SPME Faculty Fellowship Summer Institute in Israel-2010 Highly Successful

  • 0

The second Faculty Fellowship Summer Institute to Israel took place from June 9 to June 17, 2010. Fifteen academics were chosen out of a pool of almost 200 applicants. The Fellows Program was led by Sam Edelman, Executive Director, SPME; Sharon Tzur, Media Watch International and Rene Reinhard from JNF.

The goal of the joint SPME, JNF, Media Watch Fellowship Program is to link scholars from diverse disciplines with their Israeli counterparts at major institutions for the purpose of initiating exchanges and collaborations as well as curricular development.

The Fellows connected with Israeli, professors, experts, and professionals involved in government, industry, education, media and other sectors. The goal was to have the Fellows understand the many facets of Israel’s evolving national and international policies. Part of the program organizers’ efforts was to provide the Fellows with a deeper awareness of the many challenges faced by Israel and the creativity, spirit and ingenuity that Israelis bring to tackling these issues.

Program Overview

The Fellows explored the following key foci.

· Academic Exchange, Networking and Collaboration: This is the central focus of this fellowship. Participants engage in unique opportunities to partake in cross-cultural academic and professional dialogues and exchanges with colleagues in specific disciplines at leading Israeli institutions.

· History: Explore how the history of the region continues to shape contemporary issues.

· Society: Observe the many faces of Israel, its heterogeneous and complex population with historical connections to many faiths and traditions: something rarely portrayed in its complexity.

· Economy: See why many argue that the future of peace in the region begins with the economic alliances that are being built today.

· Politics, Diplomacy and the Media: The politics of the region are the subject of intense debate in mainstream media and of intellectual dialogue in our classrooms. Get a close-up look at political discourse on the ground and the role of the media.

· Culture: Art reflects life – and Israel is no exception. See ways in which the drama of the region plays out on stage, screen and in literature.

· Science and Technology: Expand collaborative academic ties and gain insight into Israeli advances in science, information, medical and pharmaceutical technologies, and how these developments are playing a role in shaping the future of the region.

· Law, Democracy and Human Rights: Debate and discuss the development of Israel as a democracy that is committed to principles of transparency, human rights and the rule of law within the framework of the contemporary Middle East.

Participant Fellows

Abe Aamidor is a former veteran feature writer at The Indianapolis Star and author or co-author of several books, including “Chuck Taylor, All Star: The True Story of the Man Behind the Most Famous Athletic Shoe in History” (Indiana University Press, 2006); “Shooting Star: The Rise and Fall of the British Motorcycle Industry” (ECW Press of Toronto, 2009); and “At the Crossroads: Middle America and the Battle to Save the Car Industry” (ECW Press of Toronto, March 2010). He has taught journalism at Southern Illinois University, Georgia Southern University, Butler University and Indiana University-Bloomington.

Marian G. Barchilon, an Associate Professor in Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication in Arizona State University’s School of Letters and Sciences, is a Fellow and Senior Member of the Society for Technical Communication. Professor Barchilon has taught engineering, technical communication, and interpersonal communication courses at Arizona State since 1989.

Joe Cerami joined the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University in August 2001, teaching National Security Studies in the Masters Program in International Affairs. He was appointed as the founding Director of the Bush School’s Public Service Leadership Program in 2002. During a 30-year military career, Colonel Cerami (U.S. Army, Retired) served in Germany and the Republic of Korea. His last military assignment was as the Chairman of the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, from 1998-2001. From 1993-1998, he served on the faculty there as Director of International Security Studies. He also served on the faculty at West Point as an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the early 1980s.

Wendy Diamond is the Business & Economics Librarian and Head of the Reference & Instruction Department at California State University, Chico. From 1989 to 1994, she was Reference & Instruction Librarian at the Business Library of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. She is active in the American Library Association Business Section (BRASS), California Academic & Research Libraries (CARL), and is co-author of a reference handbook entitled Marketing Information: a Strategic Guide for Business and Finances Libraries.

Richard England is a Professor of Economics and Natural Resources at the University of New Hampshire. He specializes in property taxation, smart growth, land development, local economic development, ecological economics, as well as state and local government finance. Professor England has been a Visiting Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts since 2004. He was also the recipient of the David C. Lincoln Fellowship at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy from 2000-2003.

Cathleen A. Fleck received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and her PhD from Johns Hopkins University in medieval art history. She has been a curator of manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and a researcher for the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She has taught art history at several institutions, including Duke University, Georgia College and State University, and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. She is just completing a position as a Lecturer and Assistant Dean at Washington University in St. Louis. In fall 2010 she will return to full-time teaching and research at Saint Louis University as an assistant professor of medieval art history in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts.

Alain Fymat is currently the President & CEO and Professor of the International Institute of Medicine and Science, a non-profit institution dedicated to the betterment of life through advanced medical science research, education, and service. After graduation he concurrently joined the faculties of UCLA and the California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (CIT/JPL), and was actively involved in the U.S. unmanned space program and the Ballistic Missile Defense Program. He was appointed a Member of the Advisory Group for Post-Doctoral Programs of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council (NAS/NRC), was associated with the Advisory Group for Research & Development of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO/AGARD), and was U.S. Delegate to several international organizations. During his tenure at CIT/JPL, Dr. Fymat was also jointly a Professor of Geodesy & Geophysics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and spent a one-year sabbatical as Invited Professor of Physics and Director of Research at the Universite de Lille, France.

Mario Garcia is an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University. He received his post-doc from the University of Maryland University College UMUC in Information Assurance in 2006-2007. He holds certificates in Information Assurance from both Carnegie Mellon University and Purdue University. He received his PhD from Texas A&M University in Computer Science, his M.S in Computer from Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), his M.S in Electrical Engineering from Instituto Tecnologico de la Laguna, and his B.S. from Instituto Tecnologico de Saltillo in Electrical Engineering. Professor Garcia has received funding for many of his research proposals, including his ongoing project on “Analysis of Mobile Devices Forensics Tools” and his recent project called the “Use of Cell Phones to give Location Information to Blind People”.

Jerry Griffith is an associate professor of geography at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) where he has worked since 2002. Professor Griffith received his B.S. in Earth Sciences from Penn State, an M.S. in Geography from Oregon State University and a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Kansas, where he focused his studies on remote sensing and biophysical geography.

Michael Goodman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta, Georgia. He is an epidemiologist and a licensed physician with board-certification in Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine. Originally from Lithuania, Dr. Goodman received his MD degree from the Kaunas Medical Academy in 1984. He received my MPH degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in 1995. In addition to his work as an epidemiologist, Dr. Goodman has nearly 20 years of experience as a practicing physician both in his native Lithuania and in the United States.

Ben Katz graduated from New York University (NYU) School of Medicine in 1980. He completed his residency in Pediatrics at NYU Medical Center in 1983 and his Fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Yale University School of Medicine in 1986. He was a junior faculty member at Yale from 1987-1991 and since 1992 has been on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, where he is now Professor of Pediatrics. He is also an Attending Physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL. In addition, Dr. Katz is the Director of the International Travel Immunizations Program and the Associate at the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. His research interests include Epstein-Barr virus and other viral infections in normal and immunocompromised hosts, chronic fatigue syndrome following Epstein-Barr virus associated mononucleosis, chronic granulomatous disease, HIV infection, and Travel Medicine.

James Ochoahas extensive experience developing instruments for the aerospace industry and managing high-risk / high-tech government funded projects. His experience in advanced technology development has resulted in multiple successes in transitioning TRL1/2 concepts to TRL6/7 systems. During his 14 years of experience, including serving as Vice President at StarVision Technologies (2004-2009), Dr. Ochoa demonstrated his expertise in advanced embedded systems for commercial and space applications. His background includes adaptive and intelligent control systems, high-reliability space avionics, and embedded electronic platforms for intelligent vision applications. He currently leads the UAS Initiative at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. This initiative is establishing an operational UAS capability over the Gulf of Mexico and in the Corpus Christi area. This operational capability supports ongoing and near term research of ocean and atmospheric systems, incident management and security.

Mark S. Silver is Associate Professor and Area Chair of Information Systems in the Fordham University Schools of Business. Professor Silver received his B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in Decision Sciences from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has been a faculty member at the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA and the Stern School of Business at NYU. He has also served as Senior Research Fellow at the Higher Education Finance Research Institute and as Systems Analyst with International Data Base Systems, Inc. He is the author of a book, Systems That Support Decision Makers: Description and Analysis (Wiley, 1991), and co-author of “The IT Interaction Model” (MIS Quarterly, 1995), among other journal articles and book chapters.

Herman Winick has played a strong leadership role in the development of synchrotron radiation sources and research at Stanford and around the world. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He has a strong interest in human rights and in international scientific collaboration. His human rights activities include chairing the APS Committee on International Freedom of Scientists (CIFS) in 1992. In 2005 he was elected Vice Chair of the APS Forum on International Physics (FIP), became Chair in 2007, and was elected to the APS Council as a representative of FIP in 2010. He has received two awards for his efforts to promote human rights for scientists: the Heinz R. Pagels Award from the New York Academy of Sciences in 2005 and the Andrei Sakharov Prize from the American Physical Society in 2010.

Highlights of the Trip

The Follows experienced an intense and demanding schedule of meetings and briefings many of which are described below.

On Thursday, the Fellows toured old city of Jerusalem visiting the Western Wall, and the newly renovated Ohel Yitzhak Synagogue. This synagogue was destroyed by the Jordanians when they controlled the Old City of Jerusalem. We had a great dinner on the roof with an amazing view of the Dome of the Rock behind us. Professor Raphael Israeli of the Hebrew University gave the Fellows a stimulating opening lecture on seven dichotomies confronting Israel today. This lecture set up the whole trip in an excellent way in that much of which followed supported his thesis. Everything we did from day one until the end was in many ways guided by what Prof. Israeli said to us. His lecture was punctuated by the Islamic call to prayer.

Friday began at Yad Vashem with a lecture by Asher Hod, Holocaust survivor, and was followed by a tour of the Museum. From Yad Vashem the Fellows returned to the Old City for a tour of the Western Wall Tunnel with Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich. followed by a walking tour of the Arab souk and the Christian quarter. Fellows experienced the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which generated stimulating discussions on the state of Christianity in Israel and the Middle East. The Fellows finished up at the Haas Promenade and the panoramic view of the city of Jerusalem.

Friday evening, Larry Weinberg, the newly appointed director of Communication for the Jewish Agency spoke to the group about how the Jewish Agency is developing a new mission concentrating on developing Jewish identity for Jews throughout the world

Saturday, the Fellows were offered two options. Several chose to observe the Sabbath while other headed to Masada. The trip to Masada was a highlight for many in the group who had never been there and who were captivated by drama of the story as well as the starkness of the environment. Masada was followed by a float in the Dead Sea and the obligatory covering of bodies with Dead Sea mud. The evening ended with the group enjoying a performance of light, dance and music at Habonim Gardens at the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, followed by a walk through the Mamilla Mall for those still able to stand.

Khaled Abu-Toameh, Israeli-Arab journalist for the Jerusalem Post provided the Fellows a most stimulating talk to begin Sunday morning. Mr. Toameh gave an eye opening analysis of the current situation confronting both Israeli Arabs and Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza. His analysis of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas was not encouraging. Following this exceptional lecture by Mr. Abu-Toameh was a lecture by Professor Elihu Richter from Hebrew University’s Hadassah Hospital and Medical school. Prof. Richter spoke as a public health specialist about the statistics of Jewish deaths rising as the Oslo Peace Accords were beginning to be implemented. He went on to talk about Palestinian incitement to hatred of Jews as a violation of the UN Genocide treaty and other Human Rights treaties.

Following these presentations the Fellows then traveled to the Hebrew University for the real work of the tour, faculty meeting faculty. Some of our group had appointments there with academic counterparts, while those who did not heard an insightful series of lectures. The first was with Professor Mordechai Nisan who spoke about the situation confronting Christians in Israel, in the territories and in the Middle East. Nisan spoke about the shift in the Arab world from Arab nationalism to Islamic nationalism and how this shift impacts Christians.

Similar meetings were held at Tel Aviv University after a tour of the the JNF’s new 9-11 Memorial in Jerusalem. The Fellows participated in a dedication and planted trees there in an experience that was quite moving for many. That evening we had dinner and lectures by Ha’aretz journalist Avi Issacharoff who spoke about his experiences covering terrorists with both the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Hamas. Issacharoff’s presentation was very positive about significant changes in the West Bank including more day to day security and a strong economic growth rate for the Palestinians in places like Ramallah, Nablus and even Jenin. He spoke about old terrorists losing their connection and the respect of the local populace. Issacharoff was followed by ex-advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Arnon Perlman who spoke in detail about the need for Israel to come up with a more positive peace strategy, in essence to agree to meet with anyone including Hamas who was willing to discuss peace or long term cease fire.

The following day was spent in Nazarath with an enlightening tour of Christian Nazareth and with a discussion of the problems of Christians in Israel under pressure from militant Islamists. This was followed by a trip to the Druze community in Daliat Ha Carmel and a visit with Druze leader Youssef Nassar A-din. Here the Fellows enjoyed a once-in a lifetime experienceas they all got actively involved in cooking their own Druze lunch at a very special facility run by Druze women who are setting up a program to assist Druze women to make money from the sale of handicrafts and art work made by Druze women who stay at home and need an income.

The Fellows went on to Haifa University and the Technion where some of our group met with their academic counterparts. Fellows and accompanying spouses without appointments enjoyed a tour of Haifa including the Bahai Temple and Gardens. Following our visit to Haifa the Fellows left for Atlit and the dedication of a new museum for the immigrants fleeing Nazi Germany and the British blockade. It was a very emotional ceremony and many Fellows were moved to tears. At that ceremony our hosts acknowledged the importance of the work in which the SPME-JNF group of academics was involved.

Tuesday, the Fellows met with faculty at Ben Gurion University followed by a very moving briefing at Sapir College in Sderot with Dr. Orit Nuttman-Shwartz and her social work grad students. We learned what these students and the people of Sderot went through, and the trauma they suffered, under the impact of the incessant Hamas rocket attacks. One of these attacks caused the death of one of their colleagues, a grad student with a number of young children. The fellows were given a tour of the Gaza border and the Sderot Police station to see the Qassam rockets, then on to the JNF funded children’s center and bomb shelter giving all the Israeli children of Sderot a safe place to play and meet. That evening we had a military briefing with General (ret.) Effie Eitam.

Wednesday was the Fellows last day in Israel, with meetings at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and other institutions. Afterwards the Fellows went to the Tel Aviv Museum to see where Israel’s Declaration of Independence was signed on May 14, 1948. Later they went to Bar Ilan University for the final meetings for the group. Professor Eytan Gilboa spoke on public responses to Israel and the Palestinians. Gilboa’s presentation discussed the role SPME plays developing a more positive view of Israel on college campuses. The group then had time to fill out their evaluations before hearing Ido Aaroni from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs speak about the Israel Branding campaign.

Evaluations

The Faculty Fellows rated the program as excellent. Many of the academics noted that their experience was life changing. Some noted that they had come with a particular expectation that was negative and were turned completely around. Almost all noted that they had developed strong relationships with their Israeli colleagues and were already involved in curricular projects. In Fellows found the time to draft joint grant proposals for research with Israeli colleagues

Now the planning begins for next year.


SPME Faculty Fellowship Summer Institute in Israel-2010 Highly Successful

  • 0