Class of 2020

Elodie Vialle

Knight-Wallace Fellow, University of Michigan

Dear Students, 

It is such an honor to deliver this commencement speech today. I am grateful for the opportunity - and I want to thank Director Franzese and all the PICS team for this chance to talk to you all.

Let’s start on a positive note. Take a moment, with your parents and friends, if you are watching this video together, to congratulate yourself. If you’re alone it might sound a bit ridiculous to applaud in front of your laptop, but do it. Everything is bizarre these days, no worries.

Congratulations. You should be proud of yourself. Not only because you’ve achieved success in a high-level program, studying hours and hours, sacrificing, maybe, some parties to finish assignments. You, International Studies Graduating Class of 2020, are today in the best position to face the challenges of the new world we’re living in.

Our world shifted overnight. Who could have known that going to the supermarket would be the most dangerous adventure of our new lives? Even the best Netflix writers wouldn’t have imagined such a situation, right?

Maybe some of you are facing very difficult situations right now. Actually, a lot of people are facing very difficult situations worldwide. We are all connected on this planet. The poor and the rich. The US and the rest of the world. In many countries, the dilemma for people is: starving or getting the disease. As future leaders, you will have to understand this international context and to acknowledge the needs of your community. Take a deep breath. Thanks to your efforts and what you have learned through these years, you have the tool box, the background, the critical mindset and the empathy you’ll need to build the future.

When we think about it, the planet can live without us - the opposite is not true. We can’t live on this planet if we inflict harm on it. We can’t close our eyes to that. This denial has to stop with your generation.

Empathy, acknowledging a connected and global world, being a problem solver. Keep these values. And be consistent between what you think, what you say, how you act. Both in professional and personal life.

I think I have been consistent with myself. I have done my best to build a better world. And this is how I ended up here - in a very prestigious program at the University of Michigan, giving a speech in front of the next world leaders (well, even though we were supposed to be in the sumptuous Michigan Theater). I care. If you’re part of PICS, I believe that you do care, too.

When I was your age, I set up an organization to fight racism in my country, France. We wanted to raise attention to the fact that most non-white people were preventing from entering discotheques because of discrimination. We filed complaints and contacted journalists. People were shocked to learn that other people were discriminated against in France, the country of human rights, because of the color of their skin. This is how I understood the power of the media.

You know. There is only one freedom which can help us make sure that all our freedoms are respected. And this freedom is freedom of the press. Journalists are not the enemy of the people, they are the champions of the people. Journalists bring you the facts, taking risks themselves. They make sure that governments do what they promised you. And a lot of journalists are facing repression in their countries, only because they want to inform the people on the virus. So, support the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech. This is your first amendment.

As global leaders, you will have to keep these values to make informed decisions.

Take this pandemic as an opportunity to build the world you want to live in. Try to find out how you can improve the situation. Now. Big changes start with small things.

I know that your priority is to get a job, in particular in the current context. I felt the same when I was your age - and I feel that way now. Spoiler alert: you will have to work hard.

I have a modest background, coming from a village in the French Alps. But I graduated from the best Journalism School in France. I have been a Radio Columnist, a TV journalist, an Editor-in-Chief, an International Media Consultant training over 900 journalists worldwide. I was the Head of the Technology Department of an International non profit organization, Reporters without Borders. And I am now a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan - basically the best fellowship on earth for journalists.

Work hard. Never give up.

So, to wrap up this speech, I want to give you one bit of advice that will help you to get a wonderful life (Trust me):

Don't try to avoid waves, learn how to surf. It might sound like an inspiring Instagram post, but it is so true: You’ll face problems, whatever it is, breaking up with a partner, being challenged at work, losing your job. Don’t forget that the art of life is always finding a good balance between struggling, and letting go. We have a mantra in journalism: if you can’t enter through the door, try the window (in a figurative way, of course!). Always try another way, and another way, and another way. Work hard. And if you don't find what you’re looking for, keep going. Keep trying. Keep the faith. And if it really doesn't work, then NEXT. You’ll have a lot of other opportunities in life. Don't try to avoid waves, learn how to surf.

Thank you for listening to me.

Don’t forget, Stick to your values.

Stay home,

Stay safe,

And Go Blue!

Robert J. Franzese, Jr.

PICS Director Address to the International Studies Class of 2020

Hello to the University of Michigan graduating International Studies Class of 2020, and to their parents, family, and friends. My name is Rob Franzese, Director of the Program in International and Comparative Studies, PICS, which houses the International Studies major and minor, and I would like to welcome you to this virtual commencement celebration of our graduates.

Firstly: my and our very great thanks to the tremendous PICS staff – Nataša Gruden- Alajbegović, Bryna Worner, Gabrielle Graves, Kelsey Banfield, and Rachel Wright – for all their tremendous works to mount a wonderful online program, and for all that they have done and do for our International Studies students. And equally great gratitude to our fantastic PICS core instructors: Doctors Greta Uehling, Anthony Marcum, and Howard Tsai, Professors Melanie Tanielian, Mark Dincecco, Scott Stonington, Ragnhild Nordås, and Lecturer Klementina Sula and all our PICS Graduate Student Instructors of course.

Today, though, is a celebration of our outstanding International Studies students. Today, you are the focus of our attention; and you have earned our congratulations. As a faculty member, I also give my gratitude: I say thank you for your interest, for your earnest engagement with each other and with this fine institution, and for allowing us faculty to have the great experience of teaching you. It is a joy, and a privilege. Congratulations!

Yes, today we celebrate our graduating students. Now, not so long ago, it was very common for some to deride their generation for being apathetic, allergic to hard work, or having little curiosity and even less attention span. We might notice, though, that similar things are said about every generation by those older… Socrates, for instance, is supposed to have said: “Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.” (That was apparently actually some margin notes scrawled by a 19^th C. philosophy student.) Well, in any case… These graduating students of U-M International Studies are manifest and conclusive testimony against such complaints: this is a cohort, our tenth graduating cohort in fact, that came of age in the post-financial-crisis era, entered college in one of the most polarized times of recent history, and now is enduring--no, is fighting through and overcoming to succeed marvelously--through the coronavirus pandemic. Today’s graduating PICS seniors are, to a person, extremely engaged, motivated, and industrious applied global scholars.

Students come to the University of Michigan—and parents and family send them—expecting a world-class education. And yes, rightly so: we have a world-class faculty, we admit world-class students, and I believe, I know, that we do, together, generate precisely such world-class education here at U-M. Many students enter this university with these high expectations, and also with a tremendous curiosity about the world outside the U.S., with a drive to learn languages, to travel beyond these United States for academic and applied-experiential purposes, and to study and conduct research on global and international issues. Here, in this Program, and in the International Studies major and minor, we add value to the Michigan experience in just this way, with our central emphasis on engaged international learning about the world beyond our borders, and about our integral place and role, individually and collectively, in that world, today’s exciting and thoroughly, marvelously, globalized world.

Our students have taken the step of broadening their academic horizons thusly by earning an International Studies degree. The idea behind the IS major, founded more than 10 years ago in September 2009, was to provide a program of study that spans disciplines – from economics to anthropology; sociology and political science to history; languages, arts, and literature to environmental and health sciences – a program that spans disciplines to enable students to study complex global issues, issues not exclusively the purview of any one discipline or specific to any particular country or region – issues and problems not easily addressed and redressed at the nation-state level.

And what kinds of issues are these that our International Studies scholars study? They study globalization and development; they study inequality; and cross-cultural conflict and communication; terrorism; trade; human rights; cultural transfer and understanding; technological transfer and the spread of ideas and artifacts; environmental wonders, concerns, and disasters; and pandemics and global health, of course; and much, much more.

International Studies is that diverse, comprising 4 “sub-plans” ranging from Comparative Culture and Identity, to International Security, Norms and Cooperation, to Political Economy and Development, to Global Environment and Health. And the International Studies major is rigorous in its academic approach to these subjects: a 6-semester language-proficiency requirement, a sophisticated research-methods requirement, four advanced core courses in the student’s sub-plan, a regional-focus requirement, and deep engagement with at least two other disciplines across LSA, etc.

Today we celebrate the graduation of the 2020 cohort of International Studies students who have accomplished all this and more here at the University of Michigan, and beyond, academically and already in the world. PICS (then CICS) and International Studies started as a minor in the International Institute in 2006. The major was instituted in 2009 and accepted its first class of I.S. majors in Fall 2010, graduating Winter 2011, making today’s graduates our tenth-anniversary cohort. I.S. currently numbers 468 declared majors (and 25 minors), making it one of the largest in LSA. I.S. has graduated almost 1850 majors and over 250 minors in those first nine cohorts, and today our 10th cohort graduates 230 majors, 10 with Honors, and 10 minors.

In addition to managing the major and minor and their curriculum, PICS this year organized or co-sponsored for our students and the U-M community 30 campus events in international affairs (several in partnership with the Donia Human Rights Center, the DHRC), including a diverse range of career events like the popular and extremely productive professional development workshop led by PICS instructor Klementina Sula, and invited several PICS alumni to connect with students and talk about what they have done after graduation. This year, PICS students were also served by video-conference luncheons, called “Next Steps Virtual PICSnics: Brown Bags in BlueJeans Video Conference” sessions, where we featured PICS alumna, Nicole Khamis, who talked to students about her abroad experiences in Jordan through the Fulbright Program and her current work at the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. PICS also brought in recent graduate John Yim who is now a graduate student at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, focusing on international policy and national security to speak about “Refugee Resettlement in the United States and Internship Opportunities.”

PICS also sponsors or co-sponsors high-impact thematic programing in Global Affairs, including a student discussion session with Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the occasion of his distinguished lecture “Global Challenges to Human Rights Today”, and PICS students had the opportunity to engage with Wai Wai Nu, Founder and Executive Director, Women Peace Network, on the occasion of her lecture, “The Rohingya Crisis and Future of Democracy in Myanmar.”

Lastly, PICS this year helped fund about 50 students for study, internship, or research abroad, and we have partially funded in this way well over 550 students since our inception. We want to thank our donors for generous support that allowed us to award these student fellowships: the Amy Rose Silverman Fellowship, Mr. and Mrs. William Siegel’s Longwoods Fellowship, Andrea and David Scott’s Arctic Fellowship, and the Alajbegović Family Fellowship. Plus, PICS, in collaboration with the DHRC, and with Hardy Vieux, Legal Director of Human Rights First – typically places an International Studies major in an internship with Human Rights First in Washington DC. In another continuing partnership, the International Human Rights Fellowship internship, again with the DHRC and in this case with D.C.-based international human-rights law firm, Perseus Strategies, offers the opportunity to a student to work with its managing director and world renowned human-rights lawyer, Jared Genser. Finally, PICS also collaborates with the DHRC and the U-M Latin American and Caribbean Studies Brazil Initiative, to place students on a summer internship at the Human Trafficking Clinic with Judge Carol Henrique Haddad at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) School of Law. Although some of these opportunities are on hold for this upcoming summer due to travel restrictions, most of these organizations have moved to offer remote internships options for our students!

Some of the amazing and exciting things our graduating students accomplished through these PICS-supported international experiences include—to mention just a very few of these 50 students some receiving support: PICS supported four William Siegel and Margaret Swaine Longwoods fellows, including: Aleah Rogalski, who spent the summer interning at the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) in the U.S. Department of State, a data-driven bureau which monitors, prevents, and responds to conflict that undermines U.S. national security interests; Shannon Shaughnessy, who interned in Mumbai, India with Enabling Leadership, an innovative non-profit that hosts soccer, music, and LEGO program for underprivileged kids across the country; Phoebe Wraith, who interned in Ecuador with Fundación Alaidos, a non-profit that supports indigenous community enterprises and implements reforestation projects throughout the northeastern/central portion of the Amazon region in Ecuador; and Megan Zabik, who interned with start-up company Vert.Run, Inc. in Lyon, France, which designs affordable trail running training plans for athletes all over the world.

PICS also supported two students through the Amy Rose Silverman Fellowship: Sarah Hussain, who interned in Peru at the Centro Educativo Pallata Ayllu (CEPA), a non-governmental community learning center co-developed with members of a rural Indigenous (Quechua) Andean community to support community-identified educational goals and provide culturally sustaining educational opportunities; and Karuna Nandkumar, who completed a summer internship at the anti-Slave Labor and Human Trafficking Clinic in Belo Horizonte Minas Gerais, Brazil to work with Judge Carol Henrique Haddad at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) School of Law.

Today’s graduating class of International Studies majors and minors comprise an accomplished and celebrated group indeed, including—again to name just a few of the many — the 2020 LSA Honors Convocation saw recognitions for 7-term Angell Scholar, Charles Zinn, and 6-term Angell Scholars Caroline A Clingan, Hannah Noel Pierce, and Jiayin Yuan; overall PICS had 54 two-to-five-term Angell Scholars. Matthew Harmon was a Finalist for the Marshall Scholarship; the 2020 graduating Members of Sigma Iota Rho, The Honor Society for International Studies, include President Sarah Jacob, Vice-President Zachary Hampel, Secretary Zoe Boudart, Treasurer Ashley Solle and members Elena Bartlett, Kaitlyn Bell, Morgan Bergstrom, Jared Bernstein, Brandon Bond, Gabrielle Buchanan, Elizabeth DiTullio, Abby Hackett, Katherine Hadley, Matthew Harmon, Kimberly Ira, Jessica Kolbe, Lauren Levitt, Noelle McNamara, Michelle Nguyen, Patrick Ogden, Allison Oh, Konrat Pekkip, Jared Pitser, Megan Rossiter, Madeleine Schneider, Samantha Steele, and Arielle Sturr. And the list could go on and on.

Our PICS faculty and instructors are highly decorated as well, including Dr. Greta Uehling, who led our Fall IS 101 Introduction to International Studies, being a Golden Apple Award nominee, and being given an "Honored Instructor Award" -- a new award created by Student Housing at U-M: “Every undergraduate who lives in a residence hall has the chance to honor one of their instructors who has had a positive impact on their educational experience” -- and publishing “Working through warfare in Ukraine: Rethinking militarization in a Ukrainian theme café,” in the International Journal of Feminist Politics; Professor Melanie Tanielian was also a Golden Apple Award nominee (the Golden Apple is U-M’s only student-nominated award for outstanding undergrad teaching); and Dr. Professor Scott Stonington participated in a new large volume: Case Studies in Social Medicine; Dr. Howard Tsai published Las Varas: Ritual and Ethnicity in the Ancient Andes with University of Alabama Press. And again, the list could go on and on.

We recognize, too, the excellence of our outstanding PICS staff team for their tireless dedication in expertly stewarding these large International Studies concentrations, and indeed providing the student advising for all the majors and minors offered at the International Institute, and for support of student programming activities and study, research, and internship abroad programs.

And so now: what will they do with all this wonderful Michigan education and experience, this outstanding cohort of International Studies graduates, what will they do and where will they go next? They will continue to study further or enter the world of work—recent years’ exit surveys show 92% of I.S. graduates taking as “first destinations”: employment (74%) or graduate studies (18%), with top fields among those destinations including education, medicine and public health, government, business, and law—So: what will they do and where will they go? They will continue to study further or enter the world of work with valuable knowledge and skills related to engaging, here at home and around the globe, engaging productively and with delight, with people from around the globe, knowing some of their cultures and languages and literature, and governments and policies, and economies, and religions, and fashions, and art. Where will they work; where will they study? Recent PICS Alumni work at the University of Michigan, the Arab American Heritage Council, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, Booz Allen Hamilton, Michigan Medicine, RWE Renewables, U.S. District Courts, the Open Society Foundation, Perseus Strategies, etc.; they study at the University of Michigan (GO BLUE!), at Michigan State (well, they do have some good programs, I guess…), Vanderbilt medical school, UCSD, UC-Berkeley, NYU, City University of NY, Columbia, Yale, Harvard Law, Cambridge University, The London School of Economics, etc. They have founded their own companies, they volunteer for the Peace Corps and Teach for America. They have been awarded the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship, the Liu Xiaobo Human Rights Fellowship, and several Fulbright Fellowships. In short, they will experience and prosper, globally.

Where will they go in doing all this, by the way? Recent years’ exit surveys show the top three destinations geographically to be: Michigan, New York, and Outside the U.S. So, where will they go and do all these amazing things? In a word: Everywhere. International Studies is truly a global major, a world-class education, ideally fitting for our globalized world.

Students: you say, now, at the end of your time in college -- and what an ending this year! -- Whew! I made it! Well, yes, you made it. Now go, continue forward; this is the beginning, not the end, of your adult journey; and you are ready. You came to this world-class place, gained world-class educations and experiences here and around the globe, and so now: go and do world-class work from here forward. You are thinkers and doers, that is, combine your thinking and doing. You are Leaders and Best. Maintain your pride in what that means: To lead is to use your head (constructive, productive thinking, problem solving), your heart (your inspiring devotion and enthusiasm), and your actions (strength, stamina, action and efforts): use this all, your all, to improve our world. And you will lead and do all these things, I am certain of it.

Congratulations to the 2020 Graduating Class of the University of Michigan International Studies!

Anthony Marcum, PhD

Coordinator of PICS Independent, Experiential, and Honors Education

Hello everyone, I am Dr. Tony Marcum, Coordinator of Independent, Experiential, and Honors Education with the Program in International and Comparative Studies.

I want to thank everyone for watching our virtual take on the International Studies Graduation Ceremony.

I especially want to thank the friends and families of the International Studies Honors students.

From having a cup of coffee, to cooking a meal, to listening to their ideas, to calling every day while she was in Jordan, you have played a role in furthering their project.

Whether you know it, or not, you have greatly contributed to their success that we celebrate at this virtual graduation. 

I will briefly describe to you now the Honors Plan for International Studies and what the students have gone through and accomplished.

The process to design a project starts long before entering the Honors Plan.

Zoie, Madeleine, and Anna started talking with me during a seminar almost two years ago about their theses.

I met Brooke and Josie during office hours in fall 2018.

Also, Jackie reached out from the Latin American and Carribean Studies Program to ask if she could take our course on how to develop a research proposal.

Rafi reached out to ask about traveling abroad and writing a thesis in the coming year.

In the winter of 2019, Erin, Megan, and Sachika joined the research proposal class to start working on what would become their projects.

I met Sarah in April 2019 when she reached out about writing a thesis.

In Fall 2019, the students began presenting their questions and possible answers, and receiving feedback as well as giving it on a regular basis.

They worked with me and another advisor to help in guiding the project to fruition.

Near the end of the semester, the ELEVEN had a massive amount of knowledge for the next stage.

They now had to write: new chapter revisions this week, peer edits due the next, and then the cycle would renew itself again and again.

The eleven did this from December through the end of April. Even as the university transitioned to an online format, they continued to revise drafts.

That meant meeting on Google Hangouts to talk about their work. That also meant that Brooke and Josie had the privilege to see my daughter’s art work because she was dad’s teaching assistant at times.

In our theses this year, our researchers wanted to understand…

…How can the mobilization of one organization give birth to others?

…What role do individuals play in the attempts at reforming empires?

…What factors will positive influence the reintegration of extremists into society?

…How does government policy on citizenship influence a people’s identity?

…Why have some countries in South East Asia acknowledged comfort women while others have not?

In joining the Honors Plan to answer these questions, each one of you entered as students.

Now, these eleven – Zoie Chang, Anna Chewter, Jackie Cope, Erin Hahn, Sarah Jacob, Rafi Kubersky, Brooke Lennox, Megan Rossiter, Madeleine Schneider, Josie Scriven, and Sachika Tomishima – are emerging peers.

In looking back, I hope they all realize just how much each one of them has accomplished since that first time we talked about writing a thesis.

I know that I am proud of the work that each one of you has completed in the time that we have known each other.

And I look forward to what each of you will achieve in the coming years.

Congratulations on your well-earned success, and go blue!