World Minded Summer 2023: The Art of Democracy

1 FROM THE DIRECTOR

FEATURES

2 In Their Own Words: Barh & Prado

6 NATO Youth Summit explores NextGen freedom & security

8 Freeedom of the press: in theory and in practice

HUMAN RIGHTS & RESPONSIBILITIES

14 One year after Russian invasion, W&M community keeps Ukraine's fight for democracy top of mind

GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

16 Bringing the world to campus

19 Prolific writer and survivor of the Holocaust recounts story of escape and survival

STUDY ABROAD

22 A short program studying human rights in Argentina makes a lasting and tangible impression

CLIMATE CHANGE

27 Climate conference rejuvenates W&M student to hope, take action

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS

17 International Student Achievement Awards

FACULTY RESEARCH & ACHIEVEMENTS

32 Reves and Drapers' Faculty Fellows

35 New in Print

ALUMNA ABROAD

39 Q&A with Valerie Hopkins ‘09

The Reves Center for International Studies advances the internationalization of teaching, learning and research at William & Mary, ensuring an international dimension is present in the university's priorities. Global education, support for international students and scholars, and the enrichment of our global community are at the heart of the Reves Center’s work. Established in 1989, the Reves Center is today one of the premier international centers in higher education.

William & Mary is the number four public university for undergraduate study abroad participation, with more than 55 percent of the university’s undergraduates studying outside the U.S. before graduation. In a typical year, more than 1,200 international students, scholars, and their families from nearly 70 countries come to William & Mary. The Reves global engatement team builds and supports international initiatives across the university.

REVES INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD – SUMMER 2023

Stanley “Butch” Barr ’62

Williamsburg, VA

Jane H. Carpenter-Rock ’92

Upper Marlboro, MD

Susan Corke ‘97

Washington, DC

John Culver ‘80

Silver Spring, MD

John S. Dennis ’78

Switzerland

Scott R. Ebner ’96, Chair Boston, MA

Rodney Faraon

Arlington, VA

Jen Herink ‘95

Bellevue, WA

Valerie Hopkins ‘09

Moscow, Russia

Matthew Lentz ‘96

New York, NY

Thomas C. Lillelund ‘95

Luxembourg

Tom McInerney

Richmond, VA

Bruce W. Pflaum ’75

Lake Oswego, OR

Ian M. Ralby ‘05

Owings Mills, MD

Soh Yeong Roh ‘84

Seoul, Republic of Korea

Aaron Rosenberg ‘99

Washington, DC

Susan Rutherford ’89, Vice Chair

Delray Beach, FL

Maya Sapiurka ‘10

Arlington, VA

Corey D. Shull ’06

Baltimore, MD

Jobila Williams Sy ‘07

Midlothian, VA

Mark Tyndall ‘02

Washington, DC

Nathan Younge

Falls Church, VA

FROM THE DIRECTOR

World Minded Summer 2023 features writers, artists, journalists and scholars. It underscores their ties to the university and points to the university's ties to the public. As staff at William & Mary's Reves Center added the final edits to this edition of the magazine, we came across an article in the New York Times about a university 5000 miles from ours in a country very much in the public eye. The piece, written by Valerie Hopkins '09, records the "bittersweet moment" when graduates of the class of 2023 at Mariupol State University in Kyiv received their diplomas; it speaks to the ways their university offered the graduates a sense of "moving toward something beyond the war." As a foreign correspondent working in Ukraine, Hopkins figures among the W&M alumni whose work in the world is notably influential. This edition of our magazine includes an in-depth Q&A with her.

In Fall 2022 the Reves Center partnered with the Law School's Human Security Law Center for a symposium on Freedom of the Press. The symposium brought together legal scholars, working journalists and media experts of international renown: Tikhon Dzyadko of TV Rain, Russia; American Documentary filmmaker, Rachel Grady; Martin Plaut, former South-African journalist and current senior research fellow at the University of London; Joel Simon, columnist for the Columbia Journalism Review; Haitianborn Carl-Philippe Juste, photojournalist for the Miami Herald; Natalie Southwick, Latin America and Caribbean program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists; and Christopher Tyree, senior director of the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism. They spoke about journalism as an institution and as a cornerstone in the constructive, even hopeful uplifting of democracy.

WORLD MINDED STAFF

A complementary discussion, this time about the university as an uplifting institution, took place at the Reves Center when Amanda Barth, Assistant Dean for MBA Admissions, and Fabricio Prado, Associate Professor of History, joined me to share their ideas about their work. Barth noted that W&M's MBA cohort is 40% global and represents approximately 20 different countries. This means that students learn from each other, that they approach their work from multiple international perspectives every day. Prado's own perspective is that of a Brazilian student who pursued advanced studies in History, first in Argentina and then at Emory University. He now teaches the history of the Atlantic World to W&M students, and he travels with them to Brazil on study abroad. I asked them both to describe the work of the university, including their understanding of the term, global university. For Barth, it's a great equalizer; for Prado, a hot spot of cultural experiences.

As William & Mary becomes increasingly global, so do the ideas presented by faculty and staff like Fabricio Prado and Amanda Barth, by visiting international journalists and scholars, and by alumni working abroad. Is William & Mary a great equalizer, a hot spot of cultural exchange, a cornerstone of democracy? In this edition of World Minded, you may well find answers to these questions-in the account of our partnership with NATO on the 2023 NextGen Freedom and Security Summit; in the article on art, democracy and study abroad in Argentina; and in the memories of a Holocaust survivor whose history is but one degree of separation from Reves' founding story and the ideals we pursue today.

Editor: Kate Hoving, Public Relations Manager, Reves Center for International Studies

Contributing Writers: Dr. Kathryn H. Floyd, Whole of Government Center of Excellence; Ian Harman '26; Nathan Warters, University News & Media; and Jennifer Williams, University News & Media

Teresa Longo

Associate Provost for International Affairs Executive Director, Reves Center for International Studies

A display at the Museo de la Memoria in Rosario, Argentina. (Photo credit: Teresa Longo)

IN THEIR OWN WORDS Amanda Barth & Fabricio Prado

Teresa Longo: Amanda, when I wrote you an e-mail asking if you’d be interested in participating today, you responded, “Good timing! I’m in an airport on my way to London.”

Amanda Barth: Yes, I was on my way to the UK for recruiting and I was in tears because I was so overjoyed to be back out in the global market and traveling for an in-person recruiting event. We are so very fortunate at the Mason School of Business to travel all across the United States and all around the world in search and our talented global MBA students. It was a trying two years [during COVID], trying to operate in a virtual reality. But [fall 2022] we were able to participate in the MBA Tour event in London with over 40 business professionals. We were also able to reconnect with William & Mary alumni in London and to have some small group dinners so it was a really successful recruiting event.

The two featured American universities were William & Mary and Harvard. So it was really special.

One of the main reasons that I’ve remained in this position at William & Mary for so long is that I can’t

imagine another role on campus that would lend be the ability to make such deep and lasting relationships. Fabricio and I were talking about when we first met, and it took literally 30 seconds for us to make the connection that he is Brazilian, and one of my favorite recruiting destinations is South America and Brazil.

So I mentioned right off the bat today that there are two students that I would love to introduce Fabricio to—Juliana Olm Cunha is our associate director for graduate career management and her husband Gustavo Lambert is now working at Capital One, but they are graduates of our MBA program that I met while recruiting in Brazil. Juliana was just getting started with marketing for the Rio Olympics, and when I met her at a function, she said, ‘Amanda I’m a few years away from my MBA but I hope we can develop a relationship.’ And in fact we did. She was able to work another two years towards the Olympic Games, fulfill her obligation, and then the next August she enrolled here at William & Mary. But in the meantime she met her husband Gustavo and she brought him with her. So I was able to benefit

from maintaining a relationship, and now Juliana is serving the graduate community here as a professional on staff. I’m sure we’re going to take this forward as I continue to recruit in South America.

Longo: Fabrizio, before you were a professor you were a student in Brazil, where you’re from, and then you were a student in Argentina, and then Emory University. That’s an interesting trajectory.

Fabrizio Prado: Perhaps meeting new people and establishing connections is at the core of my answer as well. I come from the southernmost part of Brazil, four hours away from the border with Uruguay and Argentina. Eighteen hours away from São Paolo. So, we’re much closer to Argentina, and that meant seeing people with another language, meeting friends in the summer from Argentina and Uruguay. I was always curious about what’s on the other side of the border.

When I started studying history in Brazil, a big thing for me was not just thinking about Brazil and the Portuguese empire. That’s why I did half of my master’s in Argentina. That was my first time having real

L-R: Amanda Barth, Assistant Dean, MBA Admissions; Fabricio Prado, Associate Professor of History; and Teresa Longo

immersion in another language, and realizing that thinking in another language opens a whole new world. It makes us reconsider the basic objects that we know in our daily life. You start seeing how people describe them differently. I fell in love with that feeling. But also I think that learning about different cultures really helped me to understand myself, understand the world, seeing new possibilities in terms of business, politics, culture and music.

When I got back to Brazil, I started teaching, and I realized very soon that I was interested in exposing my students to other cultures. But at that time in Brazil, it was difficult to write the history of a different country. So I began studies in Argentina, and I was introduced to an American professor, who had spent her life working on cross-border interactions in South America. She happened to teach at Emory University. From that connection, suddenly I was a Brazilian studying the history of Uruguay and Argentina in the United States. And eventually here I am at William & Mary teaching my students about the history of Latin America and the Atlantic World.

At a certain point these personal connections—these networks that one builds—take you across a very vast ocean.

It’s easy for us to think about business and history in terms of nations. We think of Brazil’s history, of Mexico’s history, of the United States -- but that gets obfuscated a little bit when we are not as connected to our borders.

The Atlantic World actually is a “space” that goes beyond one specific country. We cannot separate the history of the U.S. from Europe much less from Africa, or because of trade, from China and India. The years of the early republic were so important, as the Atlantic World was breaking away from traditional “boxes” and emphasizing the transnational and trans-imperial connections that

forged our nation—that forged our cultures and economies.

Amanda, you may have a response to some of what I’m saying about the boxes or boundaries that still exist around countries.

Barth: That really is the most important aspect of MBA study in a global environment and a global community. I see that happen with our MBA students every day. We’re about 40% global in the MBA cohort and representing approximately 20 different countries in every incoming class, so our students get the benefit from immersing together and learning from each other every single day in a classroom dynamic, with shared conversations from varying perspectives. Those discussions involve students from Brazil, India, Nigeria and Ghana—all over the world—so we’re a really incredible learning community. So, yes, a lot of positive affirmation for what you are saying, Fabricio, and what you have experienced in your life.

That’s a spectacular part of what I think we’ve been able to do with the business school community. We ensure that we are not a regional MBA program here at William & Mary, but that we are a global presence.

Longo: For these MBA students, is the U.S. the first border they’ve crossed, or have they done something more like what Fabricio did?

Barth: I would say that for the majority of our international students, this is their first global opportunity. Out of the 40 or so students, perhaps 10 to 15 have had other study opportunities, typically within their region where they live. Students are also Fulbright scholars or are students that have had maybe a year of high school abroad or a year of university abroad, but now they’re working professionals who are traveling to the U.S. for the first time really for a full graduate experience. Some of them have limited travel and some of them have said, “You know, I have never been outside of Nigeria, and this is the

first time that I’m even traveling out of my country.” And it’s an incredible experience to welcome them and to work so closely with our partners here at the Reves Center who make that immersion into the U.S. and into our William & Mary community such an easy and successful transition.

Longo: What are some of the jobs they have when they complete their education at William & Mary?

Barth: Thankfully I am able to address a much healthier employment outcome for our global students now. We’ve had some challenges; 75% of American universities experienced a decline in global applications from about 2018 until after the pandemic. But this season we’re now seeing the reopening or the welcoming of U.S. companies to our global talent again—a resurgence of opportunities for our students. We’re seeing internship outcomes and placements at companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and companies like Capital One and JP Morgan are all interested in our MBA talent again. We’re also seeing an ascension of CEO’s who are from global backgrounds. That is very helpful. We’re also looking at new policies for employment visas. William & Mary made the decision to take a few of our MBA specializations and to go after a STEM designation, that is also opening a door of opportunity. If a global MBA works for a STEM company they have the potential to get an extension on a traditionally one-year OPT so they’ll be able to potentially add an additional two years of employment with a company like IBM or Microsoft or Amazon in the STEM space.

At a certain point these personal connections—these networks that one builds—take you across a very vast ocean.

For a while we had to address the value proposition of studying in the States and what they would gain, but now we’re able to show that fuller ROI on their investment is here. And I think we all agree we need top global talent in the country to keep us moving forward to be competitive in a global landscape. We’re really excited about prospects moving forward.

Longo: Fabricio, you took students to Brazil to study with you and gave classes out in the city. We’d like to know more about that.

Prado: I think I’m on the other side, complementing what Amanda’s doing. It’s one of my big pleasures here—actually I was walking here, thinking “What other programs can I think of to do?”

When taking students to a different country, it’s beautiful to see they’re opening their eyes, opening their minds and blossoming. Getting everything they can out of those interactions. You can see that they are really changing the way that they see the world, and it is so rewarding.

Taking students to Brazil was a challenge in some ways, but it was extremely rewarding. Brazil is a huge country. 200+ million inhabitants. A very large and diverse population. So when we got to Rio de Janeiro, a global city of 12 million people, the students felt a little bit overwhelmed in the beginning. Then they started getting acquainted to the neighborhood, the feeling of walking around on the streets of Rio. The sidewalks are crowded. So the students had to figure out where they were going, the space they would occupy on the sidewalk. And with the Olympics, the image of Brazil became more familiar to many Americans, but there still is a lot of fear. The reputation of the city, sometimes, is not as nice as one would wish, but suddenly you see that these students realize that we should not be afraid. Children are playing on the streets; children are playing on the playgrounds. So they started exploring the city on their own, and every day I made a point of trying not to teach inside of a classroom. Before

talking about the founding of the city we went to the Sugarloaf [Mountain]. That’s where the city started. We walked around, and we walked on the historical sites as I was explaining what was happening 400 years ago. We were able to see the areas where the action happened. As we got closer to the present, they were able to talk to people that were actually part of that story. They were able to talk to folks that were entrepreneurs in the favelas--the shantytowns. And instead of thinking about the favelas as something that’s “out there somewhere,” suddenly it’s not “out there." It’s the community we are in. And we are seeing the perspective from here. They are talking to entrepreneurs, to musicians that are living there. So their perspective has changed substantially. I felt that students at the end were showing me things in places that they discovered in the city.

[In study abroad] students get to experience a foreign language in its environment. There is a human connection that includes body language, sometimes a smile, and you could see that that happening with the students. I think at some certain point it happened to me too. Our students are eager to learn and once they have these opportunities, they embrace them. Any fear becomes something of the past, and they were really trying to get everything that they could at the end. I remember that. At the beginning they were saying, “I’m going to have too many weekend trips,” but in the end they were asking, “Can we add some more trips during the week so we can see different spaces, different environments and meet different people?”

And I found it interesting that returning to William & Mary, the students didn’t change their major, but they changed their emphasis. Some of them now are in law school, and they are totally interested in international relations. I had students that were majors in Africana Studies. They were thinking just about the African American experience in the

United States as something isolated. But there is an African diaspora that goes beyond [the U.S.] and some challenges that you’re seeing here happened elsewhere--in this case in Brazil.

That’s what I like about the environment of the university; we are in one place, but it is full of diversity.

Longo: Let’s talk more about the work of the university which you just described. I’m thinking about the term “global university.” What does that mean to you?

Barth: When I think about a "global university," I reflect on the partnerships that we’ve gained in some of the teaching experiments that we’ve tried to undertake. We also take the MBA students on global business immersion, and in those contexts we rely on our global partners. So it might be a university that we partner with. For example Professor Rahtz conducted a study. I believe it was with Eli Lilly, They partnered with Prasetiya Mulya Business School in Jakarta, Indonesia, and also Deakin University in Australia. In a virtual world they all studied a complex problem of introducing a new drug to market in Indonesia in the Southeast Asian market. They all came up with a solution and then met in country in Indonesia. So it was William & Mary and Deakin visiting Prasetiya Mulya, and they were able to come together and then present their findings to Eli Lilly on how they would bring a controversial drug to market in Southeast Asia, specifically into Indonesia which is predominantly Muslim. It was the best example -well there are many great examples –of a learning lab that I had experienced in my tenure of really seeing different perspectives, different teaching styles, and then partnering with a giant global company to produce

We ensure that we are not a regional MBA program, but that we are a global presence.

something that would result in an incountry immersion. The students had an incredible time. Our alumni still say that that was one of their best— not only global learning experiences, but learning experiences in general— in the program

Longo: So when you hear "global university" then, what comes to mind isn’t a single place but these partnerships and collaborations. Fabricio, what do you think of when you hear the term "global university"? Is there an example of a place or a model university?

Prado: I don’t think it’s specific to a place. Perhaps a global university is a place where many cultures, many connections, many roads meet, and from where you can access many places.

I think of a global university as a place that attracts a lot of talent, a lot of people with different experiences and backgrounds, so we always have this inflow of different references and experiences and talents.

But at the same time it is a launching pad, from where we can access different places, learn about different cultures, have different experiences. So for me the global university is a two-way space or hub that serves to connect as a hot spot of cultural experiences and diversity in general.

Barth: I’m from a very small town in Ohio and to think of where I’ve been and what I’ve seen now is sometimes overwhelming for me. One thing that I truly believe, is that education can be a great equalizer. There are times that I don’t think of myself at all as a dean of admissions or a gatekeeper but as an ambassador to the United states in some regard or one person that’s going to enter a student’s life and be a difference maker by helping them to see how education can change their entire world or someone’s world within their network. We have also shared stories with alumni that do reveal that difference that we made in their ability to support their family back in their home country or their ability to stabilize a dynamic. Some of

the stories that students have shared have been incredible.

I’m raising my 6 year old son to understand that there’s a world that’s much bigger than the world that he lives in here in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Prado: As you say, when you travel you see much more, and you can reflect on what you see at home. Being an ambassador is so important, because when we lead a study abroad program, we are opening the eyes and minds of our students to the world. They are seeing and empathizing with people abroad. And it goes beyond the national aspect. It’s not what [the nation of] Brazil is doing; Brazil is full of people. South Africa is full of people. The people are not the same as the government. The people of Russia are not the government of Russia. You can see how imperialism and colonialism fueled with nationalism can cause tragedies. But when we travel, when we see this idea of bringing people to the global university, you can see different perspectives here in your own world and you’re going out into the world where people will see who you are.

A lot of Brazilians were looking at my American students and thinking, “These guys are super wealthy kids.” Not necessarily. They started seeing that ‘these guys’ have similar experiences. So our students are ambassadors not just to show what the U.S. has to offer for the world, but also for the world to understand the U.S., and that we do not necessarily represent the administration or government. And that creates empathy, the idea of a shared human experience. I think crossing bridges is a central part of our mission here and at any university.

Teresa: If you had jobs other than what you what now, what would they be?

Barth: I think I would literally try to be an ambassador to a foreign country. I absolutely love working in a global context and some of the

organizations that we’ve partnered with over the years like Fulbright and Amideast. It is so rewarding to feel that you’re a difference maker, and the human connection is absolutely everything. And so I would welcome an opportunity to represent our country in a global environment and to be a difference maker in that capacity, so I wasn’t entirely kidding. I would love to have that opportunity down the road or to retire and join the Peace Corps. That was my one life regret that I didn’t have the opportunity to join the Peace Corps. understand there’s a fabulous program for retirees in the Peace Corps.

Prado: I think that if I were not a historian, I would continue to be an educator. More and more I value the importance of education at the basic level and also the importance of fostering transnational interactions. I think that if I were not in a department of history I would be in a school of education.

I think of a global university as a place that attracts a lot of talent, a lot of people with different experiences and backgrounds, so we always have this inflow of different references and experiences...

NATO Youth Summit Explores NextGen Freedom & Security

BY KATHRYN H. FLOYD & TERESA LONGO

The NATO Youth Summit, co-hosted by NATO and William & Mary on June 5 in Brussels and Washington, DC, engaged citizens of NATO countries, Sweden, and Ukraine between the ages of 18-35 in a day of transatlantic listening, networking, and cross-generational learning. The Summit created a unique opportunity for those present inperson and online to explore the threats and opportunities facing NATO and its diverse populations and the various ways—through education, public service, and

even simple awareness—they might have an impact.

This “NextGen Freedom & Security” Summit met over 14 hours, starting with a full program in Brussels, a shared experience with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, and transitioning to Washington, D.C. for the second half of the day. Across the Atlantic and beyond, NextGen Freedom & Security drew a large, international audience (400 in person and 3000 registered online) who interacted with NATO representatives, academics, politicians, diplomats, policymakers, human rights activists, security analysts, directors of NGOs, representatives from Microsoft and Google, and professional athletes. Topics and discussions ranged from

leadership in sports to cybersecurity; diplomatic career paths to the ways private sector jobs support public service; climate change to space technology. The panelists and guest speakers represented multiple generations, enabling participants to challenge the world as it has been and is now, and to envision with their contemporaries what could be different—better.

While the Summit addressed head on the Russia's war in Ukraine, topics related to hardware and battlefield tactics were thoughtfully nested within larger themes: sustainable security depends on strong, democratic foundations; security is possible when citizens understand their rights and obligations in a

Panel: Diplomatic Approaches to Security: The Honorable Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, U.S. Department of State; Moderator: Erin Battle ’13, M.Ed. ‘15, Associate Director, Washington Center, William & Mary (Photo credit: Gabe Cancio-Bello)

democratic society, have trust in their institutions, and use tools like data in a way that advances and protects democratic values. And this kind of security and trust cannot be achieved or maintained by artillery, one nation, or even a handful of nations alone. In fact, NATO is more than a collective security arrangement. NATO, and the next generation to lead it, aims to unite nations around common democratic values including active citizen engagement, freedom of speech and information, economic opportunity, and climate sustainability.

NO TRUE PEACE WITHOUT DEMOCRACY

Designed to promote and mirror democratic values in a world of misinformation and disinformation, the NextGen Youth Summit emphasized open dialogue and the value of education. The Summit moved the audience toward a deeper understanding of how NATO works and why it matters. A common refrain centered around building broad, thoughtful, well-informed alliances.

Secretary General Stoltenberg, in his conversation with the youth audience, referenced the Roman maxim, Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum “If You Want

Peace, Prepare for War." And for him, in today’s polarized world, the strongest preparation for peace and for combatting climate insecurity is the strengthening of democracy through strong alliances, collaboration and inclusion.

In her introductory remarks, William & Mary President Katherine A. Rowe linked preparation to education reminding the audience that the “Liberal arts are the skills of freedom.” Later, Provost Peggy Agouris emphasized the role of the university in “…teaching and promoting democracy.” Helping lead the Summit and align NATO’s objectives with university expertise were two pillars of service: the Whole of Government Center of Excellence (WGC) and the Reves Center for International Studies. Respectively, WGC was established as a convening hub on any matters of national security, while Reves is the epicenter best suited to take matters of security and infuse those with cultural considerations, among other strategic points.

The principles of NATO and the vision William & Mary has for education transcend expectations. Tomorrow’s leaders of NATO and the United States will not all wear suits, get degrees in

International Relations, or follow a single playbook. If we are only listening to those voices, then we are missing the incredible voices of those who make the NATO Alliance worth preserving for all time coming—those from Martina Ptáčková, fighter and trainer in hand to hand combat and kickboxing, Adélaïde Charlier, Climate and Social Justice Activist, and Rahmina Paullete, Climate Activist, Fridays for Future International. To be sure, sage advice with frank dialogue is also necessary so we do not forget the lessons of the past. The Summit heard from many over the age of 35, including: General Petr Pavel, (Ret.), President, The Czech Republic; Belgian Holocaust Survivor Baroness Régine Suchowolski–Sluszny; The Honorable Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, U.S. Department of State; and Dr. Colin H. Kahl, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, U.S. Department of Defense, among others.

And this nexus between ages is where the magic of the NATO Youth Summit and its academic partners lies. We tell the story, we provide transformative opportunities for learning about democratic governance, and we educate for impact.

Clockwise from left: "Diplomacy Through Sports: A Conversation With Leaders On & Off the Field": Nadia Nadim, Forward, Racing Louisville Football Club; William Smith ’14, Founder and Executive Director, LEAD Edu; Moderator: Jill Ellis ’88, L.H.D. ’16, National Soccer Hall of Fame; President, San Diego Wave, National Women’s Soccer League (Photo credit: Gabe Cancio-Bello); Dr. Kathryn Floyd (Photo credit: Alan Kotok); "Countering & Deterring Adversarial Threats: Russian Invasion of Ukraine": Elina Beketova, Democracy Fellow, Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA); George Barros '19, Geospatial Intelligence Team Lead & Russia Analyst, Institute for the Study of War; Her Excellency Oksana Markarova, Ambassador of Ukraine to the U.S. (Photo credit: Gabe Cancio-Bello);

Freedom of the Press: In theory and in practice

BY KATE HOVING

T“he working assumption that we're going to be discussing and exploring today is that press freedoms are crucial or foundational to democracy, and that democracy is foundational to human rights. So it doesn't get more important than this.”

Nancy Combs, then-director the Human Security Law Center at William & Mary Law School, made the stakes clear as she opened the symposium the National Security Law Center and the Reves Center for International Studies, in collaboration with the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism Center at WHRO, presented last November.

The symposium, “Press Freedom Under Attack: 21st Century Threats to Journalists and Democracy,” was comprised of three panels, bringing together a documentary filmmaker, working journalists and media experts to discuss their work and the challenges they face, both shared and unique.

“The speakers bring extraordinary breadth and depth to the question of press freedom. We're about to engage in meaningful ways with a keynote speaker who has given voice to opposition leaders and with renowned panelists who have worked in the U.S, Haiti, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia. We will hear about and discuss the challenge to press freedom, and we'll learn more about the ways in which these challenges share certain characteristics,”

Teresa Longo, executive director of the Reves Center, explained in her introduction. “The very presence of so many talented journalists and scholars who are here today, indicates that although the challenges to press freedom and democracy are serious and strong, so too are the courageous responses to those challenges.”

Rachel Sleiman J.D. ‘23 at William & Mary Law School, one of the symposium organizers, introduced the keynote address by Tikhon Dzyadko. His message was blunt.

“If we are speaking about the situation with the press, freedom, and Russia, the simple answer to the question —‘How free is the press in Russia?’—the answer is very simple. There is no press freedom in Russia,” he began. “The more interesting answer will take more time.”

And so Dzyadko put the recent events in some historical context.

“In the ‘90s, there was a real press freedom in Russia. There was democracy. It was not like grown up democracy, but during the nineties we had a lot of attempts to build a democracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and as a part of this democracy we had an attempt to build in the environment for a free press, which can influence the situation in the country, when it’s being listened to by the people in power.”

According to Dzyadko, the change came in 2000 when Vladimir Putin became president.

“Three months before he was elected, no one knew who he was. He was a product of the media, of television, so he perfectly understood that the media could destroy him as easily as they created him. So, one of the first things after he became the President of the Russian Federation, he started to limit the media.”

Poster for documentary used with permission.

KEYNOTE: TIKHON DZYADKO

PANELISTS

Dzyadko is a Russian journalist, television presenter, and Editor-in-Chief of Dozhd TV (also known as TV Rain), which was one of the few independent television news stations in Russia. Through his role at Dozhd TV, Dzyadko has interviewed notable public figures, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny. In March 2022, Dzyadko made

headlines when he suspended Dozhd TV operations after Russia’s media regulator blocked its website for spreading “deliberately false information about the actions of Russian military personnel.” The media regulator’s response was prompted by Dohzd TV’s critical commentary on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Rachel Grady is an award-winning American documentary filmmaker, known for her films Jesus Camp (2006), One of Us (2017), and Love Fraud (2020). Grady’s most recent project, Endangered (2022), details the threats faced by journalists in the United States and around the world.

CARL-PHILIPPE JUSTE

M artin Plaut is a South-African journalist and academic specializing in African conflict. Plaut worked as a BBC News journalist from 1984 to 2012 and currently serves as a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London.

NATALIE SOUTHWICK

Joel Simon is a journalist and regular columnist for Columbia Journalism Review. Simon served as executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) (2006–2021), and during his tenure, CPJ was awarded the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights and the 2018 Chatham House Prize. He has authored two books: The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom (2014) and We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages, and Ransom (2018).

Under the threat of persecution, Haitianborn Carl-Philippe Juste and his politically active family were forced to flee their homeland in 1965, eventually settling in Miami’s Haitian community. Since 1991, he has worked as an awardwinning photojournalist for the Miami Herald. Juste has covered national and international stories for the Herald, including assignments in Haiti, Cuba, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. As part of his ongoing independent in 1998, Juste cofounded Iris Photo Collective.

Natalie Southwick is the Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Prior to joining CPJ as its Americas research associate in 2017, she was based in Bogotá, Colombia, where she was a member of Witness for Peace’s international accompaniment team, a reporting specialist with ACDI/ VOCA’s Afro-Colombian and Indigenous program, and the editor of a website focused on Latin American news. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Chicago Reporter, InSight Crime, and RioOnWatch, among other publications.

Tyree is senior director and co-founder of the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism. For more than 30 years, his cameras and pen have carried him to report on stories on nearly every continent. His award-winning projects have helped shape policy and spur awareness of important issues. His work has been published in hundreds of the world’s leading periodicals and broadcast networks including the BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR and Deutsche Welle.

RACHEL GRADY

JOEL SIMON

MARTIN PLAUT

CHRISTOPHER TYREE

By 2010, Dzyadko pointed out almost all independent media were under control of the government or by companies or businessmen affiliated with the government. And that was the year Dzyadko and his partners established TV Rain, an independent station. “TV was still a very important device for Russian people, but there was nothing to watch on TV, only propaganda and some stupid shows,” he recalls. “So, we decided to create a new TV station with normal values and with a normal attitude to the viewers.”

TV Rain filled a need and was increasingly finding an audience. By 2022 they had around 18 million views in Russia, more than 10 percent of the population. Their website got around five visitors per month, and they had a robust social media presence.

The government never stopped applying pressure on TV Rain, even designating it a foreign agent to try to undermine their credibility, but they were holding their own.

And then Putin started the invasion into Ukraine.

“We were broadcasting 24/7 about the war in Ukraine. We had reporters in Ukraine. We were showing all these terrible images of Russian rockets bombing civilian houses in Ukrainian cities, and of course the government was not happy with this fact, so on the fifth day of the war, Russian lawmakers proposed a new law that is actually two laws,” Dzyadko explained. “The first law is about so-called fake news information about Russian military activities in Ukraine. The second law is about the discreditation of Russian army in Ukraine. For example, if the Russian minister of defense is saying that the Russian army is only attacking military objects and you are reporting that the Russian military is attacking houses of civilians and killing civilians in Ukraine, then you are spreading fake news information about the Russian military, and you are discrediting Russian military in Ukraine.”

Two days after enacting the laws, the government blocked both TV

Rain as well as thousands of other websites.

“We understood that we had two choices. The first choice was to become a part of a news department of the Russian Ministry of defense and to only spread their information about how wonderful activities of the Russian army in Ukraine are and how everything is good. Or the second choice was to continue working as we've been working over these last 12 years and go to jail for up to 15 years. We decided that we need to stop operating, that we need to leave the country and continue working from abroad because it became absolutely impossible to work in Russia.”

Dzyadko and his wife, news director at TV Rain started received threatening phone calls and text messages in Telegram and WhatsApp. They also got a visit from Russian police. He and his family and colleagues were no longer safe.

They left Russia and relaunched the TV station in three locations: Riga, Latvia; Tbilisi, Georgia; and Amsterdam. And they continue their mission to spread independent information for the Russian audience. They’re also reaching a world audience of more than 25 million viewers.

“The path of TV Rain is more or less the path of all the independent media in Russia these days. We know the eagerness of the Russian audience, the Russian people, to get independent and real information about what is happening in Russia and what is happening in Ukraine and what is happening in other parts of the world is very high. It's very big. I think that continuing doing what we—TV Rain and other Russian independent outlets— do is very important for the Russian audience, is very important for peace in Ukraine and very important for the world.”

THREATS AGAINST JOURNALISTS ARE EVERYWHERE

The first panel following Dzyadko’s keynote was organized around the HBO documentary

co-produced and -directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, “Endangered: Journalism in Jeopardy.” Grady as well as Joel Simon and Carl Juste, both featured in the documentary, made up the panel.

She began the discussion by explaining their idea of “endangered” changed during production, which began in 2020. “At its inception it meant ‘They're endangered of being silenced by being jailed or killed or physically threatened.’ But now it means the ability to report the news is endangered because your paper is closed; or because politicians or leadership--people you trust-- are saying that you're a liar, or that you're spreading fake news, or your audience thinks you're lying.”

Juste agreed. “I think the environment in which the press operates is almost like a powder keg. We can't do anything right. The left gets us because we're being not hard enough on the right; and the right doesn't like us.”

As a breaking news reporter for the Miami Herald, he has a unique perspective. “I get to write the first draft on history. At times you get caught in the middle, and it is difficult, but that's where we need to be. We make sense of the information that we're receiving; we deliver that information; and we have a role in how that information is digested.”

If there is a lingering sense of American exceptionalism, that the U.S. is somehow immune from attacks on freedom of information, the documentary and panelists dispelled that notion. The dangers are everywhere.

Juste’s father was a prominent journalist in Haiti, and he saw firsthand attacks of violence and character assassinations against journalists. “I think that is one of the things that echoes in this film over and over and over again--we are warning open societies to be very, very careful, because if we don't read the signs, I don't think we can navigate this intersection that we're going through now.”

FOLLOW THE MONEY: THE ECONOMICS OF A FREE PRESS

On the frontlines, Juste also sees how the business of journalism affects the practice of it. Scarcity of resources can have the almost same end effect as state censorship.

“We're doing far more with so much less. The movie speaks to that, because you see everyone multitasking--I am shooting; I am sending; I am posting.”

The financial limitations devastating local coverage take a even greater toll on international coverage. “Young journalists are taking more and more risks for less and less money, because there is no money in the news industry,” Plaut said. “When I started working on Africa each major British newspaper had three correspondents in Africa, plus one in Cairo; today you're lucky if they have one.”

Chris Tyree agreed and added another angle in what he called financial polarizing, or “the systematic chipping away” at the core of journalism. “The wealthy have control of the information. We see hedge funds chopping down local newspapers. Money is critical. Where does that money come from? And I think that is a huge headwind that the journalism world and societies who favor democracy really need to address. It's certainly critical in the United States.”

The limitations on resources are also the byproduct of marketing strategies.

Joel Simon explained some of the editorial decisions that are the result of financial decisions, using Juste’s employer as an example. He was familiar with the Miami Herald having covered Latin America himself for many years.

“The Miami Herald back in the day played a very particular role because of the community that it served in Miami, and because it had a really significant contribution and commitment to covering Latin America,” explained Simon. “It was one of the leading regional papers covering the region.”

BUT MARKET FORCES HAVE CHANGED

“Now, the Miami Herald doesn't have those kinds of resources. It's not able to do that in the same way. Also, the market for the Miami Herald has changed, and this is true of every local newspaper everywhere in in the world.”

“The objectivity was a marketing strategy,” Simon continued. “You know you wanted everyone in Miami to read it, and so you put the news in A—the section designated as news—and the idea was that, regardless of your perspective and your political views and your politics via the Castro and Cuba, it would be presented as a fair presentation of reality.”

News was clearly news, and it was in the opinion section, “where disagreements were hashed out.”

“But that's broken down in the current climate. We consume news in ways that are fragmented online. What's news and what's opinion are all mixed up and jumbled,” said Simon. “Now if people don't agree with the Herald, they have their own sources of information that they share and reinforce the way they view the world.”

This fragmentation of information has brought us to where we are. “We're in a terrible position in terms of the attacks on journalists in terms of the way we understand and engage with information, in the way we use it to shape the political discourse.”

Media intimidation in all its forms: The view on the ground

Panelists were also able to share first-person reports on what it’s like to be a journalist in war zones and repressive regimes and increasingly in the U.S.

Martin Plaut, who had been covering the war in Tigray, expressed his frustration that although hundreds of thousands of people had died in the war—most of them civilians--because the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments prevented journalists from going to the front the story got inadequate attention around the world. “That's the kind

of challenge there is in in trying to report these things. The people who I have the greatest respect for are not people like myself, who go in, and can come out—I have a European passport—but all the local journalists who sweat their guts out day after day under the most difficult circumstances for a pittance, and who are frequently beaten up or killed. They are the people who are the real bloody heroes in all of this, and they are the people I’ve always relied on.”

Natalie Southwick concurred. “I’m glad that Martin raised the point about local journalists, because that's really what we focus on more than anything else at the Committee to Protect Journalists. The majority of the cases that we document--the cases of journalists who are threatened, confronted with deadly violence, and killed in the course of their work--tend to be local journalists, because they are the ones that are literally knocking on doors. They're the ones that are looking at what the mayor of a small town is doing, that are talking on their radio show about allegations of corruption. And the people who have power in that place know where they live. They know where their children go to school. They have a lot more leverage over them to be able to make those kinds of threats.”

According to Southwick this has been the deadliest year ever for journalists in Mexico and Haiti, and they are seeing more and more journalists victimized by the legal system in Nicaragua and Guatemala.

“We are warning open societies to be very, very careful, because if we don't read the signs, I don't think we can navigate this intersection that we're going through now.”

In spite of the threats, local reporters throughout Central and South America continue reporting on the ground. “These are small community radio stations, a lot of indigenous radio stations and media outlets, many of which are broadcasting in the languages of the communities in which the reporters live and may be the only source of information for that community, especially if folks don't speak Spanish or Portuguese.”

Tyree marveled at the kind of bravery the local reporters show by continuing to try to tell the truth. “I can't even imagine what the journalists must be going through in Nicaragua. The daily waking up, wondering if they're going to jail, if they're going to be shot at. Yet they still risk that because they know deep in their hearts that what they're doing is important-that they believe that every person should have individual freedoms granted to them.”

These local journalists depend on their personal and professional relationships. “They emphasized that the people who are their sources trust you on an individual basis. And so, when you're having that interaction, people aren't necessarily thinking about ‘the media.’ they're thinking, ‘Oh, I know this person. I know who they are. I know that they're going to take my word seriously,’ whether they see you in a market and recognize your voice from being on the radio or they know they went to school with your kid. That kind of level of personal trust and confidence

is vital, especially in scenarios where there is tight state control of the media; where there are potential repercussions for people for not just being journalists, but for speaking to journalists.”

WHO ARE TODAY’S JOURNALISTS ?

This notion of the difference in trust of the individual journalist versus ‘the media’ is a growing problem and a concern for anyone working in journalism. What is journalism? Who qualifies as a journalist? Does it even matter?

The outlet doesn’t necessarily make the difference. “I know many of us have moved away from Facebook [in the U.S.], but there's still a very big market in a lot of places,” Southwick noted.

“We've run into cases of journalists who have been arrested, and authorities say, ‘Oh, well, they're not a journalist.’ So is it the mode of distribution that determines whether one is a journalist?

Although Juste works at a newspaper, he understands the need to find the most effective ways "to tell people's stories and narratives and speak truth to power.”

“We're not in the 1950s anymore. We need to meet people where they are, and that means it is via Twitter. It is via Facebook. It is via a website. Or if it's a hard cover, or if it's a broadsheet, we need to meet people where they are, because if we create a vacuum, then the things that come and fill up that space may not be in our best interests as a democracy.”

And he knows that this will constantly evolve. “The way we present information will change. I don't know what's it’s going to be fifty years from now, but I do know that whatever journalism becomes, the first amendment, the freedom of the press, to me is the foundation.”

DOES OBJECTIVITY REQUIRE NEUTRALITY?

In addition to finding the best method of communication, the panelists all agreed there can be a struggle to reach an audience. And as much as there’s a need to establish

trust with sources, there is an ever growing need to establish trust and credibility with that audience. And part of the discussion dealt with whether of not having an opinion or point of view takes away from the journalist’s voice.

Right off the bat, Grady wanted to make clear that, “What I do is not journalism. I decided not to be a journalist. I went to school for it, but I didn't want to follow those rules, and documentaries, I think, are different.”

But Simon disagreed with her definition. “You may not consider yourself a journalist, but I consider you one, and if I were still at CPJ, I would, because you have a point of view. I started out because I wanted to cover human rights violations of Latin America and expose them. And that was what motivated me.”

He continued: “I’m committed to the facts, but I've always had a point of view. I don't think that disqualifies you in any way. This isn't supposed to be a commercial for the documentary, but it really lets the voices of the people chronicling shine through, and there's a certain inherent respect for those voices and a willingness to listen that Rachel and her co-director Heidi are asking the audience to engage with and challenge in the audience.”

Chris Tyree, who currently works in Virginia, described what he sees as his role. “Our job as journalists is to give citizens the information they need, so that they can make informed decisions about the way they live their lives. And they're going to perceive some of that news differently, obviously.” What troubles him is seeing increasingly in the U.S. the kind of press stifling that he has seen in other countries he’s worked in, like Sudan. “We see very powerful people in charge of media use that as a weapon to demonize the legitimate work of journalism.”

His concern is reaching an audience and getting their trust. “How do I get to the people who can view my work on the platform? And how do I get them to understand that what I’m sharing with them

We see very powerful people in charge of media use that as a weapon to demonize the legitimate work of journalism .

is trustworthy, when they've been bombarded for almost two decades [with accusations] that I’m an enemy.”

For Tyree, establishing that credibility means constant outreach into the community he serves, “being a little more vociferous in my community, going into the different areas around my state and letting them know that I am a journalist, and that what I’m doing is really for them. I'll give them the information. I'll show them how I got that information, and they can make their own determination. But when we have oppressive regimes, it makes that so much harder.”

DUTY TO AUDIENCE

Southwick added another element to the search for credibility. “It’s also a question of within a particular society, whose voices do we respect? Who does the audience look to as an authority figure and source of information? And perhaps also as important as whom the audience looks to, is whom does the journalist serve?”

In recounting an incident when he was reporting a story on radio for the BBC, Plaut explained that even when he and his bosses disagreed, he felt he had to tell the full story. “You have to make a decision. Who are you really serving? Are you serving the organization, or are you serving your audience? And my view was always the same. My first duty is to my audience.”

But putting the audience first is becoming increasingly difficult. In part, because journalists are not always viewed as sources of the truth. Delegitimizing journalism, as Southwick points us, “allows authority figures, both authoritarians and others, to consolidate control over information and to consolidate control over reality. They get to define the narrative, and so that serves them.”

Simon explained, “What I never thought would happen is governments and political forces that have always sought to influence the information space

are out-competing the media for eyeballs because they present news and information in a way that resonates with their audiences. Journalists are just considered one more actor in the information space that are constantly being attacked and besieged by forces using information strategies to undermine their work.”

Journalism as the cornerstone of democracy

“I don't think we can overstate that enough: the ability to make an informed decision is the building block of being an active citizen and participating in democratic society,” said Southwick. “It’s structured around people being able to bring in their own points of view and to participate. When you don't have accurate information, when you can't rely on the information that's coming to you in order to make a decision about yourself, your political choices, and your life, it removes that opportunity for you to participate in a democratic process.”

Southwick added, “I think people don't always make the connection. ‘Oh, journalists, they're reporting, and that's great. I can read their articles,’ but they’re not really thinking through what that information stream looks like, and what that enables [the reporting]. For instance, both autocratic regimes and plenty of nominally democratic governments are restricting access to information and online spaces, which is, increasingly a way to kind of exert control.“

And with such a fundamental role in a democratic society, the question then arises, should it be so vulnerable to market forces or in the hands of the wealthy?

Grady is clear on her opinion. “I think [journalism] needs to be looked at like a social service at this point more than just a money maker. I think there have to be different kinds of revenue models.”

“I’m thinking about this as a more systemic kind of challenge,” agrees Simon. “And the way that Rachel frames it is exactly right, which is that journalism is a civic

institution, and we need to make sure that people everywhere in the world have access to the essential information that they need to make informed decisions and demand accountability.”

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Interestingly, although journalists often see and recount some of the worst aspects of the human condition, a consistent theme throughout the symposium was a sense of hope and belief in what they are doing. Even, though as Juste acknowledges, it’s not something they have control over. “We cannot fight it alone. This is not a press issue. This is a society issue.”

Simon explained that he sees hopefulness as an inherent quality of a journalist. “You have to believe in the ability of people to in a fundamental way engage with information, and to use that information to shape their own society. So that's a fundamentally optimistic exercise, and you can't do what Carl does every day if you don't believe that.”

Although he was not on the last panel of the day, Juste’s closing remarks summed up eloquently the hope and spirit of the symposium:

“I don't want to be pessimistic, because, as a journalist, I’m trying to make ice in hell sometimes. I do it every day. I get up, put the paper together, get stuff on the web. So many things go wrong, and you try to make a bad situation a little bit better. This is a battle we can win. It really is. But we all have to be brave, and we cannot sit on some past template.

“I know the power of a candle when things are dark. Trust me. This film was a candle in a very dark time globally, personally and in my community, and I will hold that candle up and protect that flame as long as I can.

"So I’m not pessimistic. I’m actually very optimistic. I just need more candles in that room."

One year after Russian invasion, W&M community keeps Ukraine's fight for democracy top of mind

BY NATHAN WARTERS

On Feb. 15, William & Mary’s Russian and Post-Soviet Studies (RPSS) Program hosted students for a screening of “Atlantis,” a 2019 Ukrainian dystopian movie about life after war that was filmed predominantly in Mariupol, Ukraine, from January to March 2018.

Russian and Film Studies Professor Alexander Prokhorov was struck by the silence of the students afterward.

“They were so shocked by what they saw,” he said.

“It’s set in the year 2025 when Ukraine will defeat Russia and the victory will be accomplished,” Prokhorov continued. “The film also deals with a particular kind of damage, a psychological damage that this war caused.

“But what was shown in this 2019 film, which won an award at the Venice Film Festival, is the Ukrainian city of Mariupol and its steel mills, places that are by now completely destroyed. They don’t even exist, so this quite nightmarish dystopian scifi film doesn’t even depict the scale of crimes that the Russian army actually committed there.”

Feb. 24 marks the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine. Prokhorov, his fellow RPSS faculty and members of the W&M community continue to make efforts to keep Ukraine’s fight for democracy top of mind.

That includes events like the “Atlantis” film screening and last spring’s Tepper Lecture Series that brought leading experts to the university to discuss the war in Ukraine. The series received funding from The Gregory Tepper Lecture Fund and is also co-sponsored by the

history department and the Reves Center for International Studies.

Other departments also hosted events, such as the March 1 lecture “Ukraine’s Unnamed War: Before the Russian Invasion of 2022.”

“The war began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea. I want to emphasize this so it’s 100% clear,” Prokhorov said. “Many people think that the war began a year ago, but this crime has been happening for nine years.

“We shouldn’t forget that it’s happening. Every day, hundreds of people are dying. We need to provide as much help as possible to the Ukrainian army and people at this point.”

SUPPORT FOR UKRAINE

Some at the university have established ways to honor Ukraine, such as the 12-inch blue and yellow ribbons attached to safety pins that

Feb. 24 marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine. The W&M community continues to make efforts to keep Ukraine’s fight for democracy top of mind. Stephen Salpukas

Senior Lecturer of Russian Language & Culture Bella Ginzbursky-Blum has distributed to students and faculty at various events.

“It is understandably difficult for everyone around the world to still think about Ukraine when every day there’s a new tragedy, like the horrible earthquake in Turkey and Syria. It is difficult to keep paying attention to a distant war,” said Ginzbursky-Blum, director of W&M’s Domestic Project GO program for 2023. “That’s why I want to distribute the ribbons. I want to remind those around me that Ukraine is fighting for its survival, and I want to ask those around me to show support for Ukraine.”

With the help of Assistant Director of the Studio for Teaching & Learning Innovation Mike Blum, GinzburskyBlum and Russian Studies Program Director Elena Prokhorova, Alexander Prokhorov created a GoFundMe fundraiser for a nongovernmental organization in Krakow, Poland, whose main mission is to help refugees driven out of Ukraine.

The fundraiser collected $3,500 in one week, and Alexander Prokhorov presented the funds – as well as other items, including power banks and phone headsets and toys for children –to an NGO called Salam Lab that helps Ukrainian refugees find housing and supports a multitude of educational programs.

Alexander Prokhorov and his daughter Dasha Prokhorova, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, visited Krakow for 10 days in January to volunteer their time and deliver goods and funds to Salam Lab and another NGO called Soup for Ukraine that provides food for refugees.

At Salam Lab, Alexander Prokhorov helped run a workshop for refugees seeking educational opportunities in the United States.

At Soup for Ukraine, Alexander Prokhorov and his daughter worked with Polish natives and a group of international volunteers from Japan,

China and Italy to cook food, unload trucks and purchase supplies. They also distributed free soup and bread every day, and they made vegetable plates that were given out for free to 100 families per day.

Co-founded by a local restauranteur and event planner, Soup for Ukraine also sends food to orphanages in Lviv, Ukraine.

BARBARIC ATTACKS

The impact of the Russian invasion has been felt by many, including the scores of Ukrainian refugees who crossed the border into Poland. Alexander Prokhorov said he met a family from Kyiv that fled last March because the apartment building next to theirs was struck by a missile, and the explosion from the impact blew out the windows of their home.

“We couldn’t imagine that this would be happening in the present day,” he said. “It’s like an experience from World War II with the kind of barbaric attacks on civilians who obviously are completely innocent people.”

Physical stress is only part of the impact of this war, he added.

“It’s terrible. It’s an ongoing war crime,” he said. “You’re scarred for the rest of your life.”

When asked to reflect on the last year following the start of Russia’s invasion, Alexander Prokhorov said, “I grew up in Russia, and I feel guilty of all the crimes that have been committed by Russia in Ukraine, and I think it’s shared by my wife and me and my daughter, who has been studying Ukrainian academically for several years already.

“So there’s guilt and at the same time admiration for the Ukrainian people who keep on fighting. We just try to spread the word about their courage.”

Prokhorov said that at stake in this war is not only Ukraine’s independence but the fate of democracy throughout the world.

“When I think about Ukraine, I’m really optimistic in a sense that I know it’s a terribly tragic event, the war, but the fact that Ukrainians stood up against Russian imperialism is a very important moment, and their success really is inspiring,” he said.

William & Mary Russian and Film Studies Professor Alexander Prokhorov, left, and his daughter Dasha volunteered at an NGO in Krakow, Poland, called Soup For Ukraine that provides free food for Ukrainian refugees.

(Courtesy photo)

BRINGING THE WORLD TO W&M

Each year the Reves Center hosts a variety of events and lectures. Videos of many of the talks are archived at the Reves Youtube channel, youtube/wmrevescenter.

2023 McSwain-Walker Lecture

The annual McSwain-Walker lecture brings renowned scholars, artists, analysts and other notable public figures to William & Mary to speak on topics related to how other countries and cultures interact with the United States, and how the United States interacts with them.

Jessica Nabongo: "Intentional Travel: How Education, Empathy and Confidence will Help You Create the Life You Want to Live"

Jessica Nabongo is a writer, photographer, entrepreneur, travel expert, influencer and public speaker.

She completed her journey as the first Black woman on record to travel to all 195 U.N.recognized countries of the world in October of 2019. A first-generation American, Nabongo was born and raised in Detroit by Ugandan parents. She attended St. John’s University in New York where she earned a degree in English Literature, later completing a graduate degree in Development Studies at the London School of Economics. She uses her blog, “The Catch Me If You Can,” to share her travel adventures and build a global community. She is also the founder of the lifestyle brand The Catch.

In the National Geographic travelogue, “The Catch Me If You Can: One Woman’s Journey to Every Country in the World,” Nabongo describes her journey around the world, highlighting 100 countries with fascinating stories of adventure, culture, travel musts and human connections.

Nabongo is committed to increasing cultural awareness and encourages people to think positively about other countries and the world at large, so that we do not miss out on opportunities to have amazing experiences with our neighbors.

“I hope what other Black people see from my story is that you should feel comfortable traveling anywhere you want to go. My journey is about showing everyone, not just Black women and men, that your dreams are achievable.”

Jody Allen, Assistant Professor of History and Robert Francis Engs Director of The Lemon Project conducted a private tour of The Hearth for Nabongo. (Photo by Kate Hoving)

2023 George Tayloe Ross Lecture on International Peace

The annual George Tayloe Ross Address on International Peace was established to promote peace by exploring and investigating topics of current interest that affect relations among nations, ranging from international political matters to environmental questions..

Monica Ruiz: "The Importance of Multistakeholder Digital Diplomacy"

Monica M. Ruiz is Senior Government Affairs Manager, Digital Diplomacy. She focuses on efforts to promote stability in cyberspace and advance trust, security and human rights in this domain. Prior to joining Microsoft, Monica was the Program Fellow for the Cyber Initiative and Special Projects at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Earlier in her career, she was the first recipient of the U.S. Boren Fellowship to travel to Estonia where her research focused on cybersecurity policy and strategy. Born in Ecuador and raised in Miami, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Florida International University and a master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

7 th Annual Diversity & Inclusion Symposium

A workshop co-sponsored with the Office of Diversity & Inclusion

Mona Minkara: "Uncapping Your Potential - The Power of Diversity"

Dr. Mona Minkara, a blind assistant professor of Bioengineering at Northeastern University, advocate, and travel vlogger, lives by the maxim that vision is more than sight. As a computational chemist, Mona’s research explores pulmonary surfactants, which is a substance composed of lipids and proteins on the air/ liquid interface of the lungs. Mona’s journey to science was unconventional. Raised in the Boston area with her two siblings by Lebanese immigrant parents, Mona was diagnosed with macular degeneration and conerod dystrophy at age seven. After pushing through the public school system, Mona ultimately obtained her undergraduate degree at Wellesley College, her doctoral degree in chemistry at the University of Florida, and held a postdoctoral position at the University of Minnesota for four years before coming home to Boston as a faculty member at Northeastern University.

At Northeastern, Mona’s COMBINE (Computational Modeling for BioInterface Engineering) Laboratory utilizes computational chemistry to study interactions that occur at biological interfaces. As a professor, Mona is deeply passionate about making scientific materials

accessible to blind and low-vision individuals, especially students. Mona is involved with a number of organizations and committees, including the Chemists with Disabilities division of the American Chemical Society, Writing Science in Braille, and her own initiative, Blind Stem Curriculum. To further her goal of bringing awareness to low-vision independent travelers and thinkers, Mona documents her adventures globe-trotting the world using public transportation in her travel-vlogging YouTube series, "Planes, Trains, and Canes."

Partnership with the Charles Center & Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Lectures and visits to campus by working journalists are funded by the Sharp Seminar, an initiative at the Charles Center established with a generous gift from Anne and Barry Sharp. The Reves Center cosponsored talks with an international focus.

James Whitlow Delano: "Telling the Story of the Global Climate Crisis"

Photographer and documentary storyteller James Whitlow Delano has made Tokyo his home for over two decades while pursuing his passion for the environment, human rights, and indigenous cultures. Delano is a grantee at the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, and his award-winning work has been featured in numerous publications including National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, Time, The New Yorker, and Foreign Policy.

Happyland is a community with crushing poverty. The plastic recycling business offers some opportunity in a community where there is not much of a chance to lift themselves up economically. Tondo, Manila, Philippines.

Sophie Neiman: "'They Don't Want Our Work To Continue': Activists In Uganda's Contentious Oil Region"

Independent reporter and photojournalist, covering politics, conflict and human rights in east and central Africa, Nieman is currently based in Kampala, Uganda, and has reported from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo She frequently writes for World Politics Review and her work has appeared in African Arguments, The Christian Science Monitor, Mail & Guardian, The New Humanitarian, The New York Review of Books and the Thomson Reuters Foundation, among others. Neiman holds a master’s degree in African Studies from the University of Cambridge and is a grantee of the Pulitzer Center.

© James Whitlow Delano

Photo by Sophie Neiman

Young girl who wanted to show off her puppy in Happyland.

Prolific writer and survivor of the Holocaust recounts story of escape and survival

BY IAN HARMAN '26 Originally appeared in THE FLAT HAT

Friday, March 3, the Reves Center at William & Mary hosted Erika Fabian, an 83 year-old Hungarianborn author, actress and singer, to discuss her experience surviving the Holocaust and the communist regime under Joseph Stalin in a talk titled “Surviving Hitler and Stalin: One Woman’s Account.” This event took place as part of the Ampersand International Arts Festival.

“She models in this way much that William & Mary is and aspires to be,” executive director of the Reves Center Dr. Teresa Longo said. “Her CV is beyond impressive. She has worked as an educator at UCLA, the Actors Lab in San Francisco and the University of Mexico in Mexico City. She has been an actress and a mime. She is a speaker at the Holocaust Museum, L.A.”

Fabian has also spent a large portion of her life producing books and articles. As the Reves Center’s first Artist in Residence, Fabian sought to tell attendants about her story of struggle, escape and survival in 20th-century Hungary.

Giorgianna Heiko ’25 attended Fabian’s talk and shared the impact her story had on her.

“Erika Fabian’s detailed account of her traumatic childhood during WWII, during the reign of Nazi terror made the holocaust feel more real to me than ever,” Heiko said in an email to The Flat Hat. “I felt a sense of my own mortality. How lucky I am as a Jew today to not have to experience such atrocity."

Fabian began her story in chronological order, starting with her earliest memories from World War II era Hungary. She recalled first being

forced to move apartments at the age of 4 after Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Hungary. Fabian spent much of her childhood having to hide her Jewish-Hungarian identity in order to survive.

“We had to move from the big, beautiful apartment where we lived to another place, a much smaller apartment, which had a big yellow star on it,” Fabian said.

After Fabian’s family was evicted from their apartment, she, her mother and her 7-year-old sister sought refuge in safe houses throughout the city of Budapest. Fabian’s father was recruited into forced labor by the Hungarian regime and detained in a concentration camp, where he was held until his death. Fabian spent much of her youth in hiding, moving between safe houses and hospitals to avoid Nazi persecution.

Undated photo of Erika Fabian (L) with her sister, Judith, and her mother, Piroska. Courtesy photo.

“Some people, when they grow up, they forget their childhood memories. I have a good recollection of the terrible things that happened to me,” Fabian said.

Fabian told attendants of the time she and her sister, Judith, were rescued by a Jewish man who was disguised as a Nazi officer. Fabian and Judith had been collected alongside other children from the Red Cross Hospital, but with the help of their mother, Piroska, they were able to escape.

“The Nazi officer who came to get us was actually a Jewish doctor dressed as a Nazi officer,” Fabian said.

Fabian also repeatedly emphasized the strength of her mother and sister throughout her story. Specifically, she recounted how she found comfort in her sister’s words when they were forcibly taken from the hospital by Schutzstaffel or Protection Squad Officers. Fabian also reiterated the tremendous lengths her mother went to in order to ensure the safety of her children.

Fabian and her mother and sister spent the remainder of World War II disguised as Christians in Hungary with false papers. She noted that during this time, roughly 80% of her family died while being held in concentration camps.

After World War II ended, Stalin’s regime swiftly began in Hungary. As Fabian grew up, she continued to experience the unspeakable hardships of living under an authoritarian regime. Religious persecution, poor living conditions and constant suspicion surrounded her later childhood and adolescence.

“I was writing about this in my current book, which is called ‘Liars’ Paradise,’ because everybody in Hungary was lying to everybody about everything,” Fabian said. “Living under communism, you could never tell the truth of how you really felt.”

At the height of communist rule, Fabian and her family then began their quest to escape Hungary and

flee westward. After her mother met a human smuggler in Hungary, the family managed to escape to Slovakia in hopes of crossing over into Austria. The journey to Slovakia was not easy. Fabian recalled many of the most frightening incidents in her experience.

“This is a very vivid memory,”

said: “I, and my two daughters, Erika and Judith, are in Bratislava. We need your help. Would you help us?” Since Piroska did not have Frank’s address, she addressed the card to “Ferenc Shatz, Journalist, Prague.” Shatz recognized Piroska’s name and tracked down the location, realizing that the women were being held in

Fabian said. “We saw Hungarian soldiers walk halfway down the bridge, Slovak soldiers halfway down the other half of the bridge, and we were sitting, practically under them, on the banks of the river.”

While crossing into Austria from Slovakia alongside other individuals in an attempt to escape communist rule, Fabian and her mother and sister were arrested and taken into custody. While her mother and sister were held in the Bratislava Central Prison, Fabian was taken to a separate juvenile institution due to her young age.

During this period of incarceration, Fabian and her mother and sister were forced to lie about where they were going and who had helped them, and were interrogated for hours on end, blindfolded and numerous intimidation tactics.

Despite the circumstances, the strength of the family kept them motivated. After over six months in jail, Fabian’s mother managed to send for help to Fabian’s uncle, Frank Shatz, in Prague. The card, which was written in Hungarian,

Bratislava’s Central Prison.

Shatz was a well-known journalist in the Czech Republic, and upon receiving word from Fabian’s mother, came to rescue Fabian and her sister from Bratislava, Slovakia. He took the girls back to Prague, where they attended school while their mother stayed behind in prison. Shatz was able to secure food rations for Piroska but was unable to free her.

One year after their escape, they were requisitioned by Hungary to be returned there. Fabian and her sister returned to Bratislava Central Prison alongside their mother.

They went back to Hungary in January 1954 but having spent a year in captivity in Czechoslovakia, were released without further sentencing and they resumed their lives in Hungary.

The Hungarian revolution broke out on October 23, 1956.

“Within two months, my mother, my sister and I were in the car of a Russian general’s driver and soldier, pretending to be going to a wedding at the border,” Fabian said.

Photo of Erika Fabian and her sister Judith. (Courtesy photo).

The family was dropped off at a safe location on the Austrian border. After sneaking to the border through a snowstorm and wading through a field of mud, the Fabian family made it to Vienna, where they stayed for approximately a month.

After communicating with family members in the United States, they decided to leave Europe. On Christmas eve of 1956, the Fabians flew to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey and started their new life in America.

“What stuck out most was perhaps how many times she escaped death,” Heiko said about the talk. “It made me consider all the other people who died in the holocaust, like Erica’s father, and how they may have escaped death once, twice, even three times, but perhaps it was the fourth time that is the reason they are not here to tell their stories like Erica Fabian. It also stuck out to me how aware she and her sister were of the situation. They were just two kids who knew their lives, because of their Jewish Ancestry, were at stake.”

Fabian’s story is unique view of two tragedies that affected millions. Fabian has faced tremendous losses, including the loss of her sister and mother to suicide shortly after their arrival in America.

Fabian continues to tell her story beyond the Reves Center through her work as an author. Fabian’s soonto-be released current book, “Liars’ Paradise,” is an autobiographical novel centering on love and survival during Nazi occupation and Hungarian communist dictatorship.

After twenty-six books, decades of photojournalism and an extensive resume outlining her experience in academia, Fabian continues to inform the world of the story of her struggle and her success.

Ninety-seven-year-old Shatz sat in the front-row at this event, listening closely to Fabian’s talk. Shatz came to the United States in 1958 with his wife, Jaroslava. He began writing for the Virginia Gazette as an international affairs columnist and was instrumental in the creation of the Reves Center. Shatz and Fabian were reunited in 2018 for the first time in nearly 60 years.

“Our work involves bringing an entirely different international dimension to every important thing that William & Mary does,” said Dr. Longo.

Yaldaa Al-Ani '23, Erika Fabian and Frank Shatz after Fabian's talk at the Reves Center. (Photo credit: Kate Hoving).

Shiyanna McLeod '23 and Jiachen Wang '23 with a guide at the Museum and Site of Memory ESMA

(Photo credit: Teresa Longo)

A short program studying human rights in Argentina makes a lasting and tangible impression

BY KATE HOVING

Silvia Tandeciarz, ViceDean for Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies and Chancellor

Professor

of

Hispanic

Studies,

has been taking William & Mary students to La Plata, Argentina, on summer and semester study abroad and internship programs for more than 20 years. The program focuses on human rights, and to Tandeciarz, a native Argentinian, the programs are very much relevant to current and future generations. “Argentina’s last dictatorship and the transitional justice process that followed was instrumental not only in shaping Argentina’s contemporary sociopolitical landscape but also in signaling to the world the kind of accountability that could be possible in post-conflict settings.

Argentina’s “Dirty War,” its 30,0000 disappeared, and its stolen children (said to have inspired Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale) are well known across the world, and so are the human rights movements that followed.”

The longevity, quality and successful outcomes of the programs she credits to the longstanding partnership William & Mary has with the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria (CPM), an NGO that focuses on issues of human rights.

“The Memory Commission (CPM) was founded to promote democracy and human rights in the wake of

Argentina’s last, brutal dictatorship (1976-1983), and its president is 1980 Nobel Peace Laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel,” Tandeciarz explains. “In developing our study abroad program, we intentionally built it around interdisciplinary approaches to human rights. Because of the CPM’s internationally recognized profile, their affiliation with the National University of La Plata, and their deep and long-standing engagement with human rights work in the field (visa-vis both the past and the present), our students are given exceptional access to sites, organizations, scholars, activists and human rights professionals and gain first-hand experience working alongside practitioners in a focused, issuesdriven program. It’s really very special and transformative for our students.”

The strong connection with CPM has enabled the flexibility to make variations and enhancements of the programs over the years, and the most recent adjustment has been to create a two-week winter program, which began in January 2022.

ADAPTING THE LA PLATA EXPERIENCE FOR WINTER TERM

William & Mary’s longer winter term has enabled the Reves Center to design and offer study abroad programs that are shorter in length and less costly than summer or semester programs. Winter programs appeal to students who might not otherwise consider study abroad, such as those in STEM majors or with low foreign language proficiency.

But these same aspects—shorter duration and varied student backgrounds—require some substantial

adjustments to curriculum, living arrangements and expectations.

“I’d say that if the semester program is the equivalent of a feature lengthfilm, the winter program is a song or a poem,” Tandeciarz says. “Most of the key components are there; but they are put together in a way that helps students make sense of a very intense experience with the guidance and help of the faculty director. When students go to Argentina for the semester program, they are immersing themselves in a foreign language and culture, living with host families, and making decisions based on their own interests, how and where to invest their time and attention: they choose which courses to pursue at the National University, how to structure their free time, what internship area they want to dive into. The semester program requires strong (intermediate) Spanish language skills because the students are fully immersed in Spanish language instruction and engage in internships related to human rights.”

In the winter program students are housed together in a hotel. They have fewer opportunities to develop and deepen their own relationships with locals, simply by virtue of time limits and the intensity of the program schedule; and they have less free time, generally. Making the experience equally meaningful just requires a little more ingenuity.

Take the level of language ability, for instance. “In conversation with the CPM, we brainstormed ways to make the kind of experience offered in the semester program available to more students,” Tandeciarz recounts. “The key was to be able to offer simultaneous

interpretation for all activities. The CPM was able to identify an amazing team of interpreters and purchased the necessary equipment to make this short, intensive program possible. Faculty leadership means that all debriefs, reflections, and impromptu lectures can happen in English.”

Accommodating less fluency in country does not take away from required preparation. Students engage in pre-departure sessions to acquire a basic understanding of Argentine culture and the recent Argentine history that shapes today’s human rights landscape.

“They arrive in Argentina and hit the ground running: they learn more about the work of the CPM, visit sites of memory, engage in hands-on workshops, and meet with individuals and groups to talk about past and ongoing abuses as well as strategies of resistance.”

And despite the shorter time frame, students meet and talk with a wide range of Argentinians. “They speak with survivors of the dictatorship, Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo seeking their missing children and grandchildren, veterans of the Malvinas/Falklands war, current victims of state violence, and a very broad spectrum of activist groups organizing for rights.”

ON THE GROUND FOR THE SECOND WINTER PROGRAM

In January 2023, Tandeciarz led the second cohort of the new winter program, and Teresa Longo joined her as co-director. Longo is Associate Provost for International Affairs, Executive Director of the Reves Center as well as a professor of Hispanic Studies. Although she has been involved in behind-the-scenes administrative work for the program in her various roles over the years, it was Longo’s first time as co-director of the program and her first time in Argentina.

Twenty William & Mary students participated, representing a wide variety of majors and ages: students preparing to graduate, writing honor’s

theses, and studying for the LSAT, and students just beginning and defining their academic journeys. A few were international students. To Longo, their perspective was crucial. “When we were in group discussions, we talked about Argentina but also about the U.S. and the countries the students came from, so the conversations had a truly global dimension.”

She describes the entire experience as “very hands-on” learning. “People with expertise talked and students listened before any conversations. They heard from faculty with Ph.D.’s and from people who had been detained during dictatorships--it was lived and scholarly experience combined.” And another benefit of a long-term collaboration: “We wouldn’t have this kind of access and experiences without this partnership with CPM.”

Longo has managed study abroad programs before, so she had a sense of what was in store for the students as well as the directors. “I expected the experience to be intense because it’s on the ground human rights work. I expected there to be hard work, and hands-on learning, because that’s the nature of intense learning in study abroad. I expected the students to be challenged and transformed,” Longo explains.

What she hadn’t expected was some of the content and the quality of the discussions.

“I was surprised by the very first formal session we had at the CPM on race and racism. Given the fundamentally different way the professionals at CPM addressed the issues--class figures as a central component in every discussion of racism in Argentina--I was surprised by how well the students responded to that narrative.,” Longo says.

Longo and Tandeciarz found the students were not only open minded about examining issues such as racism with this different approach, but they also didn’t shy away from the difficulty and intensity of the discussions. “One

day at about 7pm, we let the students know we’d be in the hotel lobby in case anyone wanted to do a debrief, and almost all of them came and were there until midnight. Everyone was totally into it,” Longo recalls.

THE ROLE OF ARTS AND CREATIVITY

An added feature of the 2023 winter program was to incorporate the arts in a final student project rather than a term paper. Whether visiting museums, seeing street murals or hearing prisoners recite their poetry, Longo says, “Our guiding question throughout our encounters was, ‘What is the relationship between human rights and the arts?’”

For the culminating work, Longo and Tandeciarz were hoping to inspire more than pictures of places they had visited or people they had met.

“We made it clear that it was important to look at art everywhere as a creative solution to geopolitical problems,” Longo explains. “To find answers for big problems like how to promote human rights, you have to be a creative thinker. We didn’t expect them to become artists, but we made them do a creative project in order to bring out that skill, that way of thinking.”

The assignment was designed to give students plenty of latitude. Students were asked to demonstrate what they learned in Argentina about human rights and the work of art in the world and to express what they learned through a creative piece.

The resulting projects were as unique as the students and were displayed at a reception in the Reves Center in the spring.

Students exceeded all expectations, with projects running the gamut from creating wearable fashion and threedimensional building blocks to poetry and paintings. Each work was unique with regard to medium, focus, size and the story it told.

Tandeciarz remembers how moved she was when she saw the students’ final projects all together for the first

Clockwise from top left: Students stenciling a wall at CPM's Museo de arte & memoria (Photo credit: Silvia Tandeciarz); Connor Stanton '25 at the Hogar del Padre Cajade with one of the residents (Photo credit: Silvia Tandeciarz); The group in front of Museum and Site of Memory ESMA (Photo credit: Silvia Tandeciarz); Ethan Meidinger '25 examines an exhibit at the Pergamino Memory Site (Photo credit: Silvia Tandeciarz); Hablo Tyler '23 and Jiachen Wang '23 (Photo credit: Teresa Longo); Arriving at Cell Block 4 in a maximum security prison located in Florencio Varela, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires (Photo credit: Silvia Tandeciarz).

time at the Reves reception. The depth of engagement and the care they put into their pieces were evident, as was the inspiration they took from all the forms of artistic expression addressed to human rights that they encountered in Argentina. But even more important was their ability, through creative work, to bring their insights home. To communicate what they learned from the experience, they had had to process it, reflect on it from their own place in the world, and turn it into something tangible and new, something to share with others that also expressed their own journey. The results were inspiring and affirming— this is what it’s all about, why we do what we do.

HUMAN RIGHTS IN CONVERSATION AND IN THE MIRROR

Longo sees the experience as an opportunity to learn not just about the human rights abuses, but about a country’s responses to the abuses.

“You might think going to study a country that has lived under dictatorship and come out of it, that the constant conversation would be on abuses, but actually the conversation is on the responses to transform the situation. That’s what’s happening in

La Plata.” And she continues, not only is the conversation happening, but it’s also not hidden. “This conversation is very public. Street signs say, ‘A human rights violation happened in this building.’ You can’t not see it.”

And you can’t look away from yourself.

Longo was struck by the number of mirrors she saw. “CPM and the museums have a lot of mirrors. The invitation is to see yourself in this history. No one is outside of it.”

Video interviews with four of the students and their art projects are available online at the W&M Studio for Teaching & Learning (STLI) Youtube channel, https://bit.ly/43HgiBz

Clockwise from top left: "Las Madres Nos Pusieron la Mesa" (Ariana Stiles '25, economics) P ainting as Field Research (Lexi Farris '25); Fashion as Field Research (Eva Ortiz '23, accounting & sociology); Poetry as Field Research; (Yalda Al-Ani; '23, English and creative writing); Building Blocks for Field Research (Jules Colombo '25, psychological sciences)

Climate conference rejuvenates W&M student to hope, take action

BY JENNIFER L. WILLIAMS

Dorothy Gao ’24 returned from Thanksgiving break still in a whirlwind of environmental sustainability ideas and motivating stories.

Gao, a double major in economics and environment & sustainability at William & Mary, attended the second week of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) that was held Nov. 6-18 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

“You really felt like there’s a responsibility when you left the conference, that you really want to do something that implements real changes,” Gao said. “Everyone’s so open — that the world is open for the changes and impacts — so you really want to do something and probably go back to COP again and tell people what you’ve been doing in the past year.”

At W&M, Gao is an intern in the Office of Sustainability, a member of the

International Student Advisory Board at the Reves Center and a piano student. As a native of Shanghai, China, she works with the China Youth Climate Action Network, which is China’s largest youth-led environmental group, and attended the conference as one of its representatives.

The network conducts climate education in China and holds an annual summit to create a platform to allow students who are interested in environmental issues to connect with the government, entrepreneurs and policymakers in China, according to Gao.

Her main task at COP27 was to help the Chinese group reconnect with other youth environmental organizations around the world and bring their activism stories back to young people in China. Gao interviewed youth delegates from more than 10 countries to collect details on their activities and points

of view on each country’s climate governance, she said.

She also observed several open negotiations between nations’ representatives and attended parades and side events that were mostly roundtable discussions on loss and damage, which was the conference’s biggest area of focus this year.

Gao will process the notes she took for the student interviews and her group plans to write two to four articles for social media in China to bring those stories to young people there.

The information will be valuable to take forward, according to Gao.

“It’s very hard to conduct a lot of activism in forms that are really common in western countries,” Gao said. “For example, for nongovernmental organizations it’s very hard to get support from government.”

She heard from Japan’s youth delegation that they can have sessions

Top: Dorothy Gao '24 (left) shows a hat made out of plastic bottles to two attendees as she volunteers in a booth selling wares made by female Chinese entrepreneurs at COP27. (Courtesy photo )

sitting down with government officials to discuss issues of importance to them, which are opportunities their Chinese counterparts consider precious.

“I want to let people know that these are possible and are things that we should try to strive for,” Gao said.

Having participated in Model United Nations in high school, Gao said the few negotiations she observed at the conference were a much largerscaled version of United Nations’ moderated caucus discussions on very specific clauses of environmental language.

The parades were demonstrationtype rallies that hadn’t been allowed at past conferences, but brought attendees together, she said. A big focus on young people’s efforts on environmental issues included those events as well as a youth pavilion space devoted entirely to their discussions, opportunities for cooperation, and exchanges of ideas, cultures, values and more, Gao said.

“It’s very large — several hundred people — and they were expressing their needs and the perspective from young people, singing songs for solidarity,” Gao said. “It was really nice to be in the venue and observe

this because you feel like there is a moment that everyone’s united together for one common goal. That feeling is really heartwarming.”

Gao said she brought back lots of ideas to possibly implement in her ongoing climate activism at W&M and in China. One example was how a youth group in Taiwan is encouraging students to read official government reports and interpret whether they are being communicated to the populace in truthful and effective ways.

She also gathered numerous examples of young people doing entrepreneurship that is good for people’s livelihoods as well as beneficial for the environment.

“Those are really great projects,” Gao said. “They’re really creative and innovative. And I feel like we can definitely share those projects with more students at William & Mary and also in China to inspire people.”

Gao spent Thanksgiving break catching up on schoolwork missed during the trip and is still finding time to think about her conference experience. Her overall impression was one of hope for the planet’s future.

“You just feel like there are so, so many people who are passionate about this,” Gao said. “And there’s always

hope and love on this issue, and this is one of the issues that people can really sit down peacefully and discuss with only one common goal. I feel like there’s hope all around this. And also the mind-blowing discussions that happened that will wash away all of my tiredness through the whole experience.”

Dorothy Gao ’24 at COP27 climate summit with members of her group and two attendees from Chile. (Courtesy photo)

Reves Center’s 2023 International Student Achievement Awards

Each year, the Reves Center bestows International Student Achievement Awards of $700 each on W&M and VIMS international students who have been nominated by faculty or staff as having distinguished themselves as exemplary in their academics, leadership, and service to the community.

Lilly Blume, Graduate Student (Germany)

Field of study: Marine Science

Lilly is a brilliant student with good time management and is highly motivated to learn new techniques and methods. She actively participated in and organized sampling events during the summer blooms of harmful algal blooms in 2022, and in only one and a half years, she has sufficient data to present at a conference recently and is writing a manuscript reporting a new finding of microbial indicators associated with harmful algal blooms in the York River Estuary.

Lilly serves as a co-president of the VIMS international student committee and is a member of the William & Mary International Student Advisory Board. More importantly, not only does Lilly serve as a leader, but she does so with enthusiasm and purpose.

Lilly has great potential to be an excellent marine scientist with her self-motivation, strong commitment, and high endurance. Lilly has a bright future ahead of her..

—Bongkeun Song, Clark & Elizabeth Diamond Professor, VIMS; and Kimberly Reece, Professor, Chair, VIMS Aquatic Health Sciences

Meveryn Chua, Graduate Student (Singapore)

Field of study: Educational Policy Planning & Leadership

Ms. Chua has worked with me as a graduate research assistant for the past year, contributing to projects designed to advance youth mental health. Her research skills are excellent, and she has earned co-authorship and intellectual credit for her contributions to publications and research grants. This summer, she will present her original research on the effects of social media on youth mental health at the Association for Psychological Science’s annual meeting.

Ms. Chua serves the W&M community in her role as presidential aide to President Rowe. She also serves as a member of the W&M student technology advisory committee and as a graduate student peer leader with the International Student Advisory Board. Ms. Chua has tutored public school students through W&M’s Griffin School Partnership and assisted Williamsburg families through her research on the social and community dimensions of food insecurity.

— Elizabeth Talbott, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Professor, School of Education

Tomos Evans, Graduate Student (Wales) Field of study: Anthropology

Tomos successfully led three archaeological field seasons in Ilara-Epe, Lagos State Nigeria.

Tomas has variously been elected President, Vice-President, Social Chair, Graduate Studies Advisory Board Representative, and subject representative on the Graduate Student Association. Tomos also cofounded and co-moderated an A&S graduate student DEI sub-committee, the most significant achievement of which has been a DEI peer-mentoring initiative that continues to pull in 20 to 30 students per year, with current student mentees being paired with incoming student mentees.

Tomos now represents the A&S graduate students on the International Student Advisory Board where he has focused on improving communication among A&S graduate students from different departments via social media and frequent emailing. Tomos has regularly taught and mentored undergraduates and co-founded ‘The Emerging Scholars Series’ in which graduate students from William & Mary give talks on their research to the public.

— Neil Norman, Associate Professor, Anthropology

Charleigh Kondas JD '23 (Canada)

Field of study: Law

Charleigh and a fellow student were instrumental in starting what is now known as the First Generation Student Alliance, a mentoring and support group for first-generation students at the Law School. As a first-generation student herself, Charleigh saw that there was an unmet need for mentorship. The organization is now thriving, running a fundraiser to support graduating law students in need of financial assistance to rent regalia; setting up mentoring pairs so that first-year students have a mentor in the upper classes; hosting multiple speaker and networking events, including with members of our Alumni Board; and working with our Admissions Office to help recruit prospective first-generation students to the Law School.

Dean of the Law School A. Benjamin Spencer partnered with Charleigh to write an op-ed for Bloomberg Law on the importance of retaining first-generation students in law schools.

She is a member of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Team and a staff member of the William & Mary Law Review..

Charleigh founded the International Student Alliance to give voice to international students, connect international students to more career resources, and create a safe space where international students can support each other.

— Laura Heymann, Chancellor Professor of Law and Kelly Professor of Excellence in Teaching, W&M Law School; and Catherine Stahl, Director of LLM Programs and Professor of the Practice of Law

Ruotian (Rachel) Li '23 (China) Field of study: Psychology

Through Rachel’s participation in my lab and her active seeking out of other research experiences while at William & Mary and elsewhere, I have been struck by Rachel’s intellectual curiosity and passion to learn about and immerse herself in the field of psychology.

Rachel served as one of the three student members on the Educational Policy Committee during her sophomore year. Rachel also collaborated with a group of students to provide suggestions to the provost about modifications to the pass-fail policy due to COVID during Spring 2021 and Fall 2021. Rachel also provided service to the community by volunteering at Bacon Street Youth and Family Services which is a non-profit mental agency and also with the Griffin School Partnership where students work with local school systems to provide assistance both within school hours and after school activities.

Rachel is one of the most motivated students I have worked with. She is a quick learner, a self-starter, and has a very strong work ethic. She is able to work independently and is also a valued team member. She is always delving into new areas of knowledge, simply because she is intrigued and wants to learn more. We have very intellectually inspiring discussions because she challenges me to acknowledge and analyze my assumptions and possible biases, and these conversations lead me to be a better scientist and teacher.

— Janice Zeman, Professor, Psychological

Sciences

Katrine Westgaard '23 (Norway) Field of study: International Relations

We consider Katrine to be in the top one percent of her cohort and of the 2600+ students that we have taught at William & Mary in nearly two decades. Katrine's academic scholarship is outstanding. We also know Katrine through her work for William & Mary’s Project on International Peace and Security (PIPS), where she was a 2021-2022 research fellow. She has a keen analytical mind, excellent writing and research skills, tremendous work ethic, great maturity and outstanding organizational skills. She now serves as senior research fellow for PIPS, where she mentors the current cohort of PIPS fellows. Katrine is one of the top students to progress through PIPS in its sixteen years.

During the summer of 2022, Katrine was a Global Research Institute summer fellow and traveled to Tblisi to interview government and military officials in the Republic of Georgia in support of a faculty member’s research. That led to being invited to serve as an Academic Associate at the Georgian Security Analysis Center.

Katrine is an absolutely stellar young scholar, and we fully anticipate that she will someday be a colleague—one who is both a creative IR theoretician and incisive policy analyst.

— Amy Oakes, Associate Professor, Government and International Relations, co-director of the Project on International Peace and Security (PIPS); and Dennis Alcides Velazco Smith, Senior Lecturer of Government and co-director of the Project on International Peace and Security (PIPS)

ANNOUNCING THE 2023 Reves Faculty Fellows

Each year, a committee of faculty and Reves staff awards Reves and Drapers' Faculty Fellowships to support faculty-student research and collaboration on internationally-focused, engaged scholarship. The initiative is open to full-time William & Mary faculty in all academic units. Proposals are invited from faculty with significant experience in the international arena as well as those seeking to expand the focus of their work to include international, global, and/or trans-national approaches.

NICHOLAS BALASCIO GEOLOGY

“Evaluating the climate context for the prehistoric human colonization of Peary Land, northernmost Greenland”

The first arrival of people into northern Greenland c. 4500 years ago represents a remarkable period in the human history of the Arctic. These pioneering settlements, located in the Wandel Dal valley of Peary Land, mark an important step in the progression of human migration across the North American Arctic. Archaeological data show that human occupation of northern Greenland was not continuous and that there were three settlement phases, each separated by an abandonment period of at least 1000 years. There is no universally accepted hypothesis that explains the timing of human arrival in Peary Land or these periods of abandonment. The goal of this project is to develop environmental reconstructions from lakes in Wandel Dal to investigate the climate context for the prehistoric human colonization of northern Greenland.

CARRIE DOLAN

KINESIOLOGY & HEALTH SCIENCES

“Project: Implementing a rapid assessment tool to monitor and improve vaccination coverage within Narok County, Kenya” The World Health Organization estimates that an additional 1.5 million deaths could be prevented if the UNICEF goal of vaccinating every child was achieved. Therefore, Ignite and Community Health Partners propose implementing a rapid assessment tool to monitor and improve vaccination coverage within Narok County, Kenya. This research project proposes to answer the following question of importance: Which factors appear to drive immunizations at Community Health Partner clinics? This includes examining which children have defaulted, the characteristics of children and caregivers that complete required immunizations and clinic policies and procedures that relate to immunization rates.

FACULTY RESEARCH & ACHIEVEMENTS

JEFFREY KAPLOW GOVERNMENT

“The past and future of nuclear proliferation”

Our understanding of what drives states to seek nuclear weapons has changed over time. The spread of both civilian and sensitive nuclear technology has made indigenous capabilities and technical resources appear less essential to a successful nuclear effort. At the same time, the global strategic environment has shifted since the beginning of the Cold War, with a corresponding change in the credibility of nuclear alliances and security commitments. A shift in how states actually go about developing nuclear technology may have even deeper implications for designing effective nonproliferation policy. The preferred pathway to proliferation—long thought to be a small, covert nuclear weapons program—may be changing, with the result that future proliferating states seem more likely to repurpose civilian nuclear facilities for weapons purposes. If true, this shift has a number of important implications for policymakers seeking to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. This project will create detailed historical cases of nuclear pursuit, to help scholars and policymakers better understand how the drivers of nuclear weapons programs and the pathways to nuclear acquisition have changed over time.

RANJAN SHRESTHA ECONOMICS

“Studying anemia in adolescent girls in Indonesia”

Anemia affects around a quarter of the Indonesian population, with women and children bearing a greater burden of this health condition. Its prevalence in Indonesia has not declined substantially in the last two decades and some surveys suggest that it has increased among some population groups in recent years. This project will evaluate the long-term consequences of adolescent anemia on the health status and educational attainment of Indonesian women. Using the sample of women who were adolescents in the 1997 round of the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), this study will track the same individuals through multiple survey rounds to determine whether anemia persisted over their lifecycle and whether being anemic during adolescence affected their educational attainment. The findings of this study will provide insights on the consequences of anemia and provide guidance on policies to reduce its prevalence.

2023 D rapers’ Faculty Fellow

A limited number of fellowships are provided through the generosity of the Drapers’ Company. Founded over 600 years ago, the Drapers’ Company is incorporated by Royal Charter and is one of the Twelve Great Livery Companies in the City of London. Supporting education has been one of the primary aims of The Drapers’ Company for centuries and continues to be the main focus of the Company’s grant making today. The Company assists schools, colleges and universities in many ways, from serving on the governing body to providing grants for scholarships, prizes and research. The Drapers’ Faculty Fellowship, administered by the Reves Center, provides support for archival research by the fellows, with the potential involvement of W&M graduate and/or undergraduate students at institutions in the United Kingdom.

PATTON BURCHETT

RELIGIOUS STUDIES

The book focuses on the formation and impact of historically specific "modern" notions of (dis) enchantment, scientific rationality, superstition, and authenticity that developed in colonial India and Victorian Britain and that are still playing out in important ways in present-day Hindu religious life as well as present-day Western forms of "spirituality." The study will explore 19th and early 20th century representations of yoga and yogis in different Euro-American and Indian interpretive communities and textual genres. A key aspect of the book will be a study of the way 19th and early 20th century stage magicians regularly invoked the figure of the Indian yogi-fakir in their writings and performances in order to define and advance particular, disenchanted "modern" cognitive modes and ethical sensibilities. At the same time, many in the vibrant subcultures of New Thought and the occult-esoteric invoked the figure of the Indian yogi for altogether different purposes. In order to show this convincingly, this research will explore the archives of literature of conjurers and illusionists, as well as Spiritualists, Mesmerists, paranormal researchers, and Theosophists, to analyze their repeated references to and representations of yogis, fakirs, and other Indian ascetics.

For more information and a list of previous faculty fellows, visit www.wm.edu/offices/revescenter/globalengagement/revesfacultyfellows

“Research for new book tentatively titled, The Authentic Yogi: Yoga and Tantra between Science, Religion, and Magic”

Recently Published Books by W&M Faculty

THE REBIRTH OF REVELATION: GERMAN THEOLOGY IN AN AGE OF REASON AND HISTORY, 1750-1850

By Tuska Benes, James Pinckney Harrison Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History

Despite being a pillar of belief in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the idea of revelation was deeply discredited over the course of the Enlightenment. The post-Enlightenment restoration of revelation among German religious thinkers is a fascinating yet underappreciated moment in modern efforts to navigate between reason and faith. “The Rebirth of Revelation” compares Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish reflections on revelation from 1750 to 1850 and asserts that a strategic transformation in the term’s meaning secured its relevance for the modern age. Tuska Benes argues that “propositional” revelation, understood as the infallible dispensation of doctrine, gave way to revelation as a subjective process of inner transformation or the historical disclosure of divine being in the world. Published by University of Toronto Press

VILLAGE INFERNOS AND WITCHES’ ADVOCATES: WITCHHUNTING IN NAVARRE, 1608-1614

By Lu Ann Homza, Professor of History

This book revises what we thought we knew about one of the most famous witch hunts in European history. Between 1608 and 1614, thousands of witchcraft accusations were leveled against men, women, and children in the northern Spanish kingdom of Navarre. Presenting important archival discoveries, Lu Ann Homza restores the perspectives of illiterate, Basquespeaking individuals to the history of this shocking event and demonstrates what could happen when the Spanish Inquisition tried to take charge of a liminal space. Published by Pennsylvania State University Press

LGBT VICTORIANS: SEXUALITY AND GENDER IN THE NINETEENTHCENTURY ARCHIVES

By Simon Joyce, Cloud Professor of English

LGBT Victorians draws on scholarship reconsidering the significance of sexology and efforts to retrospectively discover transgender people in historical archives. It highlights a broad range of individuals, key thinkers and activists, and writers to map the complicated landscape of gender and sexuality in the Victorian period. In the process, it decenters Oscar Wilde and his imprisonment from our historical understanding of sexual and gender nonconformity. Published by Oxford University Press

MICHELANGELO L’ARCHITETTURA

By Adriano Marinazzo

Curator of Special Projects, Muscarelle Museum of Art

Designer in Residence & Affiliated Scholar, Applied Science

Michelangelo famously wrote, “I’m not an Architect,” although he was the protagonist of the most ambitious architectural undertaking of the Renaissance. Readers will learn about his grandiose projects through the author’s innovative and informative virtual reconstructions. This work is part of “Art e Dossier,” the world’s most comprehensive series of art monographs, written by prominent scholars with a circulation of 180,000 copies. Published by Giunti

HOPE: A LITERARY HISTORY

By Adam Potkay, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Humanities and Professor of English

Hope for us has a positive connotation. Yet it was criticized in classical antiquity as a distraction from the present moment, as the occasion for irrational and self-destructive thinking, and as a presumption against the gods. To what extent do arguments against hope today remain useful? If hope sounds to us like a good thing, that reaction stems from a progressive political tradition grounded in the French Revolution, aspects of Romantic literature and the influence of the Abrahamic faiths. Ranging both wide and deep, Adam Potkay examines the cases for and against hope found in literature from antiquity to the present. Published by Cambridge University Press

CAMERA PALAESTINA: DISPLACED HISTORIES OF PALESTINE

By Stephen Sheehi, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair of Middle East Studies, Professor of Arabic Studies

“Camera Palaestina” is a critical exploration of Jerusalemite chronicler Wasif Jawhariyyeh (1904–1972) and his seven photography albums entitled “The Illustrated History of Palestine.” The book locates this archive at the juncture between the history of photography in the Arab world and the social history of Palestine. Shedding new light on this foundational period, the authors, Sheehi, Tamari and Nassar, explore not just major historical events and the development of an urban bourgeois lifestyle but a social field of vision of Palestinian life as exemplified in the Jerusalem community. Published by University of California Press

PSYCHOANALYSIS UNDER OCCUPATION: PRACTICING RESISTANCE IN PALESTINE

By Lara Sheehi and Stephen Sheehi, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair of Middle East Studies, Professor of Arabic Studies

“Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine” unpacks the intersection of psychoanalysis as a psychological practice in Palestine, while also advancing a set of therapeutic theories in which to critically engage and “read” the politically complex array of conditions that define life for Palestinians living under Israeli settler-colonialism. Published by Routledge

UNDUE PROCESS: PERSECUTION AND PUNISHMENT IN AUTOCRATIC COURTS

By Fiona Shen-Bayh, Assistant Professor of Government

Why do autocrats use courts to repress? Shen-Bayh argues that judicial punishment can enforce obedience when power is contested. Using finegrained data and archival sources, “Undue Process” provides insight into the disciplinary dimensions of autocracy and speaks to scholars of political science, legal studies and African affairs. Published by Cambridge University Press

BANKING ON BEIJING: THE AIMS AND IMPACTS OF CHINA’S OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

By

Michael

J. Tierney ’87, George and Mary Hylton Professor of Government and Director, Global Research Institute; Bradley Parks ’03, Research Professor and Executive Director of AidData; and Austin Strange ’12, Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Hong Kong, Research Affiliate at Global Research Institute

China is now the lender of first resort for much of the developing world, but Beijing has fueled speculation among policymakers, scholars, and journalists by shrouding its grant-giving and lending activities in secrecy. Introducing a systematic and transparent method of tracking Chinese development projects around the world, this book explains Beijing’s motives and analyzes the intended and unintended effects of its overseas investments. This book will be of interest to policymakers, students and scholars of international political economy, Chinese politics and foreign policy, economic development, and international relations. Published by Cambridge University Press

THE MYTH OF THE TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL

By Andrew Tobolowsky, Associate Professor of Religious Studies

This book explores the fascinating history of peoples all around the world who have identified as “Israelites” from biblical times to the present. From ancient Israel, to medieval legends of the Lost Tribes, to the Beta Israel of Ethiopia, it investigates how Israelite identities have been constructed, and what Israel has meant to whom. Published by Cambridge University Press

TERREURS DE FRONTIÈRE : LE MASSACRE DES HAÏTIENS EN RÉPUBLIQUE DOMINICAINE EN 1937

By Richard Turits, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, History, and Latin American Studies; and Lauren Derby,, UCLA. Edited by Denis Watson .

Collection of essay, articles, interviews and other historic texts on the 1937 Haitian massacre published by well-known historians of Dominican and Haitian history, Lauren Derby and Richard Turits. The 1937 Haitian massacre was the mass killing of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic's northwestern Cibao frontier region in October 1937. Dominican Army troops carried out the massacre on the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Published by Les Publications du Centre Challenges Port-au-Prince, Haïti

COVERING MUSLIMS: AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

By A. Maurits van der Veen, associate professor of government at W&M, and Erik Bleich

Covering Muslims presents the first systematic, large-scale analysis of American newspaper coverage of Muslims. By comparing it over time with reporting on other groups and issues as well as coverage of the subject in other countries, we demonstrate conclusively how negative American newspapers have been in their treatment of Muslims across the two-decade period between 1996 and 2016, both in an absolute sense and compared to a range of other groups. The same pattern holds in other countries, such as Australia, Canada, and the UK. While 9/11 did not make coverage more negative in the long run, it did dramatically increase the prevalence of references to terrorism and extremism. Published by Oxford University Press

BETWEEN DREAMS AND GHOSTS: INDIAN MIGRATION AND MIDDLE EASTERN OIL

By Andrea Wright, Assistant Professor, Anthropology and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies

"Between Dreams and Ghosts: Indian Migration and Middle Eastern Oil" is an ethnography of Indian migration to oil and gas projects in the Gulf. More than one million Indians travel annually to work in oil projects in the Gulf; one of the few international destinations where men without formal education can find lucrative employment. "Between Dreams and Ghost"s follows their migration, from villages in India to oil projects in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, and back again. Published by Stanford University Press

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Alumna Abroad

A Q&A WITH VALERIE HOPKINS

Where were you born? What do you consider your hometown?

I was born at Sibley Hospital, in Washington, D.C., and have always felt a strong pride in being from the capital, even if my family moved to northern Virginia when I was in middle school. My mom worked near the U.S. Capitol and I spent a lot of time roaming the area. Maybe that’s why, even though I have wanted to make a career abroad for as long as I remember, I have always felt a strong sense of connection to and ownership of our institutions.

Where is home for you now?

That’s a complicated question for me right now. Before February 24, 2022, it was Moscow (for the six months prior). But since Russia invaded Ukraine, I’ve spent four months in Ukraine, a bit more than that in Russia, and months in other cities in Europe, mostly Berlin. I guess home is where my suitcase and laptop are.

What are you currently doing professionally?

I cover Russia, Ukraine, and the former Soviet Union for The New York Times. When our paper made the decision to leave Russia in early March 2022 because of draconian censorship laws, I was in Ukraine, and I realized I might not be back there until someone new was in power. But after carefully considering the risks, I decided to go back in August, and I [was] the only journalist from my paper working there. It is a responsibility I don’t take lightly. So much of the world is angry at Russia and horrified at what the Kremlin is doing every day to its neighbor and the way it has upended the global order. I think it is important for us to understand what’s happening in Russia right now, and how Russians see the war, their country, and the world.

Did you have a favorite course or professor while you were at W&M?

I took Professor Pickering’s freshman seminar about the Balkans, and Bosnia-Herzegovina in particular, and it deepened my interest in south-eastern Europe. I was so lucky that I could match the academic learning with eventually spending some time in the region after my junior year as part of W&Ms ABC Program. I capped off my senior year with Simon Stowe’s “Politics of Death and Mourning,” and it provided an important foundation for helping me understand the way countries mourn; how they choose historical events and contemporary tragedies to highlight or sweep under the carpet in the pursuit of a political or national agenda.

How did you choose your study abroad experience? Was it something you knew you wanted? Something someone else—peer or family member of advisor—suggested?

Something you read about?

I was in Student Government from my second semester sophomore year, so I never got to spend a semester abroad. I felt bad about it at the time, but after more than twelve years living abroad, I think I’ve more than made up for it. J I did, however, do summer programs abroad each year that widened my horizons. After Freshman year I went to Cambridge for W&M’s program there, taking classes on Shakespeare and the Bloomsbury Group. As someone who hadn’t been abroad very much, it was great to be able to travel with students and faculty who made the trip run smoothly but still encouraged us to experience the local culture. After sophomore year, I volunteered with a W&M group at an orphanage in Romania before heading to Moscow to intern at the U.S. Embassy there. After junior year I was finally accepted into what is now known as the ABC Project, the American-Bosnian Collaboration, and spent the summer in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It became a life-changing experience because the following summer, I got a grant from the Reves Center to help set up a new partnership for the ABC project that would ensure W&M

‘09

students could keep going there. And while I was there, I found an internship that would let me deepen my regional knowledge.

Do you have any memories of your internship at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that you’d like to share?

I was always sure I wanted to be a foreign correspondent, and I wanted to do the internship to understand how foreign policy is made on the inside. I learned a lot about how our embassies interact with the State Department in D.C. In hindsight, I also feel lucky to have been able to experience Russia in 2007, which was a very different country than the Russia I moved to in August 2021. I think the most exciting thing was celebrating July 4 at the historic Ambassador’s Residence, Spaso House. The Ambassador then was Bill Burns, the current C.I.A. director, and the party included hundreds of Russian politicians, businessmen, diplomats and more. It’s the type of event we probably won’t see in Russia for a very long time, I think.

You describe your participation in the American-Bosnian Collaboration as life-changing. What aspects/experiences affected you most?

For one, I realized how hard it is to be a teacher! More seriously, I read plenty of books and watched many documentaries, but nothing compares to talking to ordinary people about their lives and experiences and seeing the places that

you study. In many ways, the program opened a door to the rest of my life, by giving me a chance to learn the language and the place just enough to get an internship which led to a job that later became a stepping-stone to my career as a journalist. It is both humbling and extremely rewarding to learn a new language and culture. But it was also incredibly important for me to understand and confront America’s role in the world. If I had my way, all young Americans would spend time in small countries that are not major foreign policy players, nuclear powers, or wealthy petro-states to understand what it is like for most of the world’s countries. It is important to see that decisions made by our government have broad and far-reaching consequences in a region like the Balkans, both in wartime and peacetime.

When you began your career in journalism did you expect to cover international affairs, or was that an opportunity that arose because of your experience abroad?

I always planned to be a foreign correspondent, but the experiences I had at W&M brought me closer to that goal.

Do you have any current projects/passions you would like to tell us about?

My main project is trying to understand how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed Russian society, and covering how Russia reacts to this war. Russia’s military is killing and destroying people and entire towns in Ukraine, but it will also damage Russian society for generations to

In a school basement in the frontline neighborhood of Saltivka, near Kharkiv, where people had been living for months after their homes were destroyed by Russian missile strikes and shelling. (Courtesy photo)

come. Most Russians I know went from living a relatively stable, if unfree life, to living in a dictatorship with complete uncertainty about what the future holds. It is my job to report about this.

Do you know your next professional step or project?

I have really been enjoying exploring audio reporting with our podcast The Daily. I met one of the hosts, Sabrina Tavernise, on the eve of the outbreak of the war. I never did much audio reporting and I’ve learned a lot working with her and her team. I think it is incredible the way some of my reporting that that might yield a few paragraphs in one of my stories can be dissected in a 25 minute episode that serves as an exposition of where Russian society is going.

Do you think international experience as a student is helpful in future life and career?

Learning a new language gives you a new way to think. And learning a new culture gives you insight into your own society and yourself. It is important on a personal level because it is enriching to see the place you come from through a perspective that isn’t yours. And I think having a unique experience abroad can only help you stand out as a job seeker or employee.

Do you have any advice for current students?

Every piece of advice that I think of seems cheesy and cliché But one thing that has helped me a lot in my journalism career, where we have this widely-held believe that “you’re only as good as your last story,” is something someone shared with me at William and Mary, also a cliché from Winston Churchill: “Success is not final, and failure is not fatal.” I keep it in my mind when I am having a bad day or hitting a wall with my reporting, but it also keeps me on my toes and helps me not be complacent when I do feel proud of something that I’ve done.

Is there any advice you wish you had received as an undergraduate?

Every I was often too shy to get to know my teachers outside of class during office hours or other activities. I was scared of not knowing every detail from the reading or of asking stupid questions. There definitely are stupid questions, and I don’t recommend asking them, but professors are a resource and a connection to decades of alumni who are doing something you could be interested in.

Top: Talking to a survivor of a missile strike on a central Kyiv apartment building. Botton: Anderson Cooper interviews Valerie Hopkins live from Ukraine on CNN. (Courtesy photos.)

200 South Boundary Street

Williamsburg, VA, 23185

Telephone: 757-221-3590

STUDY ABROAD PROGRAMS offered by the GLOBAL EDUCATION OFFICE (GEO)

Summer Faculty-Led

Programs (Summer '24 unless noted otherwise)

Australia: Adelaide

Brazil: Salvador

China: Beijing

Czech Republic: Prague

England: Cambridge

France: Montpellier

Germany: Berlin

Greece: Athens/Nafplio (Summer '25)

Iceland: Reykjavik

India: Bengaluru/Goa

Italy: Florence

Italy: Rome/Pompeii

Lithuania: Vilnius

Scotland: St Andrews

South Africa: Cape Town

Spain: Cádiz

Spain: Santiago de Compostela

Winter Programs

Auckland, New Zealand

Geneva, Switzerland

Heidelberg, Germany

Kigali, Rwanda

La Plata, Argentina

Embedded Programs

Spain: Pamplona (Fall/Winter '23-'24)

Belgium & France: Brussels and Paris (Spring '24)

W&M-Sponsored Semester Programs

Argentina: La Plata

England: Oxford

France: Montpellier

Spain: Sevilla

Undergraduate Exchange Programs

Austria: Vienna University of Economics & Business

Canada: McGill University

China: Tsinghua University

England: University of Exeter

England: University of Nottingham

France: L’institut d’Études Politiques de Lille

France: Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III

Japan: Akita International University

Japan: Keio University

Netherlands: Leiden University

Scotland: University of St Andrews

Singapore: National University of Singapore

South Korea: Yonsei University

Wales: Cardiff University