An expert-led panel discussion exploring power transitions in the 21st century last night kicked off the 27th Annual Norris and MargeryBendetson Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) International Symposium. The program is sponsored by the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) and this year is focusing on the theme of "Conflict in the 21stCentury."
The five-day-long event, which will conclude on Sunday, is composed of a series of student-moderated panels on issues of rising importance, including drone warfare and the implications of the "Mr. Y" doctrine. There will be a day-long robotics workshop and student presentations by EPIIC colloquium members and other IGL-affiliated groups.
The symposium will feature an esteemed group of prominent intellectuals, activists and political figures including Boston University Professor Andrew Bacevich, Harvard University Professor Steven Pinker, Col. Mark Mykleby and Capt. Wayne Porter, co-authors of the "Mr. Y" doctrine, and Ariel Levite, among numerous other distinguished figures.
IGL Director Sherman Teichman, who founded the EPIIC program at Tufts, remarked that the 2012 symposium is particularly significant because this year's topic is paradigmatic of the theme of the reconfiguration of global security in light of the constantly evolving nuances of international relations.
The topic crystallizes the future-minded outlook that is the driving force behind the IGL, according to Teichman.
"While it was chosen in the context of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, what it really does is create a crucible for all 26 years of the [IGL] and its EPIIC program, which has been dedicated to defining security behind the kinetic and to make it more complex in terms of environmental issues, technological advances and unit security," Teichman said.
Each incoming EPIIC class designs the symposium according to the students' input, according to IGL Associate Director Heather Barry. The members of the EPIIC class have the freedom to decide which issues they view as the most critical and to then construct a symposium that addresses those issues, Barry said.
"[Students] learn what it means to have an idea and put it into reality because of all the logistical work it involves," Teichman said. "It's an intellectual exercise."
Teichman said that the main aim of the conference is to expand the concept of security by incorporating all the emerging concepts that could exacerbate or mitigate violence and war –— ranging from the technology-oriented Arab Spring movement to innovations in cyber warfare — in order to facilitate comprehension of global conflict.
"We're trying to redefine security and make this a broader conception to understand the implications of war and violence and conflict," Teichman said.
AparnaRamanan, a member of the EPIIC class, explained the class' decision to use a thematic structure for this year's symposium rather than a regionally-focused structure. She said that with a topic as broad as "Conflict in the 21st Century," a regional focus would have necessitated either a myopic focus on specific indigenous topics or broad regional synopses that lacked any real depth.
"We decided that looking at disparate issues that are linked by similar themes might be a more effective way of dealing with such a vast range of conflict," Ramanan, a junior, said. "At the same time, our breakout sessions on Saturday will be dealing with more specific regional conflict, so we feel like we got the best of both worlds in that situation."
This year's symposium is also remarkable in that it features an unprecedented number of foreign student delegations, from countries such as Iraq, Rwanda, South Korea, Tunisia, Israel, China, Russia and Singapore, that will attend the conference.
KonradGessler, a member of the EPIIC class, plans to seize the opportunity to communicate with experts in the various fields that the class has studied and considered.
"The most important thing to get out of the symposium is to really challenge these experts on the issues that they're going to be discussing," Gessler, a sophomore, explained.
According to EPIIC student Chloe Tomlinson, part of the reasoning behind the board's decision to explore many of the themes outlined in the symposium and to institute a daylong workshop on robotics stemmed from a sense that obviating open discussion of emergent issues such as robotics warfare and neuroscience could result in their unregulated usage on the battlefield.
"I think through our readings and what we heard from speakers, we heard that these issues are becoming huge and growing exponentially outside our control, and international law and governance are not recognizing how big these issues are becoming," Tomlinson, a senior, said.
Despite the focus on defining and exploring the future, the symposium also emphasizes the past. It is dedicated to the memory of IGL Program on Narrative and Documentary Practice Board member Tim Hetherington, a war journalist who was killed in April while reporting in Libya.
For Teichman, who has been at Tufts since 1984 and who maintains close ties with many of his former students, one of the most important aspects of this year's symposium is the network of IGL-affiliated individuals and alumni who will be returning to contribute to the symposium.
"This is a beautiful vignette in terms of the institute because my student of 26 years ago is now head of the [Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University] and helped us bring a Russian delegation of students here," Teichman said. "We have Oliver Wilcox, who was my student many years ago, and is now [Peace and Security Policy Program Chief for the U.S. Department of State]. We're honoring Rachel Brandenburg and Amir, the author of Zahra's Paradise."
