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New fellowships a coup for IR master's program

By David J. Craig

As a senior at the University of Toronto last year, Sara Karimbhoy was bent on pursuing a graduate degree in international relations at a U.S. university.

She assumed that she'd have to work as a corporate management consultant after finishing her master's degree to pay off student loans - an unattractive indenture for one determined eventually to do diplomatic work in the Middle East.

Sara Karimbhoy (GRS'01) and Matthew Altenburger (GRS'01) each received a $15,000 Bradley Fellowship to study international relations at BU this year. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

But Karimbhoy (GRS'01) soon learned that her postgraduation options wouldn't be so restricted. When she arrived at BU to begin a one-year master's program in international relations in August, she found that she was one of two students in the program awarded a new $15,000 Bradley Fellowship.

"That was such a Christmas present," says Karimbhoy, a Toronto native. "I thought I was going to slave under the debt load for years and that I wouldn't even be able to afford to return to live in Canada. Now, I'm looking into taking an unpaid internship to the Middle East next year. I hope to learn Arabic there and work on efforts to make governments more open."

Matthew Altenburger (GRS'01) also received a Bradley Fellowship. The fellowships are funded by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, Wis., which has awarded international relations scholarships since 1985.

The fellowships are the first named scholarships the international relations department has received, and were awarded to Karimbhoy and Altenburger based on academic merit. CAS Professor Erik Goldstein, the department chairman, says the department is hopeful that the Bradley Foundation will establish the $30,000 gift as an annual grant.

"Receiving the fellowships is an important step in the development of our master's program," says Goldstein. "It reflects upon our program's high standing in the scholarly community."

Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations and director of BU's Center for International Relations, played a central role in securing the gift.

"The number of foundations that support research in international relations has been dwindling since the end of the Cold War, so this is a breakthrough for the department," he says. "We hope it will lead to other fellowships. In order to be able to attract the very best graduate students, we need to be able to provide competitive levels of financial support."

Diplomacy's details

BU's international relations department was founded in 1985 and now enrolls 760 undergraduate majors and 100 master's students. Students can concentrate in security issues, theory and policy, particular regions of the world, and several other areas.

The department's curriculum emphasizes "practical, need-to-know skills," says Goldstein, such as negotiating, managing crises, and preparing written or oral briefings for government officials.

It was the promise of learning such nuts-and-bolts diplomacy skills that attracted Karimbhoy to BU's program.

"Of the programs I was considering, BU's seemed the most application oriented," she says. "A lot of other schools I looked at focused too much on theory."

Debt management

Altenburger says that receiving a Bradley Fellowship was the most important factor in bringing him to BU. A 1999 summa cum laude graduate of Providence College, he was offered the Bradley Fellowship upon his acceptance to the program. Also concentrating on the Middle East, he aims to do intelligence or diplomacy work for the CIA or for the State Department.

"What attracted me to studying international relations is that it combines history with an understanding of the problems of today and a focus on the future," says Altenburger, a native of Vienna, Va. "I'm especially interested in Iran, and in all the societal changes that country has undergone in the last few years.

"If I hadn't got the fellowship, I would have had to take out a lot more loans," he continues, "but now I'll have some flexibility when I graduate. I won't necessarily have to take the most high-paying job I'm offered if it's not what I'm really interested in."

8 December 2000
Boston University
Office of University Relations