Briefly Issue 8

In Praise of Academic Courage

IFE is well aware that the American university operates under many forms of pressure and not the least from the current US administration. IFE is proud of its US partner institutions and offers this shout-out to a few points of light produced by their courage.

The University of Illinois has refused to scrub their website and their services of all mentions of DEI, judging that such a move would transgress the university’s constitution which, as a land-grant university, must remain in service to all. Instead, Illinois is now labelling all university services and programs with the tag “open to all”.

Similarly, Goucher College’s website boldly touts the college’s commitment to “equity and inclusive excellence” whose mission is “grounded in love, humanity, and education” in line with “college principles of service and social justice.” Four programs embody this commitment, one of which is the Center for Race Equity and Identity. 

Carleton College is home to the two co-hosts and authors of the of the Substack site “Banished,” which produces podcasts, interviews and essays in stout defense of academic freedom. In ten years of Banished, historian Amna Khalid and education teacher and researcher Jeff Snyder have hosted guests such as Kenneth Stern, Alice Walker, John McWhorter, Musa al-Garbi, Yascha Mounk, former ACLU President Nadine Strossen, and other figures from the front lines of the culture wars. Recent productions include “Are Diverse Democracies an Endangered Species?”, “Are Too Many Professors Excellent Sheep?”, “That Book is Dangerous!”, or “What We Keep Getting Wrong about the Cancel Culture Debate”, combining insight, nuanced analysis and the courage to speak out. 

IFE Adds  an Academic Advisory Board

2025 saw IFE sponsor an external review of its programs, whose conclusions recognized the unique opportunity these programs represent in the field of study abroad. The four-person review committee produced useful suggestions for ensuring that this opportunity will still be around for (at least) another 37 years. One recommendation was to establish an Academic Advisory Board (AAB) composed of euro-cognizant program users from IFE partner universities. The AAB will convey the fruits of its discussions to IFE’s Executive Board (Conseil d’Administration) which – following another suggestion – will deliberate on IFE management and strategic issues on a more frequent calendar. The first AAB members are Giulia Pacini (The College of William & Mary), Stephanie Lepak (University of Illinois), Alicia Barron Lopez (University of Denver), Maite Fernandez Sanchez (University of Oviedo, in Asturias), Mark Ingram (Goucher College), and Carrie Landfried (Franklin & Marshall College). IFE looks forward to benefiting from their professional expertise and wisdom!

IFE's Expanding Universe of Placements

With no internship duties scheduled on Wednesday during the twelve-week internship period of the IFE semester, IFE continues to reflect on how best to use this time, already dedicated to class meetings of the internship-period seminar and to time for students to work on their research project.  The result has been a recent move to reinforce and further structure tutoring in writing and methodology, in parallel with a greater formalization of the oral defense of the research.  

These twin changes were motivated by IFE’s concern to provide a level of follow-up and structure commensurate with the challenges of the IFE semester, and at the same time to ensure the (crucial) integration of writing with experience in the field (i.e. the internship). The program improvements echo observations made by an external review committee last spring, who found IFE’s unique program structure to be highly rewarding but also reason for vigilance as to its feasibility for every student.