ABOUT
More pages will soon be published that describe my efforts, with my wonderful team of interns and friends since 2016. These include our exploration of the nexus between grand corruption, human rights, and the environment, which began at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School; the revitalization of the student Pugwash movement, originally stimulated in conversation and liaison with Oxford’s Centre for Technology and Global Affairs, and currently explored with International Student/Young Pugwash, Student Pugwash USA, and nascent student and faculty initiatives at MIT, Yale and elsewhere on technology and security; the development of the LEAP internship program in sustainability and climate action of the Liechtenstein Institute for Strategic Development; our work with organizations promoting human rights and reconciliation, including Human Rights Foundation, the Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, Combatants for Peace, and Embodying Peace; my advising the VII Foundation; and mentoring students of the International Relations Council at Harvard and the Albright Institute at Wellesley.
As I have indicated in Trebuchet’s Welcome, I chose the name The Trebuchet, and its tagline, "Breaking Down Barriers / Building Bridges,” to resonate a lifetime of challenging fortress-like insular and ideological thinking, penetrating silos of allegedly unassailable paradigms, and confronting preconceived bias, in order to create new, effective pedagogy and policy.
The Trebuchet is dedicated to the mission I have inculcated in generations of students; the ongoing imperative to confront misoneism - the hatred, fear, or intolerance of innovation or change. It is what is required to create integrated interdisciplinary thinking and promote progressive communities of intellectual integrity, dedicated to the complex search for truth and common ground.
I created The Trebuchet for two deeply interwoven purposes:
First, to further the impact of the pedagogy I practiced in many roles, particularly as Founding Director of the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University from 1985 to 2016. (The Institute’s initial core was the Symposia Project of the Advisory Committee on Intellectual Life (ACOIL) of the Tufts Experimental College, that then I evolved into EPIIC.)
Second, to reinforce a dynamic, engaged, epistemological community, generated from nearly six decades of teaching, collaboration, and citizen activism.
To accomplish this, The Trebuchet creates and encourages nontraditional alliances, and sponsors intellectual forums, workshops, symposia, organizations and institutions that actively address global conundrums. We develop and offer dynamic curricula, courses and opportunities for mentorship, internships, and fellowships. We link former and current students with expert mentors, nurturing an intergenerational community capable of decoding and confronting domestic and international challenges. We also continue to support the careers and trajectories of my alumni, their children, and new generations of young thinkers and activists.
In 1995, for the Institute’s tenth anniversary, its flagship Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) program I chose the theme “20/20 Visions of the Future: Anticipating the Year 2020” for our yearlong inquiry.
Chosen by EPIIC students to keynote that year’s culminating symposium, Nobel Laureate and cofounder of the Santa Fe Institute, Murray Gell-Mann, described the Institute’s mission as creating "prostheses for the imagination." That same year, the lead editorial of The Boston Globe wrote of our efforts, "At a time when the national discourse seems forever reduced to its lowest common denominators - to sound bites and slogans - EPIIC is a refreshing antidote. Far from looking to simplify the world, it aims to teach students to view life in a way that respects complex human systems."
Now, decades later, the need for such thinking is more urgent than ever.
We know that The Trebuchet community will accept this challenge. They have already proven this. In 2013, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, distinguished for supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and strengthening international peace and security, generously funded the last three years of my directorship. Upon reviewing the accomplishments and trajectories of our alumni, they termed the Institute as “the proven breeding ground for the next generation of international security leadership.” The grant was precedent-breaking - in the century of the Carnegie Corporation’s existence, it had never funded undergraduate education in this manner.
At times, I write in this website in the first person, to explain my thinking and the foundational ideas of The Trebuchet, but overwhelmingly what you read of the development of The Trebuchet is attributable to my generations of remarkable students. This effort is dedicated to these many generations, and, as the reader of this site will understand from the evolving “Convisero” community section, many continue to be fully engaged, not only with The Trebuchet, but more importantly with the world.
I wish to acknowledge the deliberate efforts of two wonderful former students: Cody Valdes, who worked with and inspired me from 2008 to 2016 and who remains integral to my efforts currently at SaiU, in Chennai, India, and my extraordinary colleague, Jérôme Krumenacker, with whom I worked side by side from 2016-2021. Now, as significant are the efforts of other remarkable friends, notably Rachel Svetanoff, a Convisero mentor who I have jocularly called my “Avatar-in-Residence” and the members of the wonderful Trebuchet team, frequently Oslo Scholars, a program I began in 2010 as a Strategic Advisor to the Human Rights Foundation.
To say that this effort is emotionally and humanly important to me, as I approach my octogenarian years, would be a clear understatement. Now, with the possible dissolution of the Institute, the creation of this entity becomes all the more meaningful.
I knew that I would miss the challenge of teaching and designing curricula. Therefore, I have accepted a unique opportunity at the overture of a dear friend, Jamshed Bharucha, former Provost of Tufts University, with whom I worked closely for a decade, to become a Professor of Practice of International Relations and Global Affairs at an innovative, liberal arts start-up university, SaiU, in Chennai, India, where Jamshed is now Vice-Chancellor. In this endeavor, I have the privilege of teaming up with Cody once again. He will be SaiU’s Senior Tutor and my teaching assistant.