UMaine Course Based on Camden Conference

Contact: George Manlove at (207) 581-3751

ORONO — University of Maine students considering a career in foreign policy or international affairs, or those who just want a better understanding of the changing politics of the world, will have a chance to meet and rub elbows with some nationally respected authorities in world affairs through a unique course that will be offered on the Orono campus and in Camden.

The course is designed around the agenda of the 17th Annual Camden Conference, Feb. 27-29, and explores United States’ foreign policy directions. This year’s Camden Conference title is “U.S. Foreign Policy for the 21st Century: Seeking a Balance?”

“The future of American foreign policy is very relevant for students of foreign affairs,” says Bahman Baktiari, a UMaine professor and director of the university’s International Affairs Program who is one of six faculty members co-teaching the university course. Students, he says, “need to be aware of how policy makers view the world around them. It’s very important for them to get a feel for how policy is formulated and who makes foreign policy.”

In a world of changing economies and shifting political and economic alliances, in addition to new health, military, economic and terrorist challenges, the conference will delve into who makes foreign policy, and how.

“Finding our way and pressing our case was easier when we had only other governments to deal with,” a description of the conference that is posted on the Camden Conference Website says. “But now there are terrorist organizations and a range of other actors, including corporations and non-governmental organizations all putting pressure on policy makers. How will we balance conflicting demands in the 21st century?”

The UMaine course will re-examine the foundations and implications of U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War, post-9/11 world.

The class material is important, says Robert White, dean of the Division of Lifelong Learning — which is offering the course and issuing class credits for it — in that it takes a good look at many of the same foreign policy issues now being studied by the Bush Administration and debated by Democratic presidential candidates.

Students in the class will attend the Camden Conference and can meet and interact with a prestigious group of expert writers, scholars and former foreign policymakers invited to share their expertise in a series of lectures and discussions that examine how the United States perceives and protects foreign interests.

Three day-long Saturday classes will be held Feb. 14, March 20 and April 3 in Orono.

The course is potentially one of the most unique and relevant courses offered anywhere, according to White, who also is a member of the Camden Conference advisory board.

“This (university) probably is the first one in the United States that has offered a course around a conference of this type,” he says.

People interested in the course are welcome to register, regardless of whether they are regular students enrolled in the university, according to White. “We’ll continue to register students right up until February 14. One does not have to be a degree student.”

The class also represents an opportunity for the university to extend itself into the community, he says.

 Keynote conference speaker Robert Kaplan, writer and correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, is scheduled to discuss “How the United States Should Operate to Manage an Unruly World.”

Other conference speakers include: U.S. Ambassador Robert Oakley of the Institute for National Strategic Studies and National Defense University; Debora Spar of Harvard Business School; Frederick Barton, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Charles Kupchan, of Georgetown University and the Council on Foreign Relations; Gianni Riotta, a U.S. correspondent for Corriere della Sera; Judith Yaphe of the Institute for National Strategic Studies and National Defense University;  Murhaf Jouejati, originally from Syria and now at George Washington University; and Don Oberdorfer of the School of International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

“It really is a unique opportunity,” adds Prof. Timothy Cole, chair of the UMaine Political Science Department and one of the professors teaching the course. “It is an opportunity for students to get to interact with a first-rate slate of speakers. A lot of our undergraduates don’t get to a conference of this type.

Other UMaine faculty co-teaching the class include Alex Grab, professor of history, Ngo-Vin Long, professor of Asian history, Howard Cody, associate professor of political science, and Seth Singleton, adjunct professor of political science.

Students interested in registering for the course, may call the Continuing Education Division at 581-3143 or the Hutchinson Center in Belfast at 338-8000.~ Students can also register online at www.dll.umaine.edu/cd. For more information about the Camden Conference, call 236-1034 or visit its website at www.camdenconference.org.