Stanford Report: The First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, spoke at SCPKU today and said study abroad allows students to realize that countries all have a stake in each other's success.  Following her remarks, she held a conversation with students on the Stanford campu via SCPKU's Highly Immersive Classroom. Read more.

The National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA), funded by the Freeman Foundation, is a multi-year initiative to encourage and facilitate teaching and learning about East Asia in elementary and secondary schools nationwide. NCTA is a premier provider of professional development on East Asia.

From July 6 to 9, 2026, SPICE Teacher Professional Development Manager Naomi Funahashi and Event Coordinator Sabrina Ishimatsu hosted a summer institute for middle school teachers, most of whom are teaching in California. Fifteen teachers enrolled. SPICE was so grateful for their active participation and for sharing their reflections and insights on subject matter content and pedagogical content knowledge.

The first three days featured subject matter content lectures on topics commonly taught at the middle school level in California. These included lectures on “Chinese Dynasties” and “The Silk Road” by Dr. Clayton Dube, Senior Fellow at the USC U.S.-China Institute, and “Tokugawa Japan” by Professor Ethan Segal, Michigan State University, who received his PhD from Stanford. SPICE is a partner site of the USC U.S.-China Institute, one of seven National Coordinating Sites of the NCTA. Dr. Clayton Dube is Director Emeritus of the USC U.S.-China Institute, and SPICE now works with Glenn Osaki, Director, and Crystal Hsia, Program Specialist, of the USC U.S.-China Institute. 

I have been very inspired by all the interactive meetings. Each truly serves as a model for creating engaging lessons for our students… There were so many interesting and relevant topics such as the different dynasties, the role and expectations of women, and cultural exchange!—Elena Giron, Elizabeth Learning Center, Cudahy, California

As a K–8 Mandarin teacher, I’m always looking for meaningful ways to help my students understand how Chinese language and culture have influenced other parts of East Asia. After today’s session, I began thinking about how I might incorporate elements of Japanese history, culture, or art into my Mandarin curriculum while still keeping Chinese language learning at the center.—Shu-Chen Lin, San Domenico School, San Anselmo, California

The first three days also featured demonstrations of SPICE curricula that focused on pedagogical content knowledge. These included demonstrations of Japanese Art in the Edo Period, by Karen Tiegel, Middle School Division Head at The Nueva School and a former SPICE Curriculum Writer; Along the Silk Road, by Rylan Sekiguchi, SPICE Manager of Curriculum and Instructional Design; and Angel Island, Chinese American Voices, the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project, and What Does It Mean to Be an American?, by Jonas Edman, SPICE Instructional Designer. 

I will definitely incorporate the SPICE Silk Road curriculum into my teaching. I especially appreciate the interactive nature of its online resources, which make the content more engaging and accessible for students. The curriculum provides meaningful opportunities for students to actively explore the history, geography, and cultural exchanges of the Silk Road rather than simply learning through lectures or textbooks. I can see these resources helping my middle school students build a deeper understanding of the topic while keeping them motivated and engaged.—Jenn Wu, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, San Francisco, California

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On day four, three authors of young adult novels (from top to bottom in image above)—Van Hoang, Judy I. Lin, Waka T. Brown—were featured on a panel titled, “Incorporating Asian American Literature and Voices into Middle School Curricula.” Including the Asian American experience in SPICE/NCTA seminars has been requested by many teachers and also supports the NCTA as it “strives to develop global citizenship based on the principles of cross-cultural understanding, equality, and justice.” 

I loved being part of the summer cohort with SPICE… I was really inspired by the authors’ panel, as I had never heard from authors, especially ones who are so relatable. I love how they intertwine their identity and history and can create such cool stories.—Morgan Johnson, Kenmore School, Arlington, Virginia

Following the institute, each teacher will develop and share an original lesson plan inspired by the knowledge and resources gained throughout the seminar. Some of the themes and concepts that were shared by the lecturers, authors, teachers, and SPICE staff included diaspora, cultural relevance, the master narrative of history, diverse perspectives, and empathy; and SPICE hopes that one or more of these themes will be incorporated into their lessons. 

SPICE is especially grateful to President Graeme Freeman and Vice President Shereen Goto of the Freeman Foundation for their support of the NCTA since 1998 and to Crystal Hsia of the USC U.S.-China Institute for her unwavering support and collaboration. 

The East Asia Summer Institute for Middle School Teachers is one of several free teacher professional development opportunities offered by SPICE.

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Sagan has served as the co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) from 2021 to 2026, though his legacy and influence at CISAC extends well beyond the last five years. He previously served as CISAC co-director from 1998 to 2012. In 2021, he returned for another term of leadership service alongside Rodney Ewing, a geologist whose multidisciplinary research led to the development of techniques to predict the long-term behavior of materials used in radioactive waste disposal. Sagan and Ewing led the center together until Ewing’s passing in 2024.

CISAC’s co-director leadership structure has been in place since its founding in 1983, and reflects the belief that it takes scholars from different disciplines with different experiences, ideas, strengths, and interests to solve the most pressing security problems.

“We’re in a new global era where security, technology, geopolitics, and policy are more interconnected than ever before,” said Colin Kahl, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. “CISAC is crucial to understanding that intersectionality and producing the knowledge we need to create a safer and more secure world. Scott has led this center with incredible vision, and I am fully confident that Jim, with his unique talents and expertise, will lead CISAC and its community into its next era of growth and world class research.”

CISAC’s mission is to produce policy-relevant research on international security problems, teach and train the next generation of security specialists, and inform policymaking in international security.
 

Under Ewing’s and Sagan’s leadership, CISAC has expanded to include new programs and initiatives such as the Indo-Pacific Policy Lab, led by Oriana Skylar Mastro, whose mission is to disseminate leading academic knowledge on Indo-Pacific security issues to policymakers and build connections between scholars and industry that promote innovation and strengthen regional security and prosperity. Similarly, the new India-U.S. Security Studies Fellowship allows engineers, scientists, historians, and social scientists the opportunity to focus on issues related to Indian and U.S. security issues in collaboration with the CISAC community.

Other initiatives, such as CISAC’s longstanding program on Biosecurity and Global Health, the program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, the initiative on Existential Risks, and their evolving agenda on Cyber Policy and Security, continue to have relevance and reach as global threats and politics evolve.

“It's not clear how the U.S. and global partners can best deal with the complex security dilemmas emerging on the horizon,” said Sagan. “But that’s the role of independent thinking inside a university. We’re independent from bureaucratic inertia. We’re nonpartisan. We’re free to figure out what policies and strategies will lead to a more secure and peaceful world. That’s the goal.”

CISAC’s fellowship and teaching programs are instrumental in training the next generation of security studies specialists.

“CISAC showed me how to be a rigorous and curious academic committed to building community,” said Luis Rodriguez, a former CISAC fellow now teaching at George Mason University.

Ethan Lee (BS, ‘23) feels similarly. Currently an associate in the Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy Program at Harvard’s Belfer Center for International Affairs, Lee is an alum of CISAC’s undergraduate honors program, which was established in 2000 as a way of providing Stanford seniors from all disciplines the opportunity to conduct rigorous, scholarly research on international security issues.

“As a student, I felt both challenged and supported at CISAC,” recalled Lee. After graduation, Lee and Sagan co-authored an article on U.S. public opinion, law, and the use of military force against Iran, which is forthcoming in the journal Security Studies. “I have benefited tremendously from Scott’s generosity, and I know I'm just one of many students who have.”

Alumni of CISAC’s undergraduate honors program and fellowships go on from Stanford to create a global network of policymakers.

“When I take students to the Pentagon or to think tanks in Washington, you meet our former fellows and honors students,” says Sagan. “In major universities across the country, the political science departments and the international security research centers are populated with scholars who came through Stanford. That's a legacy about which all the directors at CISAC should be very proud.”

Looking to the future, incoming co-director James Fearon acknowledges that while there are very real challenges ahead in international relations, there are also increased opportunities for scholars at places like CISAC to make an impact for good.

“Things are changing frighteningly fast in international security affairs, in alarming ways that are often linked with effects of rapid technological change,” Fearon acknowledges. “But CISAC has long been the place for high-quality research at the intersection of science, technology, and the politics of international security. I am excited by the opportunity and am greatly looking forward to working with a fantastic set of scholars building on this tradition in a new international context.”

To learn more about Fearon’s research and how geopolitics and technology are intersecting across borders, listen to the latest episode of the World Class podcast, hosted by FSI Director Colin Kahl.

Fearon’s co-director will be announced in November 2026.

The following reflection is a guest post written by Sunny Park, a Fall 2020 alumna of Stanford e-Entrepreneurship Japan, which is currently accepting applications for Fall 2026.

A “smart” high school student is often defined by strong grades, perhaps alongside a few extracurricular activities to strengthen university applications. Before encountering Stanford e-Entrepreneurship Japan (SeEJ), that was largely how I viewed myself. 

I came across SeEJ during the COVID-19 pandemic through a Facebook advertisement. Like many students at the time, I was looking for something more engaging beyond school. I didn’t expect how much it would reshape the way I think about learning, ambition, and possibility. 

What made SeEJ distinct was its focus on people rather than definitions. Each session featured entrepreneurs from different industries, sharing not just what they built, but how they navigated uncertainty, failure, and personal ambition. Seeing such varied paths made me realize that entrepreneurship isn’t a fixed route; it’s a way of thinking. And that was probably the moment when things shifted for me. Until then, I had always thought of my future in fairly narrow terms: choose a subject, go to university, and follow a path that already exists. SeEJ made me realize that there are far more ways to build a life, and that entrepreneurship is less about starting a company and more about taking ownership of what you want to pursue. 

Since then, I’ve found myself saying yes to things I would have hesitated to try before. I’m now in my final year of studying Biology at Imperial College London, and I co-founded a biotech startup called Eidolon Therapeutics. At Eidolon, we’re pioneering microbial protein combinations to combat immunotherapy resistance and inflammation-driven toxicity in cancer. It was through my Year-in-Research program where I met my Co-Founders (i.e., my professor and post-doc supervisor), and I was so fascinated by the research they were conducting I couldn’t help but impatiently suggest building a company out of it. Since then, we’ve been working incredibly hard on making Eidolon real, including joining accelerator programs such as the Cancer Tech Accelerator, Venture Catalyst Challenge, and Conception X. Through building an early-stage startup, I’ve had the chance to meet people I once found intimidating, pitch ideas in front of large audiences, and build relationships that started from simple conversations. 

I don’t think any of that came from a single moment of confidence. If anything, it came from gradually becoming more comfortable with not knowing exactly what I’m doing… and trying it anyway. Based on my journey so far, here are a few reflections for students exploring a similar path:

1. Be intentional about the opportunities you choose.

There are so many opportunities available as a student! SeEJ, in particular, showed me the value of learning environments where you actively engage with ideas and people. There are many programs available, but depth matters more than quantity. Choose opportunities where you can contribute, ask questions, and grow. 

2. Focus on genuine connections!

One of the most valuable parts of SeEJ was the access to people with diverse experiences. What I learned is that meaningful connections come from curiosity and sincerity, not from trying to impress. When you approach people with a willingness to learn, they are often more open than you expect. 

3. Stay engaged beyond the program.

The real impact of SeEJ extended beyond the sessions themselves. Following up with people, continuing conversations, and sharing your own progress helps turn short-term interactions into long-term relationships. Small, consistent effort makes a difference!

4. Reflect as you go. 

Exploring entrepreneurship alongside academics can be exciting but also overwhelming. Taking time to reflect on what you enjoy, what challenges you, and what kind of path you want to build helps you stay grounded and intentional.

Looking back, SeEJ was a turning point not because it provided a single opportunity, but because it changed how I see opportunities altogether. It reminded me that there isn’t one path to follow, but many that you can create. 

Stanford e-Entrepreneurship Japan is currently accepting applications for Fall 2026. Apply at https://forms.gle/5gkHrhm3X4sycZGG8.

Stanford e-Entrepreneurship Japan is one of several online courses offered by SPICE.

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Introduction and Contribution

Since coming to power in 2002, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have significantly undermined Turkish democracy. This has most visibly involved police repression, systematic prosecutions of the AKP’s critics, and partisan control and censorship of the media. Although opposition persisted in parliament, municipalities, campuses, and professional associations, the playing field is rigged against the AKP’s opponents.

Yet these visible forms of repression are only part of a broader process of Turkey’s autocratization. In “The Capture of Turkey’s Universities Under the AKP,” Ayça Alemdaroğlu shows how the regime has, through a host of less spectacular but durable mechanisms, used its control over higher education to turn universities into channels for distributing opportunity, disciplining dissent, and cultivating loyal staff and students. These mechanisms — including baseless investigations and dismissals of academics, online citizen reporting against faculty, and patronage around university jobs — have weakened academic life and transformed Turkish higher education into a key instrument of the AKP’s governing project.

Importantly, Turkey’s democratic erosion has accelerated in tandem with the massive, rapid growth in colleges and student enrollment. For Alemdaroğlu, this should temper any assumption that higher education is automatically a space of democratic resistance. Universities can produce critique, organization, and dissent, but the higher education system can also facilitate authoritarian consolidation through appointments, disciplinary procedures, funding, surveillance, and patronage. Comparable processes to subordinate universities have unfolded in India, China, and Russia. Instructors may publish or teach critical material while students may organize against the state, but autocrats can hedge against these risks by capturing the university system writ large. In the United States, where universities have become central to “culture wars,” Alemdaroğlu’s article serves as a cautionary tale about how quickly institutional autonomy can erode, especially in the absence of protections against executive encroachment.

The Growth of Turkish Higher Education

The AKP did not eviscerate higher education in one fell swoop but did so incrementally, building on the efforts of its predecessors. For example, after the 1980 coup d'état, Turkey’s military government centralized key aspects of university appointments, which the Erdoğan regime has expanded. In addition, the country’s 1980s neoliberal turn refashioned universities as instruments of profit and efficiency rather than spaces of academic freedom. Since the AKP attained power, higher education has grown at an unprecedented scale: there were 76 universities with 1.7 million enrolled students in 2002, compared to 206 universities and 8 million students in 2020. This has afforded the regime vast new terrain on which to exercise control.

Unsurprisingly, such rapid growth has increased quantity at the expense of quality. From a political standpoint, however, this is not especially costly for the AKP. For example, meager investments in research capacity have served to weaken the independence of academics and their ability to criticize the regime. Meanwhile, university hiring processes reflect the preferences of AKP loyalists, thus expanding the scope of co-optation. These are not unintended consequences but core features of a system geared toward patronage.

University expansion has helped the AKP widen its reach across social groups and economic sectors. Lucrative construction projects, public-sector jobs, faculty appointments and access to scarce resources have become channels through which the party awards supporters and cultivates loyalty.  In other words, higher education has served as a means of patronage, ideological inculcation and political control. The government framed expansion as a democratizing challenge to secular urban privilege and as part of a project to cultivate a more conservative, religiously grounded youth.

Waves of Capture

Alemdaroğlu periodizes the AKP’s higher education agenda into three waves that illustrate the shift from episodic intervention to routinized control. The first wave, which began soon after the AKP came to power, was not immediately visible to international observers as part of a broader authoritarian turn. Though it was clear to those targeted. For example, a 2005 penal code criminalized the “denigration of Turkishness,” which state prosecutors used to target faculty in literature and journalism, particularly those who had published on the Armenian genocide and the systematic mistreatment of Kurds.

By contrast, the second wave, beginning after the failed 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, was much more dramatic. The AKP government presented the coup attempt, which it attributed to the Gülen movement, as a national emergency requiring sweeping state action. Faculty and employees were dismissed and suspended en masse, while Gülen-affiliated universities were shuttered and had their assets frozen. In addition, investigations were conducted against those who signed a 2016 “Academics for Peace” document, which called for an end to state violence against Kurds. Turkey’s Constitutional Court found the investigations illegal in 2019, but by which time many academics had already lost their positions, passports, income, and professional standing.

The final, ongoing wave has “shifted toward a permanent institutional model, moving control and coercion into the everyday governance of the university.” Faculty are routinely disciplined for “verbally disrespectful speech” or conduct incompatible with “public morality and decency,” while AKP loyalists are appointed to senior academic posts by direct presidential decree. In addition, online citizen reporting through the state’s communication system has created another channel for targeting faculty. Although the rise from 130,000 applications in 2006 to 6 million in 2020 reflects the system as a whole, it shows how citizen complaints became part of everyday state monitoring, including at universities.

Ultimately, the Turkey case shows how democracy erodes through both dramatic ruptures and quiet, cumulative transformations. Alemdaroğlu emphasizes that the degraded condition of Turkish higher education does not merely reflect AKP’s autocratization but has actively enabled it.

*Brief prepared by Adam Fefer.

This article was written by Dr. Thomas Fingar, who played an early role in the establishment of SPICE before helping to establish and then leading Stanford’s U.S.–China Relations Program before moving to the U.S. State Department where he served twice as Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research. He later served as Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and Chairman of the National Intelligence Council before returning to Stanford in 2009. This is the sixth of several articles—focusing on the 50-year history of SPICE—that will be posted this year.

The celebration of SPICE’s 50th anniversary attests to the continuing vitality, impact, and success of ideas and constructive activism engendered by unique circumstances at Stanford in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Bay Area China Education Project (BAYCEP) and its successor organization, the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), did not just happen and its success was not assured. Many innovative projects were launched during that turbulent and transformative period but few survived or had a lasting impact. It is worth reflecting on what made this Stanford initiative different and more successful.

Context matters and it is useful to recall the political and academic environment at the time. It was the golden age of area studies when universities and the national affairs enterprise struggled to understand the societies, cultures, politics, and policies of the more than 100 ‘new’ nations that regained independence or emerged from revolution after World War II. New social science methodologies were developed to support this undertaking, and new ways to teach foreign languages and foreign cultures broadened horizons and facilitated people-to-people interactions that transformed exotic ‘others’ into fellow travelers on planet earth. Stanford was at the forefront of both the area studies and methodological revolutions.

The Vietnam War was a second critical shaper of information and ideas. This was the first ‘television war’ and it gave an immediacy to what was happening in Washington and on the other side of the world. The ‘enemy’ was humanized and the draft forced ordinary Americans to think about people, places, and government policies that were opaque and increasingly personal. Antiwar activism included demonstrations and ‘teach ins’ to educate the public about what was happening and why. These activities occurred in the context of growing dissatisfaction with many gaps between American values and everyday injustice affecting racial minorities, women, the elderly, and the poor. Determination to do something about increasingly unacceptable conditions was rampant.

These factors, and others such as the large size of the area studies community at Stanford and the leadership of key faculty, coalesced in ways that galvanized determination and efforts to link area studies-focused academic research to political action, classroom instruction, and public education. The logic was straightforward. Those at the leading edge of area studies had both an opportunity and an obligation to use what they learned about other countries and cultures to inform and influence politicians and policymakers so that they would see the error of their ways in Vietnam and Asia more broadly and adopt policies more conducive to mutual understanding, peace, and shared prosperity.

The logic of the situation and our understanding of the importance of public opinion in a democracy also drove us to seek ways to use our understanding of Asia to bring Asia and Asians into American classrooms. That meant, among other things, expanding coverage of Asian culture and history in American secondary school textbooks and developing teaching materials and training programs for high school teachers. Fifty years later, it is difficult to imagine how little information and teaching material was available. One reason that is the case is that the founders of SPICE used their knowledge of American education, textbook publishing, and teacher training to move beyond the Europe-centric content of what was and is taught in the United States.

The energy and activism during the formative period did not dissipate when graduate students earned their degrees and embarked upon the next stage of their careers. Some continued to work in and through the SPICE structures. Others accepted positions in the U.S. Government and other nonacademic institutions so that they could play direct and indirect roles in shaping official understanding and public policies. Their activities both contributed to public understanding and utilized increased public awareness and understanding to influence public policy. 

There is a bigger story to be told than the narrow component that was and is the SPICE program, but to say that is not to diminish the importance and impact of the classroom and public education achievements of the people and projects undertaken in the decades since SPICE was originally conceived. I am proud to have been a part of those early efforts and even prouder of the fact that SPICE remains as vital and vibrant as it is today and that I still have opportunities to lecture in its programs. 

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