Following a sustained period of program growth, an expanded leadership team and remodeled facility will greet new and returning students in the fall.
When current and incoming students in Stanford University’s Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy (MIP) program arrive to campus this fall, they will be the first to experience the new face of the program.
Renovations on a modern new academic space, outdoor courtyard and gardens will be complete, and Professor Francis Fukuyama, one of the most well-known and respected social scientists in the world, will be the program’s new director.
“I am grateful for this opportunity to lead the Ford Dorsey MIP program,” said Fukuyama, who is the Mosbacher Director at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He noted that, “This is a critical time to prepare our students to be policy leaders in government, civic society, and the private sector. Our curriculum aims to be among the best in international policy education, and continues to get stronger with new faculty, courses, and terrific students.”
The Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy is a two year, full-time, professional graduate degree program administered jointly by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the School of Humanities and Sciences. The just graduated Class of 2019 included nineteen students, 15 women and four men, from 10 different countries.
Under the leadership of Michael McFaul as director and Kathryn Stoner as deputy director over the last two years, the MIP program has changed and grown significantly. The core curriculum was completely revamped, a new, very popular specialization track on cyber policy was added, and a greater number of FSI faculty have begun to teach in the program. The number of applications has risen 67% over the past 2 years. Both McFaul and Stoner will continue to teach in the MIP program.
“Since redesigning MIP two years ago, we have committed to optimizing and improving this unique, innovative program at FSI,” said Professor McFaul. “Convincing Francis Fukuyama to assume leadership of MIP is the natural next phase in the program’s growth and development.”
Stoner served as Director of the program for 8 years before becoming Deputy Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Under her leadership, the program increased faculty involvement from FSI in teaching in the program, developed a new curriculum in conjunction with FSI faculty, added an exchange program between the program and the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, increased student funding opportunities through research with FSI faculty, and grew the program staff to better support student career services, alumni outreach, program recruiting, student academic advising, and admissions.
“Our students are well positioned to assume leadership roles over the course of their careers,” said Professor Stoner. “We are meeting the demands of the shifting policy landscape with innovative new courses and graduates who dare to think differently. In this sense the program is quintessentially Stanford.”
Alongside Professor Fukuyama, Dr. Chonira Aturupane, a senior research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at FSI, and long-time lecturer in international economics in the MIP program, has agreed to serve as the Associate Director for Academic and Student Affairs in the MIP Program.
“Mike McFaul and I leave the leadership and administrative team of this program in good hands. Francis Fukuyama is a dedicated policy scholar, and teacher and I am thrilled that he is taking the helm,” said Stoner. “We know Chonira Aturupane will be as outstanding a contributor in this new administrative role as she has been as an instructor,” she added.
Professor Fukuyama has long been passionate about the teaching of public and international policy at the graduate level. He came to Stanford in 2010 from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he led, expanded, and redesigned the International Development coursework for the SAIS master’s program.
Fukuyama has also been deeply involved in the redesign of the MIP curriculum at Stanford, and has spearheaded a national effort for innovation in public policy teaching. He will continue to teach in the program, including the new practicum experience with Professor Jeremy Weinstein of Stanford’s Department of Political Science, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at FSI next year.
“To prosper in today’s global society, institutions must continually adapt at both the leadership and policy level,” said Fukuyama. “It’s something I’ve spoken about for years and now here I am living this change together with our students. I can’t wait for us to get started.”
Media Contact: Ari Chasnoff, Assistant Director for Communications, chasnoff@stanford.edu, 650-725-2371
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Professor Francis Fukuyama (center) and Dr. Chonira Aturupane (right) at the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy graduation ceremony on June 16, 2019. Photo: Meghan Moura
This year, the Sejong Korean Scholars Program (SKSP) concluded its sixth year with its largest cohort of 22 students from across the United States. The SKSP is an intensive online course offered by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) at Stanford University for exceptional U.S. high school students who want to engage in an in-depth study of Korea, exploring its history, religion, culture, and relationship with the United States. Students who successfully complete the course earn credit from the Stanford Continuing Studies Program and a Certificate of Completion from SPICE, Stanford University.
Each year from March to June, students in the SKSP online course carry out rigorous coursework that consists of weekly readings, online lectures, assignments, discussion posts, and “virtual classroom” video conferencing sessions, where students engage in live discussion with each other and a guest speaker who is an expert-scholar on the topic of the week. As their culminating final project, students write independent research papers which are printed in journal format at the conclusion of the course.
The SKSP online course offers a unique opportunity for high school students to study Korea and U.S.–Korean relations in a college-level-type course that draws on the wealth of expertise and scholarship on Korean Studies at Stanford University. Top scholars, experts, and former diplomats at Stanford University as well as other universities in the United States provide thematically organized online lectures. The themes for each week include traditional Korean culture, religion, colonial history, the Korean War, post-war recovery, North Korea, modern South Korean society and its educational system, and Korea’s transnationalism. In addition to the recorded online lectures, the guest speakers for the weekly virtual classroom sessions engage in discussions with students and provide answers to their questions.
The co-instructors for the course, as well as guest speakers, often note the quality and maturity of students’ thoughtful insights and questions. Co-instructor HyoJung Jang has noted that “the talented and engaged high school students who participate in the SKSP online course bring their intellectual curiosity, critical thinking skills, and enthusiasm for learning about Korea and its popular culture. On top of their full academic load at their respective high schools across the country, these students go above and beyond to commit to SKSP’s demanding coursework and participate fully in the course as Korea scholars-in-training.”
“Over the past four months, our students have formed a community where they actively engage in intellectual discussions with each other—exchanging their ideas, thoughts, reflections, experiences, and perspectives on various topics,” commented co-instructor Jonas Edman. “For instance, some students contributed their own interpretations and explanations for the stark difference between the Taiwanese colonial experience and memory of Japanese rule and that of Korea. When discussing the issue of ‘comfort women’ during Japanese colonial rule in Korea, one student shared a personal story about his great-great-grandmother’s similarly painful experience under foreign rule in Eastern Europe and powerfully advocated for the importance of justice. Other students shared about their assessments of the roles of the U.S. and South Korean leaders—in addition to the roles played by North Korea, China, and Russia—on the outbreak of the Korean War and its aftermath.”
Alongside their academic engagement with each other, students have also bonded over their shared interests in Korean food and popular culture, namely “K-pop, K-dramas, and K-movies.” Some students chose to write their final research papers on analyzing Korean popular culture. Other discussions on the modern Korean education system have even incorporated students’ personal observations of the education issues portrayed in a popular Korean drama. These interests are encouraged, as students are urged to creatively explore the topics most interesting to them for their final research paper.
One of the strengths of the SKSP online course is that it encourages high school students to consider different perspectives on various issues, think critically about those different perspectives, and develop their own informed opinions. Reflecting on her participation in the course, Chloee Robison, a high school student from Indiana, said, “SKSP was a unique opportunity to explore my interest in Korean history. Even though I am not of Korean heritage, I felt deeply connected to the course material, and I found the lectures to be quite informative and engaging. Coming from a region that is largely homogeneous, hearing the perspectives of diverse-minded students opened my eyes to issues and ideas that I would have otherwise been blind to. I am so grateful to everyone involved in the course, and I would recommend it to all students who wish to challenge themselves and expand their knowledge of Korean history and culture.” Chloee’s research project on Korea’s March First Movement earned first place in Indiana’s National History Day competition.
The popularity and demand for Stanford’s SKSP online course on Korea grows each year. Interested high school students are encouraged to apply early for the program. The application period is between late August and early October each year for enrollment in the online course the following year. The online application can be found on the SPICE website at sejongscholars.org.
To be notified when the next Sejong Korean Scholars Program application period opens, join our email list or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Corruption of the information ecosystem is not just a multiplier of two long-acknowledged existential threats to the future of humanity—climate change and nuclear weapons. Cyber-enabled information warfare has also become an existential threat in its own right, its increased use posing the realistic possibility of a global information dystopia, in which the pillars of modern democratic self-government—logic, truth, and reality—are shattered, and anti-Enlightenment values undermine civilization around the world.
On the spacious new lawn outside of Encina Hall, members of the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy (MIP) Class of 2019 officially became Stanford graduates. Established at the Freeman Spogli Institute in 1982, the MIP program trains future leaders in cyber policy and security, global health, governance and development, international security and energy and the environment.
The 15 women and four men in this year’s cohort come from 10 different countries. Some will stay in the Bay Area, while others will move on to places including Paraguay, Mexico and Singapore to work in fields such as consulting, technology and government. Students and faculty elected Manuel Ramos Maqueda — a member of the graduating class — to speak at the graduation ceremony. A transcript of his speech is below:
Student speaker Manuel Ramos Maqueda addresses his classmates at the MIP graduation ceremony June 16, 2019. Photo: Freeman Spogli Institute
Manuel Ramos Maqueda: Graduates, parents and families from all over the world, esteemed faculty and administration: good afternoon, annyeonghaseyo, kon'nichiwa, privet, buenas tardes, merhaba, nǐ hǎo.
These would have been the only words my parents would have understood had they come to our graduation. My father always dreamt that his son could learn what he didn’t have the opportunity to learn, which is why he encouraged me to learn English. So, before anything else, I take this moment to thank them — our parents and families — for providing us with the tools and opportunities that would allow us — that would allow me— to spend the two most inspiring years of my life with this incredible group of people.
First Day in Encina Hall
Do you remember our first day in that building, Encina Hall? As I struggled with my English, I was quite intimidated to meet the deputy director of our program, Professor Kathryn Stoner, as well as the former intermediator between Obama and Putin as U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Ambassador McFaul. Professor McFaul said two things then that I still remember. One is that by just spending the next two years learning from each other, even if we did not take a single class, we would leave with a vast new breadth of knowledge. Then, he said that our program was going to become, if it wasn’t already, the best policy program not in the U.S., but in the world!
I was like, “Wow, those are two big statements.” In this program we have learned to believe in evidence-based policy making. Two years have passed, and at this point we have the evidence to analyze whether these statements were true. It is my goal to evaluate them in this speech. First, have I really learned that much from my peers? And second, is this truly becoming the best policy program in the world?
The Classmates
Let’s start with my classmates.
To me, the beginning of our program was the bootcamp. But not the one in September. Instead, the one in the Fall quarter — more specifically, Chonira’s class. That class was the preparation for two intense and highly rewarding years at Stanford.
For the first assignment, Juan and I stayed up with Kerem almost the entire night working on it. We had been in the library for hours, skipped dinner, no sunlight, ready to give up on this one killer assignment, then Juan looks to Kerem and says, “You know this is actually a weekly assignment, right?” Kerem almost had a heart attack.
You would think that after that amount of work, Kerem would never take another one of Chonira’s classes. Well, not only did he take all of her other classes, but he even ended up asking for a Directed Reading with Chonira this year.
This commitment to challenging ourselves, and loving the process of learning, is a characteristic that I am proud to say I learned from my classmates. And not just from Kerem, but also from Rose, and the hours she would put in on the data science track for something she believed in; Drew, Nikki and Sneha, who pretty much gave their lives to “Design for Extreme Affordability;” and through the many of us who floated for hours in the frigid Russian River in an exercise of survival training. I have learned from all of you that no matter how much effort and how many hours something might involve, if you believe in it, you should fight for it, and you will make it happen (as we made it to the camp site).
After our intense fall quarter of the first year, the winter cold brought our community closer together. First, on our trip to Tahoe, where we learned playing Pictionary that chickens have four legs. Then, on our trip to Korea, where, in one of those magic moments of life, we ran into Elizabeth Warren at the DMZ on the same day that Kim Jong Un visited China for the first time. We had the privilege of listening to the powerful stories of North Korean defectors; learned so much from our government allies, Soo Yeon and Amb Stephens; and even participated in a cultural immersion with dancing contests in a drag bar, with soju, of course.
However, what I truly remember from these trips is how much our community bonded. We created a system of support where, no matter the circumstances, we would all be there for each other. For example, MC made sure that each of us would feel included, becoming a second mother to many of us. In each of these trips, coming to the hotel at the end of the day started to feel like actually coming home. Our time together has shown that no matter where or when we see each other in the future, I know our friendships will remain as if no time ever passed.
Apart from our commitment to challenge ourselves and the system of support we generated, I really love that everyone in our program is fully free to be what they want and who they want to be. An example has been the “fireside chats” organized by Mackenzie. With full openness and no judgments, this was a place where everything one said would be safe. We learned about people’s fears and toughest times – cases of anxiety and depression, family struggles – but also about our cherished dreams and aspirations.
When there have been escalations in conflict between our countries, such as the recent case of India and Pakistan, our classmates from these countries decide to get together to prove how dialogue and respect can deescalate tensions. I have honestly felt that this program is based on real cooperation rather than forceful competition. I believe these are the policymakers we need for a future of peace and cooperation.
To conclude this point, I’ll briefly say to your families, whether they are here or not: as a classmate, I believe you should be proud of your sons and daughters. Not for the title they are receiving today, but for the wonderful people they are. They have been the main source of my learning in the past two years, and I say to all of you, thank you.
Professor McFaul, you were right – when I consider the aforementioned variables in my regression, the results are statistically significant at the 99% confidence level. This program would be worth it alone just for how much I have learned from them.
The Program
Let’s now evaluate the second big statement: is our policy program that incredible? The core of a program are generally its faculty and its values.
In terms of faculty, I believe there is a unique aspect of FSI — it strives to bridge the gap between policy and academia. As professors Francis Fukuyama and Jeremy Weinstein have taught us, we not only know how to design evidence-based policy solutions, but also how to actually make things happen in the real world. I could also mention the other wonderful professors at FSI with whom we had faculty dinners organized by our queen, Nicole, but then this speech would never end.
A second, unique aspect of our program comes from our access to the broader Stanford network, which has bridged the gap between the technical and the policy realms. Our world requires policymakers who know how to make use of data and algorithms for good, to understand the science behind climate change, to consider the health implications of humanitarian crises, or to understand the risks of twin-deficits in the macroeconomic situation of a country. By combining classes in the engineering, business, law and design schools, we have become policymakers who understand the deeper, technical issues of our societies. We are now prepared to use science and technology for the progress of humanity.
A third crucial aspect of our program is the people who keep it running. Ambassador McFaul and Professor Stoner have helped us find the right direction for the program. Thanks very much, Ambassador McFaul, for the excitement every time we would get a story “off the record.” And Professor Stoner, for leading us throughout our practicum projects and our time here. We might have given you some headaches, but probably not as many as we have given Jonathan, Kristin and Meghan. An example of this is how throughout the past week, we have all been bombarding Jonathan asking whether we would graduate. As usual, Jonathan’s response was, calm down, it will be fine. You have all kept the ship floating in the right direction, with a positive attitude and a warm smile, and I would like to thank you for it.
Student Values
Finally, I think what really makes a program absolutely unique is its values. I don’t think any other program had someone like Mackenzie, who interviewed all of the members of her cohort to fully understand their motivations and beliefs. In brief, we indicated that we empathize with humanity, we are open to the new and we remain mission-oriented.
We empathize with humanity because we try to understand and address the needs of those who we may have never met in circumstances we may have never faced.
As I like to put it, we would like to represent the voices of those who cannot be heard. Within each of our nations, but also across borders. We have seen this in our program as many classmates went to the border with Mexico to support people fleeing from conflict, or how others fight to save our planet from the threat of climate change.
We are open to the new because we seek out new experiences and approach new ideas with an open mind.
This program has been a great training for this. How much we’ve learned from each other’s cultures: we celebrated the Chinese New Year, and even learned from Jessica how, in China, parents would post their children’s resumes in squares to find them a future spouse. We have celebrated Ramadan, and we, the internationals, have even experienced how to have an American tailgate, and tried to learn the rules of an American football game – still not there yet.
We are, and will remain, mission-oriented, because we feel a sense of duty to execute on our unique personal missions. That means taking a long view and not letting the minor challenges take us down. Even though sometimes we might not have a clear sense of our next steps, and we even might feel lost, we will consider the bigger picture and what inspires us, and remain committed to that vision.
Those values are the unifying theme of our cohort and will remain the essentials of our toolbox as we leave Stanford.
Overall, I think it is safe to say that our program bridges the gap between policy and research, between the technical skills and the domain knowledge, between D.C. and Silicon Valley, and perhaps even between China, Russia and the U.S. I may not know other programs that well. However, with our values, faculty and staff, and of course the killer classmates we have, I feel safe to say that this is becoming the best policy program not only in the U.S., but in the world.
The Transformation
In the world of public speaking it is well known that there is no pleasure you can give an audience that compares to the pleasure they get when the speech is over. However, I have one last thought to share, so you can look forward to experiencing that pleasure in about three minutes from now.
I think the only aspect missing from my analysis is that we cannot think of ourselves and the program in a static way. We live in a dynamic world. This program has transformed us, and we will keep transforming the world as we move on.
I came to this program aware of how globalization exposes us to the vast inequalities that separate regions of the world. However, until now I perhaps didn’t fully understand the complexities and intricacies of the big challenges we aim to address. For example, after doing my research I now better understand what causes malaria and how to prevent it. Through my classmates’ research, I have been exposed to the big power competition in the era of AI, to ways of promoting financial inclusion in Tanzania, and expanding zero-emission policies in the U.S. that are vital for our planet. Perhaps more importantly, I have learned the tricks to be part of the citizenship and residency-by-investment program, and will be able to move to an idyllic island when I decide to retire [joking].
This program has really transformed me. I have spent way too many hours in front of RStudio, lost too much sleep, and even gained some weight. After meeting Nicole, I thought that I would also start waking up at 5 a.m. and running 10 miles every morning. But hey, my theory of the change didn’t go that far. But really, this program has given us the tool to make a real change in our futures. We are now fully aware of the crucial challenges of our planet, we have the evidence required to know how to deal with them and we will use the tools we learned to address them.
With these tools, we have the potential to change the world. MC, Julie and Nicole are already doing so from Kenya and DC. Some of us, such as Vivien, Mackenzie, Annie and Nancy loved the Bay too much to let it go, and they will be leveraging the power of tech from California. Nikki and Isabelle are soon moving to Mexico and Paraguay to contribute to the communities there. Drew decided to follow his dreams in Singapore. Many of you will contribute to a peaceful and prosperous world from your foreign ministries. And we might even have among us a future Hollywood producer, and perhaps the next president of Argentina.
Overall, I am extremely grateful to my classmates, the program and the transformation we have experienced throughout these past two years. In my case, this is all thanks to previous generations who fought to provide me with the opportunities they didn’t have. I am confident that, equipped with the tools learned and the values developed, each and all of us will work to provide future generations, all over the world, with a better chance to follow their dreams than the one the current generation has. As we have learned here at Stanford, the challenges we face are increasingly complex, increasingly global, increasingly daunting. But I have seen the potential of each of you — of all of us — and I know that we will not stop until we make it. I truly believe in you — in us — to realize our potential. I am excited to see what comes next.
Thank you very much, and happy graduation!
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Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy students celebrate their graduation on the front steps of Encina Hall June 16, 2019. Photo: Meghan Moura
"For all its recent setbacks, democracy still has the resources not only to resist but also to beat back the authoritarian tide," writes Larry Diamond for The American Interest. Read the article here.
Stanford e-Japan Program for high school students in Japan Fall 2019 session (October 2019 to February 2020) Application period: June 24 to August 1, 2019
All applications must be submitted at https://spicestanford.smapply.io/prog/stanford_e-japan/ via the SurveyMonkey Apply platform. Applicants and recommenders will need to create a SurveyMonkey Apply account to proceed. Students who are interested in applying to the online course are encouraged to begin their applications early.
Accepted applicants will engage in an intensive study of U.S. society and culture and U.S.–Japan relations. Ambassadors, top scholars, and experts from Stanford University and throughout the United States provide web-based lectures and engage students in live discussion sessions.
“[The Stanford e-Japan online course] was an exceptional opportunity to assimilate fresh insights on U.S.–Japan relations and produce my own ideas via active discussion,” reflects Anna Oura, a recent alum of the program. “Every week I would excitedly wait for Saturday 13:00, when I would meet my fellow scholars—virtually—and exchange opinions.”
Stanford e-Japan is offered by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), Stanford University. The Fall 2019 session of Stanford e-Japan is generously supported by the Yanai Tadashi Foundation, Tokyo, Japan.
For more information about Stanford e-Japan, please visit stanfordejapan.org.
To stay informed of news about Stanford e-Japan and SPICE’s other student programs, join our email list or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Dr. George Rosenkranz —a world-renowned scientist who devoted his life to improving global health and established a prize to foster innovative research among emerging Stanford scholars — leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of science and humanitarianism.
Rosenkranz was 102 when he died Sunday after a prolific scientific career, one that would forever change the course of women’s reproductive lives.
A Hungarian Jew who fled the Nazis during World War II and eventually emigrated to Mexico, Rosenkranz was one of three scientists who pioneered the chemical compounds that led to the birth control pill. He was also instrumental in developing medicines to fight venereal diseases.
The beloved figure often made it to the campus symposiums that honored the prize winners.
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The first Rosenkranz Prize was awarded in 2010 to SHP’s Eran Bendavid, an infectious disease physician and associate professor of medicine. He used his award to study whether U.S. money spent on malaria and HIV programs in sub-Saharan Africa translated into better health outcomes for women and their children.
“George has galvanized a community of global health researchers at Stanford,” said Bendavid. “We now have a community of scholars whose focus on critical issues in other countries has been powerfully enabled by George's legacy. He and his family have been an inspiration for us and, by extension, our students. The spirit of promoting promising young researchers is something we all benefit from. His is a wonderful name and a legacy to be attached to.”
Other Rosenkranz Prize winners honor his legacy with remembrances:
“There are very few people who have changed the world as much as Dr. Rosenkranz; his work in synthesizing and bringing oral contraception to market changed how people form families, and empowered women around the world.” — Mike Baiocchi, a Stanford statistician and the 2017 winner.
“The Rosenkranz Prize helped our young lab take risks where we might not have been able to; risks that have paid off intellectually,” said Baiocchi, whose team is conducting the largest-ever randomized trial to measure the impact of No Means No Worldwide project, which is training 300,000 boys and girls in Kenya and Malawi to prevent rape and teen pregnancy.
“The prize money allowed us to bring two of our statistics PhD students to Kenya to visit the communities they have been working with, to present their work to the stakeholders. This has built a passion for in these students, who have each launched their own Kenya-based study to examine means for reducing gender-based violence.”
“Dr. Rosenkranz's professional and personal legacy are closely intertwined. By his example, I and many other Rosenkranz scholars have been enabled to marry what sometimes feel like dueling passions: social justice and rigorous scholarship. I feel so fortunate to have met Dr. Rosenkranz and hope that many others will continue to be inspired by his message of equity, global fellowship, and excellence.” — Ami Bhatt, the 2016 winner who is building the first multi-country microbiome research project focused on noncommunicable disease risk in Africa.
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“As a Mexican awardee of the Rosenkranz prize it is a privilege to be part of the legacy of one of the most prominent Mexican scientists, whose generous support was a vital seed to create my research laboratory on Human Genomics in Mexico.” — Andrés Moreno Estrada, the 2012 winner who is analyzing the DNA of indigenous groups in Latin American, one of the most underrepresented populations in the field of genetics.
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“The prize was a huge boost to my career as an early stage researcher. It allowed me to do work in India on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) at a time when the topic was not a high priority for global funding agencies. The project led to a series of a collaborations with a large public hospital in India. There were several publications as a result of this partnership, and the studies we performed were innovative and informative on the prevalence on AMR in community-dwelling individuals.” — Marcella Alsan, one of two 2015 prize winners.
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Dr. George Rosenkranz attends a symposium in his honor at Stanford University hosted by Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on Sept. 12, 2016.
Student speaker Manuel Ramos Maqueda addresses his classmates at the MIP graduation ceremony June 16, 2019. Photo: Freeman Spogli Institute
