Message from the Executive Director
Beyond the walls of the Weatherhead Center, much of the world is roiled by instability. As the effects of the war in the Middle East reverberate around the globe, including on Harvard’s campus, we continue to strive to make a positive contribution through our expansive network of scholars, students, and practitioners across borders and disciplines. Our Weatherhead Forum series, The War in Israel/Palestine, aims to bring together people with different perspectives to provide context on current events. The first part of the series took place on December 4, and additional events will be held during the spring semester.
This series is not the only way we have addressed violent conflict. In our first Weatherhead Forum this semester, we invited activists, diplomats, and former militants from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lebanon to discuss how they made the transition to peace, in conversation with Weatherhead Center Director Melani Cammett. We also hosted Peter Sheridan, a former police commander in Northern Ireland, who shared his experiences on the force during thirty-five years of conflict. Violence leads to the erosion of trust, he told us, which needs to be rebuilt in order to move forward. Both of these events were sponsored by our newest research cluster on identity politics, chaired by Melani Cammett, which explores ways to improve intergroup relations in postconflict contexts. I invite you to read more about the cluster’s activities in our cluster update.
Another topic dominating news headlines around the world is the threat to democracy—both the global decline in democratic governments and the national decline in democratic politics in many countries. Dame Louise Richardson, former vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, spoke on the role of universities in combating this trend at our Jodidi Lecture on November 8. She cited reports detailing a rise in inequality and autocracies alongside deterioration in freedom of expression, government censorship, and quality of elections. Dame Richardson made a convincing case that universities—as bastions of openness, mobility, and transformation—can help mitigate the crisis of democracy. Read more about her ideas in our featured excerpt.
In my inaugural column as executive director, I’d like to thank my predecessor, Ted Gilman, for his efforts in this same role throughout eight years at the Weatherhead Center. Ted guided us through transitioning our initiatives to research clusters and navigating the challenges presented by COVID-19, and we thank him for his service to our community.
In other news, this semester we welcomed George Soroka as our new executive officer of The Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. Diana Ocampo Belloso joined us as the new coordinator for the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research (SCANCOR) at the Weatherhead Center, and her predecessor, Catherine Nehring, now serves as coordinator for the Sustainability Transparency Accountability Research (STAR) Lab alongside Professor Michael J. Hiscox. We also launched a new Weatherhead brand this academic year with Moth Design. It includes a robust messaging platform that outlines our key messages and encourages consistency across our written and verbal communications as well as a complete visual rebrand which you can see manifested in this current issue of Centerpiece.
Even amid global upheaval, we hope that the Weatherhead Center will remain a safe harbor for all members of our community, both near and far. We will continue asking big questions in the pursuit of a broader understanding of complex global issues, and we hope you will join us.
Erin Goodman
Executive Director; Interim Director of the Weatherhead Scholars Program