Harvard International Relations Council

This page is dedicated to organizations founded or run by undergraduate students that we advise. Alongside LEAP, the Oslo Scholars Program, Student Pugwash, and the Albright Institute, they represent The Trebuchet’s mission to help mentor the next generation of leadership in sectors ranging from activism and peacebuilding to security and ethics. They are:

 We are working with and advising the undergraduate International Relations Council at Harvard University. We have developed relationships connecting the IRC to the Human Rights Foundation and the Liechtenstein Institute for Strategic Development, collaborated with the IRC on events at Harvard, and mentored IRC students.

Our relationship with the IRC began in the Fall semester of 2017, when Amitai Abouzaglo, then a Harvard undergraduate, introduced us to Daniel Montoya, then the President of the IRC. Our initial conversations with Daniel enabled a full-fledged collaboration the following year with his successor, Eliza Rebellion Ennis.

Under Eliza’s leadership, the IRC became the Harvard host for the Oslo Scholars Program of the Human Rights Foundation, following the precedent set by Amitai as Harvard’s very first Oslo Scholar. Eliza was also a wonderful collaborator and facilitator for human rights-themed events at Harvard. The first was a seminar panel on the protection of journalists, for which I spoke on the case of my friend Shahidul Alam, and on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Eliza was instrumental in securing a space and a student audience for the seminar. The second event was the inaugural College Freedom Forum at Harvard, co-sponsored by the IRC and the Human Rights Foundation which drew an audience from over twenty campuses in Greater Boston and nationwide, and built excitement and momentum for recurrent Forums in the future.

The 2019-20 academic year was truncated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent shutdown of Harvard campus. Despite the commitment of both the IRC, under President Pedro Farias, and of the Human Rights Foundation, another College Freedom Forum was not possible. Pedro, however, remained strongly committed to a relationship with the HRF through the Oslo Scholars Program. Within a day of the IRC’s call to its students for applications, the Program had seventeen candidates! Of those, eight are now undergoing their summer internships, and we are now in contact with all of them to provide the support and mentorship of The Trebuchet to their summer work, their remaining time at Harvard, and their future trajectories.

Pedro wonderfully introduced us to his successor, Davis Tyler-Dudley, during the transition between their administrations. Despite a student presence on campus that will surely be diminished in the Fall, he and the HRF remain committed to the possibility of a College Freedom Forum later in the academic year if circumstances allow.

We have introduced Davis to Peter Droege and the Liechtenstein Institute for Strategic Development. After an exciting first meeting, the we are now exploring a collaboration between the IRC and LISD that would offer LEAP internship and research opportunities to IRC students, and that would feature a presentation by Peter to the IRC and a possible future symposium. More information here.

Davis has also introduced to his mentor, Professor Robert Lue, who directs several initiatives at Harvard on educational innovation. Particularly exciting among these is Labxchange, an entirely modular digital educational framework. We have begun an enthusiastic conversation with Robert about the development of curricula on Labxchange with LISD and other potential partners.