When Harry Truman was president, security was a broad concept.  It implied not just a strong military, but also a strong economy, strong morale at home, and strong alliances based on shared threat.  After World War II, President Truman and his able foreign policy corps created a security structure that would buttress world stability for the good of America.  They had the vision to see that America was safer in a world that was more peaceful, more just, and more prosperous.  And they articulated that vision of enlightened self-interest to the American people, explaining why it was in America’s security interest to support the unprecedented foreign aid of the Marshall Plan, reduced protectionism that spurred trade and revived the world economy, and binding alliances such as NATO.

In recent decades, this broad understanding of global security has been dismantled.  Conservative think-tanks teach that national security equals military strength alone.  Liberal pundits want an America so humble that we retreat from global responsibilities, leaving countries like flood-soaked (and nuclear-armed) Pakistan to their own devices.  From both sides of the political spectrum, we pursue narrow self-interest over enlightened self-interest, and are surprised that we reap resentment, anger, and distrust.

When I was finishing a D. Phil in England, supported by my Truman Scholarship, I saw firsthand how these twin strands of policy could tighten into a noose that would harm America – and the world.  Doing dissertation research in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, I saw how anti-Americanism plummeted after our tsunami assistance – and how America’s right wing was forcing politicians into cutting such aid and supporting simplistic militarized security measures.  While working in Albania, I saw the gratitude that had come from years of American support for their human rights – most recently through the war in Kosovo.  And yet from the left came cries of hubris if America intervened to assist the lives of the marginalized, poor, and oppressed.

We founded the Truman National Security Project to create a strong voice for Americans who supported a third way in foreign policy.  We wanted to articulate a strong, smart, and principled set of policies that harkened back to the wise worldview of President Truman while meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

Five years later, the Truman Project and its sister organization, the Truman Educational Institute, have become the nation’s largest organizations training progressive leaders in national security.  Each year, we offer courses for more than 200 Congressional staff, scores of political candidates, and hundreds of progressive political consultants and activists who may never have considered security issues before.  Our flagship Truman Fellowship trains a handpicked cohort of future leaders.  Over 100 Truman Fellows now serve in the Obama Administration and in Congress, ranging from special assistants to National Security Advisor General Jim Jones, General David Petraeus, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and speechwriters for President Obama, to on-the-ground military officers and USAID leaders in Afghanistan.

Our trainings emphasize hard moral and policy questions: for instance, a recent scenario on what to do about Iran’s nuclear weapons program was co-created with Harvard University’s Graham Allison, and moderated by leading Iran experts.  Those we train are inspired by personal meetings and mentorship from security leaders such as Homland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (NM ’77), General Petraeus, and Anthony Lake.  We provide deep training in effective communication, drawn from cutting-edge psychological research.  And we position those we train to impact the public conversation, by placing them in the media, in advocacy campaigns, and in the political sphere.

A crucial part of our effort is to reconnect foreign policy leaders with the military.  In a democracy, civilians must lead the military.  But as the left became estranged from our fighting forces following Vietnam, it left a legacy of separateness that harmed our ability to understand what our military could, and could not, do.  That hurts policy.  Thucydides said that “The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.”   By bringing together rising policy-makers under 40 with their military peers, we hope to overturn such a damning indictment.

We also work to bridge the gap between foreign policy makers and politicians.  For decades, foreign policy thinkers have disdained American politics.  The political process removes so much nuance from tough foreign policy questions that to engage in politics was seen by many as a betrayal of their policy wisdom.  But in a democracy, policy is made through politics.  We help rising foreign policy leaders under 40 become comfortable with the political sphere, and able to communicate their policy case in language that resonates politically – not just to the illuminati of Beltway Washington!

One of our most recent projects in this sphere has been in the area of climate change and energy.  Our addiction to oil has poured billions of dollars into the coffers of countries arrayed against us – such as Iran and Russia.  It also filters into terrorist networks. In the words of former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey, our oil addiction has created the first time since the Civil War that we are funding both sides of a conflict. Meanwhile, climate change is a threat multiplier, sparking famines and floods and exacerbating migration in the poorest parts of the world, creating uprooted populations ripe for riot and radicalism.

But the issues of energy and climate had become partisan.  Half our polarized country saw them as left-wing issues, rather than looking at the policy facts.  The Truman Project has mobilized more than 700 veterans in our OperationFree program (watch video here) to speak out on the national security need to reduce climate change while freeing America from oil dependence.  They have spoken in more than 200 cities across America, and have been hosted twice at the White House.  Their efforts to lobby Congress for action – from supporting a cap on carbon, to working for higher fuel efficiency standards – are changing the terms of this debate, and helping everyday Americans to understand the security need to move to a new energy future.

As President Truman said, “America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”  We hope through the work of the Truman Project to create a new generation of leaders who can help America stay great, and the world to be ever more peaceful and just.

Rachel Kleinfeld (AK '97) is the CEO and Co-Founder of the Truman National Security Project and Truman Educational Institute.

Janine Davidson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Aron Ketchel, Truman Fellow

Gayle Smith, Senior Director at the National Security Council, with Phil Carter, Truman Fellow

Truman Fellows at the annual conference

by Andrew Klaber (IL '03)

HIV/AIDS remains one of our generation’s most vicious killers and pressing public health concerns. The epidemic tragically undermines individuals’ familial and economic security.  In particular, the offspring of parents who are ill or have died of HIV/AIDS—AIDS orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs)—suffer directly and collaterally as a result of the disease.  According to the UNAIDS/World Health Organization 2008 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, by the end of 2007, HIV/AIDS had left behind 15 million AIDS orphans, defined as those youngsters under 18 years of age who have lost one or both parents to AIDS.  Indeed, nearly 12 million children under 18 years of age have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa alone—a number that is larger than, for example, the entire population of Greece—and this figure is expected to rise to 14 million by 2015.

While there are currently no silver-bullet solutions to ending these youths’ distress, education can improve the lives of these children and combat the epidemic’s vicious cycle. Education helps children develop the skills they need to succeed in an increasingly competitive economy and thoughtful schooling has shown to improve youngsters’ self-esteem; additionally, many schools throughout the developing world have incorporated HIV/AIDS education as an essential component of their curriculum.  As Donald Bundy of the World Bank observed, “Education is the best vaccine that we have available at this time.”

I founded Orphans Against AIDS (OAA) in the summer of 2002 as a result of the personal experience that I had interacting with OVCs in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  Orphans Against AIDS (www.orphansagainstaids.org) believes that providing educational funding to these youths is one of the most sustainable and effective ways to combat HIV/AIDS.  OAA partners with local organizations in the developing world and provides OVCs with essential funding that covers these youngsters’ academic, healthcare, and nutritional expenses.  Additionally, OAA works with its local organizations to develop their capacities for more effective and expansive operations, including advice on issues of governance and strategy and help with the implementation of new technologies such as improved websites and computer-based cost accounting.  By collaborating with its local partners, OAA helps them attract grants and donations from larger aid organizations, resulting in greater scale, impact, and a more diverse funding base.

With OAA’s support, each local partner organization selects the most vulnerable students to receive funding, oversees the program on the ground, and works with schools, physicians, community leaders, and families to monitor students’ progress. The local partner organizations communicate regularly with OAA and provide its officers and directors with a current assessment of the participating children’s psychosocial, physical, and educational wellbeing; an itemized budget of expenditures; and an analysis of available and needed finances.  Last, OAA strives to be an incubator for young social entrepreneurs, affording its all-volunteer corps a first-hand development experience at an early age with the hope that these leaders will use their knowledge to empower underserved communities throughout their private, public, or nonprofit careers.  Ganesh Sitaraman (MA, 2003) and I (IL, 2003) serve on OAA’s board of directors, where we focus our decision-making on issues of strategy, governance, and fundraising.

OAA closely tracks its own progress and impact to ensure that funds are being used as effectively as possible. Of the 600 children whom OAA has continued to sponsor over the last eight years, 98% are still in school; once OAA makes a commitment to a child, as long as her or his academic progress is sufficient, we strive to support the duration of her or his primary and secondary education.  Since 2002, OAA has raised over $750,000 from institutions like the Goldman Sachs Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, the Medtronic Foundation, Google, Rotary International, the Magdalen College Trust and New College Trust of the University of Oxford, as well as thousands of grassroots donors such as elementary schools, Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs), and individuals.

While OAA trusts its local partners to develop informed selection criteria and operational procedures that best suit their specific communities, OAA does request that they follow certain guidelines.  For example, OAA requires that its local partners not select children who are simultaneously receiving sufficient support from the government or other NGOs when there are OVCs who are not receiving such assistance, and OAA requires that its local partners not discriminate against female children in deciding who should receive funding.  Following the best-practice of other NGOs that work with OVCs, we ask our partners to assess the needs of all vulnerable children—not only those orphaned by AIDS—in determining those youths who should receive OAA support.  We require our local partner organizations to maintain thorough records, such as academic report cards, and provide us with receipts for expenses. 

 Since OAA’s founding in 2002, the majority of our efforts have been aimed at establishing new projects and developing our fundraising base, which now includes an income generating venture—Thanda Zulu (www.thandazulu.org)–that employs 100 South African women who have been affected by HIV/AIDS.  All profits from the jewelry and hand crafts go to the academic, health care, and nutritional needs of the OVCs whom OAA supports.  In this vein, OAA represents the synergies that are possible when the non-profit and private sectors harness their respective expertise and combine forces for the benefit of society.

On a more personal note, as a 2003 Truman Scholar, the Truman community gave me and continues to give me the confidence to carry on this work despite the requirements of my full-time job or simultaneously balancing course work between two graduate schools.  Whenever I read an inspiring post on the Truman Scholar Association (TSA) list-serve, attend a TSA event, or meet potential future Scholars at the dinner before their finalist interview, I am reminded of the calling to serve—at home and abroad—that we all have the privilege to heed.  The Scholarship is all about the community—collaborating and learning from each other and taking pride in the initiatives, courage, and successes of our peers.  Thank you for continuing to inspire.    

Andrew Klaber (IL ’03) is the Founder and President of Orphans Against AIDS

This has been a whirlwind year for the Truman Scholars Association! We've hosted more than 20 events around the country (and world), we have launched a successful Annual Fund campaign that will support activities for all Scholars, we've greatly expanded our online presence via our blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more, and we've worked hard to make the TSA Board of Directors even more successful and sustainable with a new committee structure, revamped bylaws, and a strengthened relationship with the Truman Foundation.

The time has come to pass the torch on to new leadership, and I am pleased to announce the 2010-2011 TSA Board of Directors:

Adair Boroughs (SC '01), President
Jessica Sotelo (ID '00), Vice President and National Conference Director
Robert Eisinger (NY '85), Chair of Development
Chiraag Bains (MA '02), Chair of Events
Jonathan Evans (PA '03), Social Media Director
Preston Lee (DC '81), Treasurer
Michele Buckley (CO '06), Secretary
Pooja Agarwal (MO '05), Immediate Past President
Elizabeth Hill (FL '96)
Dara Purvis (CA '02)
Sarah Sattelmeyer (GA '04)

For more information about each TSA Director, please visit http://www.trumanscholars.org/about/2010-2011.

It has been an honor and pleasure to serve as the 2009-2010 President of the TSA Board of Directors. As Truman Scholars, we have an immense capacity to make our community and our world a better place, and I look forward to even bigger and better things in TSA's future.

Pooja K. Agarwal (MO '05) is the Immediate Past President of the TSA Board of Directors.

The Truman Scholars Association has an exciting year ahead of it, and I hope you all find a way to connect, be inspired and grow through this year's events and projects.

TSA will hold its next National Conference in the summer of 2011. You remember the friendships rekindled and newly made, the engaging speakers and scholar panels, and the fun had by all at TSA’s 2009 National Conference.  So get excited!   The the 2011 National Conference promises to be as incredible as the first.  If you'd like to help plan and execute this year's National Conference, just have some ideas you'd like to the planning committee to know, or have questions along the way, shoot us an email.

TSA will also be working on developing a strategic plan this year.  We'll be reaching out to the community for input, so look for posts to the listserv and website on ways to give your thoughts and ideas.  And if you have experience with strategic planning or otherwise want to be more involved in the process, please contact us.  

Finally, TSA will continue to host smaller events that you've come to know and love, like the Truman Finalists Dinners, and continue to work on development so we can provide you with the caliber of activities that you've come to expect.  Please visit us at www.trumanscholars.org for the latest news and to find out how you can get involved. 

Thank you all for making this such a supportive and exciting community.  I look forward to the chance to meet you all at the 2011 National Conference, if not before!

Adair Ford Boroughs (SC '01) is the President of the TSA Board of Directors.

My first day of teaching, I ate lunch with several other new teachers in a sparse conference room at my school’s rented campus; we were there to learn how to “survive” the first year teaching. I felt alone and terrified until I learned the man sitting next to me was a 2004 Truman Scholar. Two years later, I was walking through Walker-Jones Education Campus in the District when I heard a familiar voice teaching a kindergarten class: Lauren McAlee’s. Lauren (MD ’05) received the Truman scholarship the year before I did at UNC-Chapel Hill.

As many scholars return to school as students this fall, we thought it would be fitting to address an article to Truman Scholars who’ve chosen teaching. From professors of medicine and law, to 7th grade English teachers and teacher trainers in Tennessee, to kindergarten teachers in Washington, DC, many Truman scholars have found a passion in education. This piece was written using responses from a Truman listserv email calling for teachers to answer a set of questions – apologies to others we have missed!

Truman scholars involved in education reflect the many systems and people needed to create excellent education in the United States. Increased attention on schools in the media and politics hasn’t improved schools; actually, it’s become apparent that it takes comprehensive but flexible legislation, support at every level of government, structured plans at local education departments, robust and student-centered curriculum in the school, experienced teacher trainers, fabulous teachers, and an extensive network of support within the school (social workers, tutors, and school administrators). From my interviews, Truman Scholars are involved in each of these areas. Additionally, Scholars are involved in every educational level, from medical school, to higher education, to the most primary.

I wanted to find out what entices Truman scholars to begin teaching, and found there were few commonalities among the responses. Several teachers, like Amber Wallin Parks (MS ’03) and  Victoria Luhrs (KS ’05), have always known they wanted to teach.  As Victoria responded, “I have always wanted to be a teacher. My 4^th-grade birthday party was at a one-room schoolhouse.” Others came to the decision during high school and college, like myself, Ronald Towns (MI ’07), Heather Fluit (SD '09) and the many Teach for America recruits, such as Lesley Meyer Lavery (MT ’04), Lauren McAlee (MD ’05), Dwayne Bensing (AR ’06), and Chrissie Coxon (WA ’06). Still others found a passion for teaching after having children. Karla Vaughn Varriano (GA ’84) writes that “my teaching techniques were polished and perfected with the 10 years that I spent at home with my own children.  My passion for teaching has only increased since having a family because I see now that teachers really are responsible for the next generation.  We literally ‘make’ people.” 

Despite the various responses, I did find one common element that inspired Truman Scholars to continue teaching: a passion to effect true change at a fundamental level. David Simon (MN ’02), who currently teaches law at the University of Minnesota Law School, says “teaching is an extraordinary way to empower people to do extraordinary things.” Ronald Towns (MI ’07), a high school teacher, reports that “what really excites me about urban education are all of the possibilities in schools.  While my school is one of the ‘toughest’ schools in Chicago, I am very excited to work with colleagues that are committed to digging up the gold mine that is our school.” And Amber Wallin Parks (MS ’03), an educational consultant who taught for three years, says “the uncultivated potential of teachers and students is what motivates [her] work now.” She continued: “There is nothing better than hearing from teachers that an idea I shared with them helped one student finally get a concept or to watch students as they impress themselves with their newfound skills. There is no other field that is as challenging and vital to the future of our nation and world than education.”  

It’s clear that effecting change on the fundamental school level is challenging, but ultimately fulfilling, no matter what a person’s future plans. Though several teachers reported a desire to leave primary and secondary teaching to pursue teaching at a higher level, school leadership, or policy work, almost all said that they hope to continue the fight for quality education in those new roles. Lauren McAlee (MD ’06) says she realized “that to make a deeply positive impact on teaching in America, I needed to become a great teacher first… Every year I teach, I appreciate its complexity more.”

So, what do Truman teachers now mean for the future of education? Some Truman pledges include: strong leadership in local education agencies, a more student-centered curriculum, policies supporting public preschool, better equipped teachers, and a continued tradition of teaching excellence.

Mary Williams (DC ’07) teaches 5th grade at KIPPDC:KEY Academy, Washington, DC. Please feel free to contact her at emaryew@gmail.com.

In this month’s Scholar profile Max Finberg (NY '90), Director of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Center for Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, was interviewed by Jeni Lamb (CO '09), a current participant in the Truman Summer Institute and intern for the American Seed Trade Association.

Max Finberg has spent his career working on domestic and international hunger issues. Prior to his appointment at USDA, Max served as the Director for the Alliance to End Hunger, a collaboration of nonprofit organizations, religious bodies, universities, corporations, and individuals dedicated to eradicating hunger at home and abroad. He also spent 12 years in the service of former Congressman and Ambassador Tony Hall (D-OH) as the founding Director of the Bill Emerson and Mickey Leland Hunger Fellows Program at the Congressional Hunger Center, a senior legislative assistant working on domestic hunger issues, and as an advisor and special assistant to the UN mission in Rome.  Max holds a Master’s in Social Ethics from Howard University’s School of Divinity.  A 1990 Harry S. Truman Scholar from New York, Max attended Tufts University to study International Relations, German, and Political Science as an undergraduate.  Today, Max lives in Washington D.C with his wife and two young children.

Jeni Lamb graduated with degrees in Agricultural Economics and Political Science in May 2010 and is currently finishing a Master’s in Agricultural Economics at Virginia Tech. She is a 2009 Truman Scholar from Longmont, Colorado.

Edited Question and Answers with Max Finberg (NY ‘90), Director of the Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, United States Department of Agriculture

Lamb: Your early career experience is extremely inspiring—how did you come to serve as the founding director of the Mickey Leland Hunger Fellows Program just out of college?

Finberg: Actually, I spent a year interning in the Office of Congressman [Tony] Hall (D-OH). As a sitting Congressman, he had just finished fasting for 22 days to raise awareness of hunger issues. From there he founded the Congressional Hunger Center, a separate nonprofit organization, and I was one of the first employees to move from being an intern in his Congressional office to being the director of this nascent Mickey Leland Hunger Fellows Program. I am thrilled the program is still going and training the next generation of hunger fighters.  We have even had a couple of Truman scholars go through the program. It was great because here I was only a couple years out of school running a program, only because I was the only one there. Still, it was crazy to trust me with that kind of responsibility. Honestly though, it was just great, great stuff bringing folk together, creating an experience where fellows could spend six months in the field with a food bank or shelter and six months back in DC working on hunger and poverty policy. Back then at least, there was nothing that combined the field and policy experience.

How did you establish that relationship with Congressman Hall to where you think he was willing to put so much trust in you to develop such an innovative program?

When I was a sophomore at Tufts, I came down to DC for the National Prayer Breakfast and I heard him speak for the first time. I thought “wow”, here was a politician who cared about hunger and hungry people and loved God and I would like to work with him. So I wrote him a letter asking for an internship and never got a response. I wasn’t from Dayton, Ohio or anything like that.  I came down my senior year to the same breakfast, heard him speak again, and still thought “wow,” again, this would be great if I could work with this man. I had a friend who knew his wife, and tried to get an internship that way through giving him my resume. It didn’t work, that path didn’t open. I moved into a group house with a bunch of guys in DC trying to love God, love each other and figure all of that out. It turned out that the house was a block away from where Congressman Hall and his family lived.

So the line that I usually use is that I stalked him until he gave me a job, but what really answers the question is I started by learning about him, getting to know him and started to serve him.  Soon after I had moved in, his son, who was 12 at the time, was diagnosed with leukemia. So some friends and I would cook extra meals, mow his lawn, visit his son in the hospital—things that allowed us to interact but in a way that wasn’t…oh, can I go with you to your meeting at the White House?  When that paid off was nine months later when an internship opened up and he hired me in the Congressional office and then as Congressional Hunger Center staff. It worked out. I was able to deliver what he wanted—“a domestic Peace Corps focused on hunger” was the one liner—with the help of a lot of people. I never would have predicted that I would serve him for 12 years, but one thing led to another and the relationship was built—partly due to my willingness to serve him and his family early on.

Wow, fantastic. Can you talk about your decision to study at the Howard School of Divinity and pursue a Master’s in Social Ethics?

So after three years of serving as the founding director [of the Mickey Leland Hunger Fellows Program], I took advantage of the wonderful gift that is Harry Truman’s legacy and went to graduate school in divinity.  I loved it. I really couldn’t get excited about a law degree or even a degree in public policy. So when it came down to whether I should study more macroeconomics or the Old Testament, I said, “Give me Moses any day”!

I wanted to stay in DC and keep working with the Hunger Center part-time, so I went to study at Howard [University]. As the only white guy in my class, it was a wonderful experience in [understanding] how the Bible could apply to both political and social issues.

How do you think the decision to study divinity impacted your career, especially in terms of being able to move across domestic and international hunger issues?

It is a fabulous foundation. Personally, my motivation to help hungry people, wherever they live, is rooted in my faith. Professionally, it gives me the language to relate to other people also motivated by their faith as to why they want to help others.  Being able to quote from the Bible as to why we should help hungry people helps build an immediate rapport.

Certainly, this seems especially important as international hunger, domestic hunger, and domestic obesity tend to be placed into silos in academic and public debate. How do you see these issues as interrelated?

Absolutely. It’s all about caring for our neighbor.  Whether you go back to the story of the Good Samaritan or the preface to that parable or the most important prayer in Jewish life, “love your God and love your neighbor”. How do you do that when your neighbor is starving? How do you do that if your neighbor, even if they may not live next you, contracts diabetes because of obesity at an early age? All of that, for me, relates to caring for your neighbor.  It gets even more basic when it’s very specific, scripturally or otherwise, that this is about hunger. Maslow is pretty clear: after breathing, eating is up there as a human priority. Anything else is built on the pyramid of having enough to eat—you can’t learn, you can’t be fulfilled. 

Is that what you find most exciting about your current position—to mobilize groups behind this idea of caring for your neighbor?

Certainly. It’s already happening. That’s what is great about hunger as an issue, it’s very bipartisan, it’s not liberal or conservative. You’ll have very politically conservative people who are willing to help hungry people. Maybe not through government, maybe they don’t agree with that. It allows for an intersection with a variety of different folks and it’s a fabulous part of my job to be able to work with such a vast array of folks. Yesterday, I got to meet with the Jewish Council on Public Affairs on work they are doing with WIC [Women Infants and Children] and the school lunch program and call Islamic leaders to congratulate them on the great job that they are doing with domestic hunger efforts.  That’s a great part of my job.

Along with enjoying your work, you also have a young family. Can you offer advice to other Truman Scholars on how you have been able to maintain a life balance while working to make a difference in public policy?

Life has seasons, just like years do. It was hard for me to see that early in my 20s, because I was running all out. Put the petal down and do as much and accomplish as much as you possibly can. That changed almost nine years ago when I got married, but it changed really five-and-a-half years ago when our daughter was born shortly before we left Rome, and now, with a two-year-old son, even more so. I am glad that my new job doesn’t have me traveling internationally anymore. It was fabulous to get my passport stamped all over the world and see some things in Sub-Saharan Africa especially and to travel all over Europe, South America and Asia. That season was fabulous, this season with young kids I want to be home.  My wife has made even more of a sacrifice; she is in public health and used to travel all over Africa, and her season as a mom is challenging and very different. But again, it’s seasonal. When the kids are a little older, she’ll go back to work and we will go back to putting in a few more hours.  Also, it’s about the decision to work in public service. It’s not private sector salaries, but we’ve made life choices so she can stay home, even in this expensive neighborhood of Washington, DC.

Thanks for being willing to be so open and share such a candid perspective. It’s been a pleasure talking with you today.

Thanks Jeni!

For more information on the Congressional Hunger Center and Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellows Program, please visit: http://www.hungercenter.org/