IGL awarded $200,000 Carnegie grant

The Institute for Global Leadership won a $200,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation last September to be spent over the course of two years.

The Carnegie Corporation is an education foundation that honors its founder Andrew Carnegie’s goal for international peace, according to the foundation’s website.

The IGL is grateful for the funds provided by the Carnegie Corporation, but considers the acknowledgment that comes with the grant to be even more significant than the money, according to Founding Director of the IGL Sherman Teichman.

“[The Carnegie Corporation is] one of the most prestigious granting bodies in the arenas of education knowledge transition on international cooperation and security studies — elements that are very relevant to the mission of the IGL and Tufts, given its international profile and [emphasis] on global citizenship,” he said.

The grant is unique in that the Carnegie Corporation traditionally awards grants for graduate education, according to James Lindquist, the associate director of the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations at Tufts.

“As far as we understand from Carnegie, this is the first time that they have given this type of grant to an undergraduate program,” he said.

Co-Chair of the IGL Advisory Board and Trustee Emeritus William Meserve (A ’62) feels that the award validates the work that the IGL does.

“They saw that we have a history of achievement, and they realized that, given the changes in the world, we probably need a new generation of thinkers and ideas,” he said. “They like that we brought in practitioners from various aspects of international affairs ... to talk about these issues, coupled with our programs that send kids overseas on research to areas of the world with significant things going on.”

The grant will primarily be spent on the IGL’s Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship program and global research, according to Teichman.

“It enables us to conduct our academic and intellectual outreach in a much more deliberative and enriching manner,” he said. “The grant provides funds for us to bring significant figures from the regions that we are considering, with this year’s program focusing on the Middle East and North Africa.”

The second half of the grant will be used next year as EPIIC focuses on Russia, Lindquist said. The remaining funds will be used primarily for other IGL programs and for some operational costs.

According to Teichman, the IGL applies for corporation and foundation grants less frequently than it relies on individuals and alumni for funding because the time it takes to prepare proposals is significant.

“Basically, all these years, we have been concentrating on educating our students, and our funding has come from the emphasis on individuals, our alumni and board members,” he said. “It gives us the flexible funding that allows us to be very expeditious and very responsive to emerging and fast moving events, while at the same time being accountable.”

The process to obtain a grant from the Carnegie Corporation includes a 20 to 25-page proposal, visits to the Carnegie Corporation in New York City and a visit to the campus by the Carnegie Corporation, Lindquist said.

“It was a long gestation period, probably close to a year from the time we first visited to when we submitted the proposal,” he said. “We had a lot of convincing to do, but they did eventually believe us that it is a unique program.”

According to Teichman, Carnegie Corporation was initially skeptical of the IGL’s grant proposal.

“They basically in jest said, ‘We don’t believe you,’” Teichman said. “It was a very humorous moment, because we had just described what we did, and our materials, and they said, ‘This is extraordinary. Why haven’t we heard of you before?’”

Deana Arsenian, the Carnegie Corporation’s vice president of the International Program and program director for Russia and Eurasia, then made a campus visit to evaluate the IGL’s programs in person.

“Arsenian wrote that she believes the program she witnessed ‘has features that could be and really should be replicated’ at other academic environments that have the resources,” Teichman said.

Project Manager for the Carnegie Corporation’s International Program, Patricia Nicholas, also made a visit to Tufts to view the EPIIC Symposium, according to Teichman.

“The work [of the IGL] resonates with our priority to build a capacity for future national security expert specialists at the student and professional level,” Nicholas said in an email to Teichman.

Lindquist is optimistic about the IGL’s chances to renew its grant at the Send of the first two years.

“We hope with their advice and input — and they have been very helpful to us — that we will submit a renewal grant sometime early next year,” he said.

Teichman believes that the students and alumni of the IGL is the reason the institute was selected for this grant.

“The Carnegie Corporation has told us that we are ‘the proven breeding for the next generation of international security leadership,’” he said.