When was the last time you updated your Truman.gov profile?  Was it at TSLW?  Did you not even know you had a Truman.gov profile?  Well you do and you should keep it current!  The Truman Scholars Association and the Truman Foundation are working together to update contact information for all scholars.  Those with out-of-date or missing data will be contacted in order to obtain current information.  Please save yourself and us time by logging in to www.truman.gov and updating your profile.  

Thank you!

The Truman Scholars Association is excited to announce two new volunteer positions within the TSA community: Class Co-Chair and Regional Captain. Both positions are aimed at helping the TSA Board with planning, growth, communications, and development. All members of the TSA community are eligible so please consider volunteering!   

To submit your name for either position, please send your name, year, and selection state to tsaprogrammingcommittee@gmail.com by midnight on Monday, February 6. Please include a short statement (200 words max) to explain why you would be best for the role with ideas for what you would do when serving.  If you are nominating yourself for a regional captain position please include which region you live in, how long you have lived there, and how long you plan to remain in the area (we do not require that you plan to remain there permanently to fill this position).  

Class Co-Chair (two chairs will be chosen from each Truman Class): The role of the Class Chair is to cultivate communication, interest, and support for the TSA. They will serve as the representative from their class to the TSA board.  Responsibilities will primarily be focused on keeping classmates’ contact information current, but may occasionally include assisting with TSA fundraising campaigns to increase giving amongst the class, and promoting TSA events for the class. This is a lifetime appointment, however, should extenuating circumstances arise and you can no longer fulfill your obligation, the TSA may nominate a successor. 

Regional Captains (one captain will be chosen from each region): The role of the Regional Captain is to build excitement, plan events, and assist the TSA in reaching all scholars living within the borders of the region.  They will serve as a regional representative to the TSA Programming Committee.  Responsibilities will include: assisting the Programming Committee in planning regional events, participating in the finalist dinners in your region (when applicable), and promoting TSA events for residents in the region.  Regional events may also be planned outside the direct implementation of the Programming Committee.  Regional events could include two annual service events, dinners, or happy hours. Regional Captains have the opportunity to also form their own committee of volunteers in the region.  This appointment will last until you no longer live in the region, or can no longer fulfill your obligation.  Regional Captains will determine their successors with the input of the TSA board.  The current regions are based on those for which google groups exist at this moment in time -  these are not set in stone and could change based on the locations of members of our community.): Boston; Chicago; Los Angeles; Midwest (e.g., IL, MO, IA, IN, KS); Minnesota (e.g., Twin Cities); New Haven, CT (including the Northeast); New York City; Oxford, England; Pennsylvania; San Francisco/Bay Area; Seattle (including OR); Southeast (e.g., TN, KY, MS, LA, AL, GA, NC, SC, FL); Southwest (e.g., NV, UT, CO, AZ, NM, TX); Washington DC (including MD and VA); and Wisconsin.

Congratulations to Melissa Boteach (MD ‘04) and Anthony Vitarelli (NJ ‘04) for being named to Forbes 30 under 30 for Law and Policy. As the magazine writes, “These are the people who aren't waiting to reinvent the world.” Keep up the good work!

Check out the story here.

Jina Moore, a freelance writer and regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor, recently won the 2011 Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize gold medal for best reporting on the United Nations. The award recognizes her coverage of a new UN approach to ending war and promoting peace: peacebuilders, an idea distinct from both peacemaking and peacekeeping. Below, we excerpt the article.

Michael von der Schulenburg drove deliberately into the riot. Angry men filled a main road here in Freetown; they quickly surrounded his car. They were members of the APC, the All People's Congress, and their leader, Ernest Koroma, was Sierra Leone's president. They were in a dispute with their opposition over a local election that had taken place a day's drive deep into the countryside.

That rural dispute turned national and urban, and threatened to turn violent in Freetown. Thousands of APC men thronged toward the headquarters of the opposition party. They were drunk, and they were being used. Men here are cheap – a beer buys a vote – but they are not usually violent.

Mr. Schulenburg, the United Nation's top man in Sierra Leone, hadn't been in the country for long, but he did know this: So many men don't gather by accident, nor do they spontaneously decide to fight over such a paltry political event as a rural vote. Schulenburg didn't know who had reported the crowd, or why. He's friendly with Sierra Leone's "Big Men" – he chats daily with Mr. Koroma by phone. But that day, no one would take his calls.

As he approached the action, he wondered: Was this the kind of raucous discontent typical of Sierra Leonean politics, or was the street rumor right? Could it be the moment that the war comes back?

Read the full article here.

The following is an excerpt from a December 2011 article in The Washington Post.

Carolyn Lerner had the Air Force’s top four-star general boxed in.

Gen. Norton Schwartz was reeling from revelations that the Dover Air Force Base mortuary had lost and sawed off body parts and mishandled other remains of America’s war dead. In the glare of television cameras, the Air Force chief of staff was forced to issue mea culpas for the scandal in November.

Lerner, the newly installed federal lawyer whose tiny office uncovered the gruesome findings, was ready for a fight.

Lerner accused the Air Force of deflecting blame — and a mortuary official of lying and obstructing the probe by firing one of the workers who blew the whistle. When Schwartz declared that Lerner’s Office of Special Counsel had prevented the military from notifying the families of the dead service members for more than a year, she dressed him down to the news media.