By Emily Volkert

According to the recent article titled “Provost’s Office Globalizes NU Curriculum,” (Sept. 15), Provost Ahmed Abdelal is planning to create more international connections for Northeastern. Abdelal’s vision for a more international Northeastern through stronger study abroad programs will certainly improve Northeastern’s image on the global scale. However, improvements can be made to Northeastern’s own existing International Affairs (IAF) program to achieve these same goals.

Since the departure of Denis Sullivan, IAF’s founder, the program has been pushed aside, until it almost collapsed last year. In 2003, the IAF program director changed several times, and it was uncertain as to who our leader was. In addition, the IAF program does not have any professors dedicated to teaching only IAF classes and only one advisor allocated to keep track of many students.

The absence of an IAF core results in a lack of consistency among IAF majors. IAF students can finish all of their major requirements in only two years, leaving them unprepared for graduate school or the workforce.

Last year, the International Affairs Society was formed to create unity among IAF majors, act as an advisory board for students and, most importantly, to reform the IAF major. We have developed a set of concentrations for the major, allowing IAF students to focus their studies on the areas of democratization, international human rights, economic development, international education, international environment, world health and security and terrorism studies.

These concentrations we have developed are supplemented by combinations of new and existing courses that would enhance our program. We also have developed academic tracks starting in the freshman year, so IAF students can receive a more unified education, allowing graduating IAF students to be well rounded in the areas of economics, history and foreign languages.

We believe the IAF society can work together with the provost to help achieve his vision of Northeastern as a contender on a global scale. We can work on improving the IAF major by developing new classes and using existing ones to enhance our program.

Help us help you, Provost Abdelal.

The IAF society meets Mondays at 6:30 p.m. in 435 Curry Student Center. For more information on the IAF major, contact [email protected].

– Emily Volkert is a middler international affairs major and VP of the IAF society.