"There's No Way You Did That!"

[MUSIC] Welcome to "Free to Think," the podcast presented by Scholars at Risk, where we celebrate people with the courage to think, question, and share ideas. I'm Rob Quinn, Executive Director of Scholars at Risk in your host. With each episode, we'll bring you conversation with interesting thoughtful and inspiring people whose research teaching or expression falls at the sensitive intersection of power and ideas. We'll be speaking with those who have the courage to seek truth and to speak truth, often at great risk, as well as with those who work to defend them. And we invite you to be part of the conversation. Send us your comments and reactions by email or on social media to @SchoolIsAtRisk. Our first guest today is Brian Mello, a professor of political science and director of the Center for Ethics at Mulemberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania in the USA, where he also leads a scholarship at Risk Student Advocacy Seminar. These are courses that pair faculty and students that saw our member institutions in North American Europe, with saw as scholars in prison project and academic freedom monitoring project. Students gain human rights research, advocacy and leadership skills, while they advocate for threatened and imprisoned scholars and students in countries around the world. We're also joined by Bobna Perkush, a member of the class of 2024 at Mulemberg. Bobna is a biology major and a political science minor, as well as a member of the Dana Scholar's Honors Program. Bobna participated in this year's Student Advocacy Seminar. Brian, Bobna, welcome to free to think. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Brian, this is the second year I think that you've led student advocacy seminars at Mulemberg College. Can you tell us how you got started? Yeah, so last year in my capacity as the Center for Ethics Director, we had chosen a theme that was called engaging in speech and action. And at a certain point in that year, the professor, Martian Morgan, from our Flosso Department, who was coordinating the program, decided that maybe doing some kind of a partner with scholars at risk would be a good way of organizing the theme. And so we constructed a model last year that sought faculty from across the campus who might be interested in working with scholars at risk and and teaching scholar advocacy seminars. And I was part of that group, that cohort of those seminars that went last year. So that was my first kind of exposure to to scholars at risk. And I found that at the end of the spring semester last year in some informal statements and reflections that my students had done, that it was one of the sort of most efficacious and high impact practices that that I've incorporated into my classrooms. And when you said this, so there was a cohort, does that mean everybody was doing the same thing in different groups? Are they doing different things? How did it work? Right, so we actually, the courses that wound up working most closely together included the Dana-Gallers Senior Forum. And so that was a larger group of the honors program, which Bob must part. And so there were probably 30 students across that. And they worked on four different cases. So they were focusing on cases from around the world. There was a portion of religion studies that was focusing on several of the Be Your Cases. And then in my class, what we focused mostly on Patrick Zaki and Egypt. So even though there wasn't overlap of cases, we got those seminars together on a couple of occasions. So we all read Adam Braver and D'Hari Elhan's book and we met one day to discuss that. And then there were other events that all of those different courses to part in throughout the semester. And then we all coordinated for a week, a student at PC Week on campus so that all of the groups could be not coming across each other, but helping to sort of cross-pollinate events and encourage people to attend different kinds of things. And who chose what cases or what countries you worked on? Did you do that? Did Scales risk do that? Yeah, so I think in the case of the Dana Senior Forum, the students themselves selected the cases they were interested in. They took the information that Scales provided. They spent a little bit of time. It was a year long. That was kind of a year-long course. So in the fall, they spent a little bit of time learning about the different cases and making those selections. For me, I chose the case for my students. And I did it in part because I'm a Middle East specialist. And out of all the countries in the Middle East, I know that the United States has the greatest leverage over Egypt because of our foreign policy ties. And so I felt like there would be greater entry points in there. And then the religion studies professor Sharon Albert chose her case. She's not an expert in China at all, but she teaches courses on Islam. And so the Weer Cases were, I think, close to her. And Bob, if I'm correct, are taking the student advocacy seminar this year, is that right? Yeah. And what made you take the course? What were you hoping to learn or to take away from it? I was just really excited to be able to do something that would have an impact at such a young age because typically, you're not able to take courses that do this kind of work at our age. So having this opportunity was really something new to me and something I wanted to experience. And right now, we're working on Patrick's on his case. Do you want to give us sort of the two sentences on his case? He was detained, I think, two years ago. He was detained two years ago by the Egyptian government when he came back home to visit his family. And since then, he hasn't been released. And his case has been making some leeway publicly. But the more pressure we put on the Egyptian government, the more we're able to make leeway in his case. And so what kind of things have you and your classmates been doing, both in terms of learning, but then also in terms of implementing what you're learning and advocacy for his case? At the beginning of the semester, we first started off with like the basics. So like Egypt's history, how we got to this point essentially. So Egypt's religion, Egypt's political build and everything we kind of did our background work before actually starting with the case. And then when we got to the case, we were able to gather information on how his case was created, what his research was, and how he ended up in the exact position he's in right now. And based on that, we were able to go to DC and meet with staffers, to certain senators, and then see where we could go from there. So I want to come back to DC in one second, but let me ask you, how much, how much about Egypt did you know before the class? I'm not going to lie close to nothing. And how much do you feel you know about it now? Do you think you're conversant in certain issues right now? I think I've definitely learned a lot through the progress of the course. And it's helped me like learn it from different perspectives as well, because we read different articles and books, and we got exposed to different new sources as well to help get like a full understanding. And Brian, how important is it to you to think that students see an outcome as they're working on these cases? I mean, we know some of these cases last for a very long time. Yeah, and part of the way I structure my course too is before we even get to Egypt, we do a whole background section on thinking about advocacy and transnational advocacy organizations. And one of the items that comes up in those readings is the importance of building efficacy to sustain long-term advocacy efforts. And the best way to build efficacy, of course, is to see some kind of an outcome, which as you say, in these cases can be very difficult. So if you come in with a goal of saying, unless we free the scholars that we're looking at, then it'd be failed. That goal is probably too great. And so you identify other ways in which you can sort of affect outcomes and build efficacy. And so, like some small ways along that process where having our students being reaching out when we went to D.C. and even creating those meetings in the first place, or figuring out ways in which you're going to try to engage our campus and what we mean to affect an outcome by having people participate on campus in whether we do petition drives or whether we sign letters. Our students are kind of right now turning to our campus advocacy component where they're working out exactly how they're going to implement that. But in those ways, they are creating outcomes and affecting the most dramatic outcomes would be obviously to improve the conditions of these scholars, to allow them to travel outside of Egypt to get them out of prison. That's our long term. And I can say now having done this a while, we have seen that in some cases. So I don't want to say it doesn't happen, but I also don't want to say it happens quickly or in every case. Bob, now talking about reactions on campus, have you talked about the class with classmates who aren't taking it or with other people on campus, do people get what you're doing? What do they think about the seminar? Yes. So as I think we mentioned before, I'm a biology major. So most of my courses aren't even in this realm. So I'll be talking to my friends about what we're doing in the class and there's like, there's no way you're 19 years old. There's no way you'll be able to like, there's no way you got a meeting at the Senate's building. Like, there's no way you did that. And I was just like, no, it's definitely possible. And like we did do it. And like, I think it's really surprising to people to see people like our age being able to like do big things in the sense that not like, frame him completely, but just getting the taking the baby steps of like putting pressure of even getting into the Senate's building is like, surprising to people. And I'm like, really happy to be a part of it. So let's let's explain that to people, right? So in I think it was 2017, scholars started building into this student advocacy days is what we call them, right? Where students and faculty from different campuses that are holding seminars come together for some training sessions and from sharing experiences. And these started in Washington DC and then went remote, of course, during the pandemic. And I believe this year there was a combination of both online elements and then some in-person elements in DC. And I believe for the first time we're going to have some in-person in Canada and Europe this year as well. So Brian, Bob, you both participate in student advocacy days this year. And what was that? I think it was like a super cool experience. The prep work and stuff, like the buildup for it. I remember sitting in like the McDonald's, like going through like all our prep work for it and then all of us standing outside the Senate building and actually like going into it. And it was insane because the staffer that we met with was maybe like two or three years older than me. And it was, it was cool to see someone like so close to my age working somewhere where like work like this actually like makes a difference. And we all sat down. It was informal but formal in a sense where it was like, we had like a certain point, we hit what we want to hit. But it wasn't uncomfortable in the sense that like, I was super formal, like we can't like sit like this or we can't talk like this, but it was really, really nice experience. - So you're describing, I think a very common experience for those of us who have had it where you go to DC for the first time, maybe as a student, maybe as an intern. And yeah, you love discovering that so much of the government is staffed by very young people. And of course now at the age I'm at the experience a little bit different, it's a little terrifying, but it is the reality of our federal government. Brian, how did you experience the student advocacy day part in DC? - Yeah, it was, it was a great experience for me because it was the first kind of post-COVID experience where I was able to travel with students in one of these kind of really deeply value added pedagogical experiences. I brought students to Turkey in the past and in several years now. And so for us as a group to go down, that Banner Eye down to DC and then just the experience of the day together, like you really feel, like walking to the classroom, that felt so much different before among all of us than we had experienced before. So in that sense it really brought us together. But it engages, it engages my students in a lot of really practical skills. And among some students, they responded in ways that for me were unexpected. - And do you wanna share one or two of those? How do you mean? One of my students was able to sort of, like they did background work on the people they were meeting with, right? And then my back campaign promises are on human rights and were able to raise that during the meetings and felt that that was a transition point in the conversation. And you know, and that ability, that sort of, that kind of agency in addressing those kinds of questions is something that I can't, you know, I can't foster in the classroom, but like when you get to see it, it's pretty exciting. - And as you're saying that I'm realizing there's a whole army of research tools that just didn't exist when I was an intern going to Washington a very long time ago, much harder to pull up the quotes of the people you're meeting with at that time. But BobNet was there a particular meeting that really sticks with you or a moment that you sort of recounted to people afterwards? - So the particular instance that Dr. Melody described actually happened in my group. So it was the three of us, and we were in the meeting with Senator Gillibrand Stafford. And we were all sitting there and I think we tag teamed it. So I think one member of my group started with Zaki's case, I went with Sansway and explained what advocacy was. And then on the third person in our group explained our different approaches and like what steps we want them to take in the future. And at the very end of the meeting, when we thought like the Stafford wasn't fully on board, one of our group members mentioned that exact thing from the campaign, the campaign promises. And I feel like that really got the Stafford's attention. And then he started taking like frantic notes. So I think that moment for me at least was like my like, aha moment where I was like, oh my God, that our background work actually paid off. - And so looking forward, how do you think you're gonna carry this experience forward? So it's not straight biology, right? Can you imagine yourself in that Stafford's role someday or how might you think this learning will go forward with? - I think I'll definitely bring it forward with me. I'm actually from like an hour outside of DC. So growing up, I had gone to DC a lot and I did do internships. So I hope to carry like this experience into the future with me and hopefully end up on like the hill or do something where I can combine both my interests in some way. - Great. And Bob, now let's say there are students thinking about taking a student advocate because he's seminar course or faculty thinking about starting a seminar at their institution. What would you want them to know from the student perspective? There's a lot of background work that needs to be done. Like when you're in the class, like you really have to put the time and effort to get to know the cases inside and out or else you're gonna go to the meetings and when they ask you a question, you're not gonna be able to answer it to like the full depth in which you could have given an answer. So because there's like a lot of like tiny minute details and the cases where if you do say them, it seems like you have a really good understanding of the case and they're more likely to take you seriously. - And Brian, what would you want a faculty member to know if they're thinking about starting up an advocacy seminar? - Yeah, this is a great question. I have to say, I chose a case in an area where I'm an expert, though I don't think that you need to get involved because you are an expert in other areas of the world. It's a, you have to be open to a really non-traditional teaching experience, which is to say, in my course, the way I've designed it, we sort of end meetings around week eight. And then my students are fully engaged in different teams in developing and implementing their advocacy strategy. And so it's a, you have to embrace this kind of non-traditional environment. Also, the work they're doing, the writing they're doing, is not traditional political science writing. So when I divide my groups, my students, three different teams to start a semester. And one group does research on successful transnational advocacy campaigns, one group does research on the contemporary situation in Egypt, contemporary politics in Egypt, and another group does more research on the specifics of the cases that we're going to take on and advocate on behalf of. And their research projects are not like institutional political science research papers. They're not making an argument. They're more providing information. And those two reports are used for our advocacy teams as background information. They share their information with the rest of the class through voice-thread presentations. But it also becomes the opening 30 pages, if you will, of our final report that we provide to those at risk. So it becomes really part of generating that. And in that sense, I think if you're open to giving up some of your disciplinary specificities, you're open to a non-traditional class revival. The rewards are profound, because you see students becoming intrinsically motivated in what they're doing. And in some ways, the evaluation, the grades, becomes purple. And that takes-- it's a great, great leap for faculty to do that. But really, it's a class where the grades are almost and consequential, because everything is about their level of engagement. And the more they become engaged, the more that that's self-replicating. And so you say, letting yourself get comfortable with it, and some faculty certainly are very experienced with service learning or informal forms of learning or non-traditional. At the same time, there are those who are critical of these forms and say that it's not truly appropriate academic work. Brian, what would you say to that? We have definitely utilized or used and done a deep dive into scholars at risk as an advocacy organization to try to examine its model of advocacy and how it fits with other kinds of things. So we bring an intellectual lens to what we're doing. At the end of the semester, I end with a week worth of readings that take up really the kind of intellectual challenges of the potential for human rights and human rights work to be part of an imperialist project or to resist against the kind of white savior mentality. And so at the end of having engaged now in human rights work, we end by intellectually thinking about taking stock of reflecting on what we're doing and those kinds of things. So I think it's just a different form of intellectual engagement. And like I said, the last time I taught it in the last year, I was shocked by the feedback I got from my students. The one that stands out to me was the student who said that she had become international studies major because she wanted to affect global politics and had become disillusioned over time with all of the reading and the theory that she engaged in and that this course made her realize that she was reading for someone to give her permission to be an actor in the world and that she never needed that permission. She always had the capability of doing it. And that was really surprising for me to hear, but also made me feel that this was sort of a long term commitment to me, this wasn't going to be a one-off thing because that's not a feeling that I could get students to express in my traditional classrooms. - And Bob, what about you? I know you're still in the seminar now. It's not over yet, but do you feel like your perspective or your learning has changed already? - Yeah, I think as of right now, this is a kind of learning experience that I'm not used to. Totally informal. We're in discussions and I feel like that adds an element of closeness between my classmates and I or between my professor and I, which I don't have in other classes. And with that closeness, we're able to work together and present new ideas that we typically wouldn't have in a traditional classroom setting. And as Dr. Mellow mentioned, when we came back from art trip from DC, that air in the classroom had definitely changed. And I feel like we really did all get to know each other at a deeper level and that's something I wouldn't have experienced otherwise. - Brian, any final thoughts you'd like to share? - Yeah, I would just say that one of the things I really appreciate about scholars at risk is that they've added this concern. They have a focus concern for academic freedom in America, and not just abroad. And so it really helps to sort of bring to the local these kinds of global concerns. So this is an affiliation that I think is meaningful to the work that we're doing in a country where certain academic ideas are part sort of understood. even in the United States. So I think that for others who are listening to this and thinking that they might want to get involved that this is a really critical moment in academia and a really meaningful way of making what we do relevant. - Terrific, and thank you for that great invitation at the end there, Brian. I mean, we have always felt that our work really belongs everywhere wherever ideas are put forward, power is going to resist and that creates the tension that leads to the need for scholars at risk. And so we certainly, it's an exciting proposition to think we might even have student advocacy seminars that look at issues and the domestic context as well. That would be great. Brian, Bobna, thank you so much for the work you've done for your participation in the student advocacy seminars and days in particular for your work on behalf of Patrick Zaki. And thank you for sharing your experience with us here on Free to Think. - Thanks for your help. - Thank you so much. - This has been an episode of Free to Think, podcast presented by Scholars at Risk where we celebrate people with the courage to think, question and share ideas. Scholars at Risk is an international network of over 600 higher education institutions and thousands of individuals in more than 40 countries. Information on network membership, activities and donating bizarre is available online at [email protected]. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your favorite platform like iTunes or Spotify to receive updates on new episodes. And while there, please add your five star rating to help us reach more listeners. You can also send us your comments or suggestions for future conversations by email to scholars@[email protected] or on social media to add scholars at risk. Thanks for listening and please keep thinking.