The Jackson Institute of Global Affairs hosted the World Fellows’ Night on Thursday
at Horchow Hall on Hillhouse Avenue. The event was a reception for
this year’s class of the Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program and a showcase
for their various groundbreaking initiatives that brought them to Yale.
The Greenberg World Fellows Program brings together sixteen mid-career
professionals from around the world to Yale for a four month long immersive experience
on campus. The Fellows are leaders and change-makers in fields spanning the arts,
business, government, journalism and human rights. Established in 2002, simply as
‘World Fellows’, the program received a $16 million contribution from The Starr
Foundation in June of this year. The Foundation is chaired by the former CEO of AIG, Maurice
R. “Hank” Greenberg, in recognition of whose generosity the program was renamed this
year.
Admitted through an extremely competitive application process, the sixteen selected
World Fellows spend four months in New Haven, interacting with the best minds in their
fields and broadening the scope of dialogue over vital issues. They lead roundtable
discussions, seminars, and lectures with students and faculty on campus, and they also audit
courses themselves.
At the World Fellows’ Night, the scholars interacted with a diverse range of
the New Haven community, as undergraduates and professors alike visited Horchow
Hall to learn more about the Fellows’ initiatives in their home countries. “This is a time to
get away from the intensity of work and reflect after putting in 16 hours of work a day
back home. Here, I have been learning academic terminology for tasks I pursued daily
in my endeavors” said Anuradha Das Mathur from New Delhi. Mathur is the founding
dean of The Vedica Scholars Programme for Women, a residential program in
management practices for young women.
The Fellows have been using this time to revisit their academic passions. Gabriela
Hernandez Cardoso, the former CEO of GE Mexico said “This has been a great time for
me to go back to the basics and study things I have forgotten or didn’t have time to,
earlier.” The Program is also an opportunity for the Fellows to experience the American
higher education system first hand. “Having studied entirely in India, this is the first time
I am observing the American education system. The difference in the kind of
conversations in class is very interesting to observe,” said Mathur, who is auditing
classes in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department and at the Yale School of
Management. Cardoso who is auditing eight classes herself, including Introduction to
Cognitive Science and Listening to Music, was impressed by the standards of the
undergraduate student body. “All the students are always on time with their readings
done. I am struggling to cope with reading for eight classes but the quality of learning
happening is definitely admirable,” she said.
The Fellows have been interacting with the Yale community through seminars, lectures,
tea with the Heads of Colleges and roundtable discussions which they will continue
hosting over the course of the Fall semester. Fellows from UK, activist Sughra Ahmed
and diplomat Kanbar Hossein-Bor addressed a lecture in the popular Gateway to Global
Affairs course earlier on Thursday. Speaking about Islamic identity in today’s world, they
brought diverse perspectives to the class, leaving the students with much to mull on.
Living in New Haven for four months, the Fellows will be able to immerse themselves in
American life and culture. However, some disparities in society have already begun to
catch their attention, four weeks into being here. “The stark disparity I see between Yale
and the larger New Haven area is certainly disconcerting,” said Ahmed, who hails from
London. Ahmed is a prominent community activist and academic. She has engaged in
significant research in the fields of interfaith relationships and community building, and
has authored a paper titled ‘British by Dissent.’
The World Fellows Night gave an appetizing trailer to a semester full of enlightening
talks and conversations ahead, by stalwarts in their field. The Maurice R. Greenberg
World Fellows will be a vital presence in campus conversations, and offer their unique
perspectives on a variety of issues.