HoF Time, April 2016

The Hall of Flags is Fletcher’s town square, its crossroads, its living room — everyone walks through at some point during the day.  A highlight of my year comes when I grab my computer and my ace co-pilot, Kristen, and head out to the HoF to talk with whomever we see.  Students, staff, faculty — we don’t hesitate to keep them any of them from getting their work done, or even from crossing the Hall of Flags on the way to the door.  We started our HoF time by scanning the scene to choose our first conversational target.  Our topic for the day:  Tell us something noteworthy about your year at Fletcher.

There’s often a student staffing a table at which tickets to an event are sold.  A perfect place to start.

Carmyn, second year student pursuing dual degree with the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna (selling tickets for Americana Night):

One of the most noteworthy things for me this year were the guest and visiting speakers that came to Fletcher.  For example, I kicked off my year by attending a luncheon lecture as a part of the International Security Studies lecture series, and heard from General Petr Pavel, the Chairman of the Military Committee for NATO.  In addition, the Fletcher Security Review has also hosted some really amazing and highly experienced professionals as guest speakers.  I feel very invested and involved in the fields that I am studying.  There are so many engaging things here at Fletcher, so it’s really great to have those opportunities on the academic side, as well as many possibilities to attend social events led and organized by students.  Aside from that, just getting to know people at Fletcher has been great.  The student body here is phenomenal.

 

Helen, Associate Director of the Office of Career Services:

We have ten new Blakeley Fellows!  Jerry Blakeley very generously has given $50,000 for the summer of 2016 to support ten first-year students doing internships in developing countries, focused on microfinance, private sector development, public/private partnerships, NGO business development, and project financing.

Although there are other sources of funding for summer internships, this amount can significantly defray expenses for these unpaid internships.  Countries that students will be working in include Uganda, Tanzania, Nicaragua, Malawi, Indonesia, and India.  This is the ninth summer that the Blakeleys will be supporting students doing these types of internships.

Helen is such a good sport that she let Kristen convince her to come looking for us!

Halley, Staff Assistant for the Office of the Registrar (just completing her first year at Fletcher): 

It’s been really amazing meeting and interacting with so many students from all over the world and so many cultures and backgrounds, getting to know them throughout the year, and seeing them succeed academically and thrive at Fletcher.

Not content to interrupt one person at a time, Kristen and I set our sights on a study group.

Peter, second-year MIB:

I’m involved in the Fletcher Social Investment Group — one of the leadership members — and we had the opportunity to present at the CEME Fellows meeting and to get their feedback, and to share with the external Fletcher community what we’re up to.

Preetish, second-year MALD:

My entrepreneurship class in Energy, Entrepreneurship and Finance, which is what we’re currently working on.  The way energy and finance comes together in class is interesting.  I’m looking for a career in this field.

Peter:  The professor (Barbara Kates-Garnick) is also the former Commissioner of Energy in Massachusetts, so it’s really interesting.

Harper, first-year MALD:

I like the flexibility that the MALD program provides so that you can take a class like Energy, Entrepreneurship and a class like Role of Force in the same semester.

Why interrupt only one study group?  We moved on to what we thought was another.  Turned out it was three people simply chatting together.  Nate and Cristina were both volunteer interviewers for Admissions in the fall!

Nate, second-year MALD:

It was definitely the media communications panel from the DC Career Trip, because it was very encouraging to interact with so many alums who work in a space that I’m actively pursuing a career in.  I appreciated that they did such a great job relating their Fletcher experience to their career paths and also how enthusiastic they were about making time in their day to encourage aspiring students to follow their career path.  At the panel, there were representatives from The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Inter-American Development Bank, FCW, and the Glover Park Group.

Marc, mid-career MA student:

One of the more noteworthy events?…I hate to follow and say the DC Career Trip, but in particular, I attended a small session on conflict and violent extremism at the State Department with a number of officials, and it was a good opportunity to talk about the profession, and it dovetailed with classes here.  It reminded me why I came here.  I previously worked for Chemonics, but I want to get into CVE, and it’s great to know that there are a lot of people from Fletcher doing cutting edge work in that field.

Also, I’ve taken classes in urban planning and GIS – it was a great opportunity to tie in those topics that I may not have been able to study elsewhere.

Cristina, first-year MALD:

International Negotiations with Professor Babbitt.  She’s a very dynamic professor and her command of the subject matter is impressive.  She really knows how to teach, too!

Next I saw a familiar face from the PhD program.

Liz, MALD ‘94, PhD ’16 (who told us she was visiting Fletcher to guest lecture for Professor Conley-Zilkic’s class on Understanding Mass Atrocities):

I successfully defended my thesis in December 2015.  Since then, I’ve continued my work with folks in the U.S. government — specifically advising on the policy stance toward the current crisis in Burundi.

Liz’s dissertation title:  “Securing the Space for Political Transition: The Evolution of Civil-Military Relations in Burundi.”

We chatted a bit more with Liz about how earning your PhD is a very big deal, and then she was off to her guest-lecture gig.

With that, we decided it was time to head back to our day-to-day work.  We’ll be back, Hall of Flags!  Until then…