A few faculty and staff notes

The pre-session students are here, but they’re too busy and/or new to be making news, which leaves me grasping for a topic for today’s post.  I’ve reached into my magic bag of possible blog topics and pulled out a few notes on staff and faculty.

First, from one of the monthly updates we receive, news of a staff member who is also a Fletcher graduate:

Mieke van der Wansem, F90, associate director of educational programs at the Fletcher School’s Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, was senior faculty at an intensive week-long executive education program, the International Programme on the Management of Sustainability. The course, held every June in the Netherlands in partnership with the Sustainability Challenge Foundation, is designed for mid-career professionals mostly from developing countries. The training focuses on the mutual gains approach to negotiation and consensus building for sustainable development conflicts. The goal of the trainings is for professionals from many different sectors to be better able to achieve sustainable development goals through effective stakeholder engagement and negotiation.

Mieke conducts several training sessions each year, and was in South Africa earlier in the spring for a similar program.  The Center for International Environment and Resource Policy has a particularly active research and practice agenda.

Next, a Tufts Now story about the (relatively) new director of the The Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, Dr. Nadim Shehadi.  In the article, he notes that The Fares Center is important “because profound misunderstanding of the complexities of the Middle East is prolonging suffering and violence. The center could help frame discussion about the region, taking advantage of the Fletcher School’s international reputation and its alumni, who are influential in every corner of the globe.”

In faculty news, last spring, a student pointed out that Professor Elizabeth Prodromou, F83, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs (Helsinki Commission), “speaking on genocide denial, ‘memoricide’ and the industry of denialism.  The Congressman who spoke after her mentioned that he’s never heard the subject explained so well.”

And, finally, Professor Jeswald Salacuse sent us a link to a long video interview with a Hawaii television program that he did on his most recent book, Negotiating Life.  The interview is interesting, and Fletcher is one of the stars.  It originally ran some time back, but I’m making up for having never included it on the blog.