The Fellows Program is the principal forum for the interaction of practitioners with the faculty and students of the Weatherhead Center. The program was inaugurated in 1958, simultaneously with the establishment of the Center itself, in the belief that the Center’s research activities would benefit from the contributions of non-academic professionals with broad practical experience in international affairs, and that the Center could broaden the practitioners’ horizons and deepen their understanding of the contemporary issues in which they are professionally involved. While on campus, Fellows hold appointments as officers of Harvard University.They audit courses, organize and participate in seminars at the Center and elsewhere, provide advice to undergraduate and graduate students, conduct independent research, and otherwise interact with the faculty, visiting scholars, and other members of the University’s community. Each class consists of a number of senior diplomats and military officers and may also include politicians, journalists, international civil servants, officials from nongovernmental organizations, and business leaders. The single characteristic they all share is leadership in international affairs, as demonstrated by both a record of past achievement and the promise of future accomplishments. The Fellows in each class may represent up to a dozen countries.

Fellows Program Friday Lunch Seminar Series

The Fellows’ Friday lunch seminar series is designed exclusively for the Fellows of the Weatherhead Center in order to introduce them to prominent individuals within and beyond the University who can speak with authority on critical issues of the day. As a group of mid- to senior-level professionals from around the world who are active in the practice of international affairs, the Fellows have an opportunity to discuss current issues such as international relations, international security, and international economics. They are also exposed to such areas as contemporary American politics, race, religion, and ethnicity in American society, and recent groundbreaking developments in the natural sciences. In this way, the Friday lunch seminars provide an opportunity for the Fellows to develop areas of understanding that may be entirely novel in the context of the perspectives that they have learned through their previous academic and professional exposures. Recent guests of the seminar have been Professors Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Samuel P. Huntington, Orlando Patterson, Ernest May, Louise Richardson, and Jennifer Leaning, and such prominent local individuals as former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. With the depth of experience and variety of viewpoints around the table, the exchange of ideas in these seminars is very spirited and is beneficial to both speakers and Fellows.