful pagodas, to eating Khmer pork and rice. Even more meaningful, however, were the relationships I cultivated. From my other co-Fellows to my Khmer coworkers, almost everyone I met crafted my PiA years into a wonderful and impactful experience. With their support, I walked away a more humble, flexible, patient, and empathetic person.

I am thrilled to be back now, because I would not have survived my years of PiA without the patient support of the PiA staff. Southeast Asia always finds a way to humble you, and through every bout of food poisoning, moto accident, and other various twists and turns the staff of PiA were always there. I hope I can emulate the kindness and compassion of the staff that came before me.

I have just returned from my Asia trip, and I can say, without a doubt, that our Fellows are some of the most humble, dedicated, and articulate people I have ever met. I am honored and privileged to be a part of their PiA journey.

- Benjamin Van Son