Weathersby is a professorial lecturer in Korean studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. She is also a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Sungshin Women’s University in Seoul, Korea. She teaches courses on South/North Korean relations in historical context, the history of post-World War II international relations and North Korean history and politics. Following the collapse of communist rule in the Soviet Union, Weathersby pioneered research in Russian archives on the creation of the North Korean state and the Korean War, and has published and lectured widely on these subjects. She founded and directed the North Korea International Documentation Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and has served as a consultant for several documentaries on North Korea. Weathersby holds a Ph.D. in Russian history, with a second field in Modern East Asia, from Indiana University.

The series, which begins Feb. 18 and airs every Monday night at 9 p.m. on C-SPAN, serves as a comprehensive biography of the women closest to each of the 44 presidents. From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama, it will offer a closer look at the lives and legacies of the first ladies.

In its 20th year on the road, the C-SPAN Bus will stop at key historic places in the first ladies’ lives, from hometowns to universities to presidential libraries, promoting C-SPAN’s educational and political resources for students, teachers and community members along the way. The Sweet Briar visit will be followed by stops at Montpelier and Monticello in Charlottesville.

Aboard the C-SPAN Bus, visitors will learn about the services C-SPAN offers, such as its public affairs event coverage and online resources, including archived video footage going back to 1987. They will also be introduced to the many ways in which they can connect with C-SPAN, including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, XM Radio and mobile apps.

After a special introduction program on Feb. 18, C-SPAN will showcase the first ladies’ lives in subsequent weeks’ episodes as part of the first-ever television series to feature all of the American first ladies. For more information on the series, visit c-span.org/firstladies.

You can follow the Road to the White House with C-SPAN’s political coverage on the C-SPAN networks, C-SPAN Radio and at www.c-span.org.

At Sweet Briar, C-SPAN can be viewed on channel 18, C-SPAN 2 on channel 104 and C-SPAN 3 on channel 105.

Spencer Bakich

Spencer Bakich, assistant professor of international affairs at Sweet Briar College, will kick off the annual Great Decisions Lecture Series at the Lynchburg Public Library. The series is held at 3 p.m. Thursdays beginning Feb. 7 through Feb. 28 in the Community Room. Light refreshments are provided starting at 2:30 p.m.

Bakich, who has expertise in foreign policy, small wars and insurgencies, and international security, will present “Threat Assessment” on Feb. 7. He will discuss how the U.S. can address the challenges of a weak economy and nuclear proliferation, along with the threats and opportunities presented by China’s ascendancy and regime change in the Middle East.

Sweet Briar assistant professor of international affairs Padmini Coopamah will speak Feb. 21 on “China in Africa.” Coopamah studies international development and the political economy of developing areas, especially sub-Saharan Africa.

Padmini Coopamah

She will address such questions as what interests govern China’s engagement in Africa, and whether China’s actions with respect to political ties and natural resource extraction should inform U.S. relations with African nations.

Nancy Bockstael, professor emerita of economics from the University of Maryland, will present “The Crisis of the Euro” on Feb. 14. Professor of political science Jennifer Dugan of Randolph College will conclude the series with “Humanitarian Intervention” on Feb. 28.

The Great Decisions Lecture Series is sponsored by the Lynchburg Branch of the American Association of University Women, the League of Women Voters of Lynchburg, the YWCA and the Lynchburg Public Library.

Topics are suggested by the Foreign Policy Association based on what it sees as the most significant and far-reaching issues of the day.

Lectures begin at 3 p.m. If Lynchburg Public Schools close due to inclement weather on the day of a lecture, it will be canceled and rescheduled for the first Thursday in March if possible.

Steve Bragaw speaks with WSET reporter Mark Kelly on Friday.

Instead, Bragaw will join anchors Noreen Turyn and Len Stevens for their live election analysis on WSET ABC-13 in Lynchburg. Local coverage begins during the 5 o’clock news and continues throughout ABC’s coverage twice hourly until 12:30 a.m.

“Steve has a wealth of knowledge on the local races we’ll be covering in addition to the national races,” WSET news director, Bill Foy, said. “He’s well known for his expertise on television, radio and newspapers.”

Bragaw frequently appears on WSET and other local media outlets, and not just because of his familiarity with politics.

“He has a strong, but comfortable on-air presence,” Foy said. “His thoughts come naturally, and he expresses himself well.”

Those skills will come in handy in a news format that relies heavily on improvisation and on-the-spot analysis. Turyn knows all too well what can happen in live television when someone doesn’t think on their feet — especially during election night coverage.

She recalls one particular night in the 1990s when an inexperienced director kept pulling up the wrong graphics. Finally, all they could do was “cut to black and get out,” Turyn said. “It was a horrible mess.”

With years of news coverage under her belt, Turyn knows how to prepare for Nov. 6.

“We have been covering political stories for months, so that’s our prep and research,” she said. “We might pull up some stats or facts to have handy to fill in info … but really that night is all about what’s happening at the moment.”

And sometimes, that “moment” can turn into a marathon, as it did 12 years ago. Foy remembers it well.

“[My] most memorable was election night 2000, finally going home at 8 a.m. the next morning when it was clear we had no idea who had been elected president,” he said. “It would be thirty-five days before the courts declared [George] Bush the winner.”

With polls showing President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney in a dead heat in a number of states, 2012 could be another nail-biter.

“It’s about voter turnout,” Bragaw said in an interview with WSET on Friday. “Who’s actually going to show up Tuesday, and who showed up in early voting? At this point, every single person is going to count … There are three scenarios: Narrow Obama victory, narrow Romney victory, and then an unexpected, not big blowout, but an unexpected large victory for Romney — but I really don’t see a scenario where there’s an unexpected large victory for the president.”

Tune in to WSET ABC-13 at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6, for more insights from Bragaw and an in-depth analysis of local and national elections. Bragaw will also make an appearance during WSET’s 7:30 p.m. news on Monday, Nov. 5.

— Janika Carey

The competitive eight-week program brings together students and faculty from all disciplines to create an intense academic experience for participants. Student researchers work one-on-one with a faculty mentor, in addition to meeting weekly for presentations given by faculty and students highlighting their ongoing research. The program begins on May 21, and continues through July 13.

The following students were awarded fellowships:

Spencer Beall ’14
Faculty sponsor: Marie-Thérèse Killiam, professor of French

CJ Campbell ’13
Faculty sponsor: Tony Lilly, assistant professor of English

Lydia Ethridge ’15
Faculty sponsor: Lynn Laufenberg, associate professor of history

Phoebe Jiang ’14
Faculty sponsor: Cammie Smith Barnes, assistant professor of mathematical sciences

A-Joo Kim ’13
Faculty sponsor: Padmini Coopamah, assistant professor of international affairs

Hannah Male ’13
Faculty sponsor: Kate Chavigny, associate professor of history

Caitlin Playle ’13
Faculty sponsor: Lynn Laufenberg, associate professor of history

Ellen Reid ’12
Faculty sponsor: Paige Critcher, assistant professor of studio art

Rachael Stein ’13
Faculty sponsor: Padmini Coopamah, assistant professor of international affairs

Weekly presentations begin  Thursday, May 24 and are open to the entire campus community. Faculty presentations through May and June will be in Guion A03. Student presentations in July will be held in the 1948 Theater. Abstracts of the students’ summer projects are posted on the Honors website.

Bragaw began teaching at Sweet Briar in 1994 and has served as chair of the government and international affairs department. His research and writing focuses on the role of the Supreme Court in negotiating the boundaries of power and authority, with secondary interests in media and politics, and the politics of civic education. He also has taken a lead role in promoting civics education in Virginia schools.

Exactly how she will contribute isn’t known to her yet, but she expects the 10-month Fulbright English Teaching Assistant grant she has just been awarded will help clarify what she wants to do.

Alexander is going to Turkey for the 2011-2012 academic year and while she doesn’t know her university assignment, she believes it will be outside the urban centers of Ankara, Istanbul or Izmir. That suits her, because she sought the prestigious scholarship to begin to understand Turkey’s complicated relations with its neighbors — and ultimately to apply what she learns in broader contexts.

Kat Alexander with her international affairs professors Padmini Coopamah (left) and Spencer Bakich.

“One can never hope to understand a conflict unless one has made the effort to know the people involved,” she says.

“By learning as much as I can about Turkey and its people, culture and language, I hope to make use of that knowledge in the future when treating Turkey as a case in analyses of foreign policy or domestic politics.”

Her natural openness made anthropology professor Debbie Durham confident in her chances for landing one of the student grants, which are highly competitive. Durham, who lived in Turkey in 2007-2008 as a Fulbright research scholar, served on the College’s Fulbright Committee.

“I always thought Kat was the perfect candidate,” she says. “She is not only intellectually curious, she is fascinated by the people themselves, and will find them as generous and welcoming as she hopes.”

Alexander graduated summa cum laude in May with a Bachelor of Arts in government and a French minor, following an exemplary career at Sweet Briar. Her achievements include earning the Presidential Medal, the College’s highest student award.

Under the ETA grant, she’s required to teach English 20 hours a week. The rest of the time, she’ll study the language and culture and work in the community. She may coach girls’ soccer or organize local theater projects, activities that play to her own passions and skills and that will allow her to interact with and to know her neighbors.

Alexander grew intrigued with Turkey when she attended the Peace and Conflict Resolution program through American University’s Washington Semester in the spring of her junior year. Through the coursework and a visit to the country, she became more aware of its importance as a global crossroads where East and West converge and its role as a secular but stable democracy in a majority-Muslim nation. Studying its regional relations awoke a latent personal curiosity as well: Her grandfather had emigrated from there.

“Peace and conflict is one facet of my interest in Turkey but I’m also approaching it from a political science standpoint and a fascination with that part of the world in general,” she said from her home in Marshall, N.C., where she is coaching a summer soccer camp for kids.

She plans to earn a doctorate in political science and to specialize in the region encompassing Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Turkey’s influence in the neighborhood — like a “planet that pulls everything else into its orbit” — makes understanding it central to understanding the region, she says.

Alexander worked closely with the Fulbright Committee on her application, but also credits her government and international affairs professors and many others at the College for supporting her. She especially appreciates associate dean of academic affairs and professor of chemistry Jill Granger, who advised her on several scholarship applications. “Without her help, I don’t think I would have survived,” she says.

Granger flips the praise, saying, “I think I am the one who was lucky to have Kat as my first ‘subject,’ ” in reference to new formal responsibilities on Sweet Briar’s External Awards Committee.

“It was a real pleasure to work with her on her applications, primarily because she was working so hard on them. … You don’t often find in students today that they have that kind of attention to detail, respect for the process, appreciation for nuance, and willingness to draft and re-draft, and work until it’s as good as it can be,” Granger says.

“I could keep going,” she adds. “I’m a big fan.”

From Durham, Alexander took both Turkish lessons throughout her senior year and the professor’s advice to dig into Turkey’s history, culture and politics as well as the language.

“Learning a language with an anthropologist — that’s a blast,” she says.

When Durham heard Alexander had received the grant, she congratulated her student on “winning” the Fulbright in Turkish. “ ‘Kazandin!’ ” she wrote in an email, which means “You won.”

She explains, “The word for ‘to win’ — kazanmak — means ‘to earn’ and Kat has truly earned this opportunity and honor.”

— Jennifer McManamay

President Jo Ellen Parker and Kat Alexander ’09

The medal is presented every year to a senior or seniors who have demonstrated intellectual achievement in addition to distinction in a combination of community service, contribution to the arts, global awareness, fitness and athletic achievement, and leadership, civility and integrity.

“In short,” Parker said during the presentation, “the Presidential Medal is awarded to a student who represents all the educational values that make Sweet Briar Sweet Briar.”

Alexander is a government major and French minor. She is working toward the Honors Degree, conducting undergraduate thesis research with Padmini Coopamah, assistant professor of international affairs, and Kevin Honeycutt, assistant professor of philosophy.

As a junior she attended American University studying in the International Peace and Conflict Resolution Program which took her to Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. She has interned at the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, collaborating with retired foreign service personnel on a number of special projects, and at the Supreme Court of the United States, working in the Clerk’s Office.

She is the 2010-11 Emilie Watts McVea Scholar and in 2008-09 was named the Rickards Scholar for her demonstrated potential for leadership, academic excellence and community involvement. She is a member of numerous clubs including QV, Earphones, Paint and Patches, the Environmental Club and the Model UN team. In addition, she has participated in the theater program throughout her Sweet Briar career as a cast member in five shows and on the crew of three.

Alexander is a four-year varsity athlete in soccer and team captain who has been named an Old Dominion Athletic Conference all-academic for the past three years. She also coached pee-wee soccer in her hometown of Marshall, N.C.

Parker noted that nominations are made by faculty, staff members and administrators and voted on by the senior staff. “It is never an easy choice, needless to say,” she said.

Professor of chemistry Jill Granger was among those who wrote in support of Alexander’s nomination, citing her “true love of learning” and a “creativity that gives her a unique and quirky perspective on seemingly disparate topics.”

Parker also quoted assistant professor of international affairs Spencer Bakich, who described his student as a “force of nature” and a “rare blend of academic, personal and athletic attributes that suggest that there is simply nothing that she cannot accomplish.”

Indeed, the Presidential Medal is among the things Alexander aimed to accomplish at Sweet Briar.

“[It] is certainly something to which I have aspired,” she said. “It has been evident to me since my first year that Presidential Medalists demonstrate masterful synthesis of all that Sweet Briar offers. The women to receive it before me were incredible people I knew, if not personally, by reputation. They were women that I wanted to emulate.”

Alexander, who is waiting to hear if she will receive a Fulbright to teach English in Turkey after she graduates, says her motivation comes from a love of learning, bolstered by peers and professors who challenge her.

“I must say, however, that I would have never have been able to take advantage of so much were it not for the support of Sweet Briar’s incredible faculty. They have opened doors, pushed me to reach my potential, and welcomed me in departments outside of my major — a hallmark of the Sweet Briar experience.”

— Jennifer McManamay

The simulation on Feb. 7 was co-sponsored by William & Mary’s Project on International Peace and Security and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. PIPS invited undergraduate teams from colleges with government programs that include national security components, and from which the CIA recruits, said assistant international affairs professor and Sweet Briar team sponsor Spencer Bakich. PIPS presented the event as a “highly rigorous, analytical exercise for students interested in intelligence analysis and international security.”

Participating teams played the role of CIA analysts responsible for assessing a simulated emerging crisis situation. After being introduced to their CIA mentors, the teams were separated into individual planning rooms, where they reviewed the simulation’s rules and were then notified of the crisis and given a binder of related intelligence.

PIPS and the CIA designed the next three hours as an “analytical pressure cooker” intended to test the students’ ability to process a significant amount of information and prepare a briefing under a tight deadline as part of a team. The briefing had to include a summary of the situation, predict how it was most likely to unfold and evaluate its broader implications for the U.S. and other actors involved.

As in a real crisis, the teams were given new intelligence as it played out and were able to send “tasking orders” to field operatives requesting additional information.

At the end of two hours, the teams presented their briefings to an agency analyst acting as the director of central intelligence. The director challenged the teams with aggressive questioning, expecting them to justify their conclusions.

“In short, [this was] an excellent demonstration of experiential learning,” Bakich said, noting 13 mid- to- senior-level agency analysts “partnered with the school teams by serving as senior line supervisors to each analytical cell, just as it is done in reality.”

Michelle Messier ’12 said the simulation beats tours and interviews with recruiters, although those are valuable, too.

“This gave us the opportunity to experience what a small part of their job is actually like,” she said. “Being able to try it out in a high-stress, competitive environment really helps you determine if it is the right path for you.”

For Emily Richonne ’12, the experience confirmed her desire to work with the CIA at some point in her career. “We were lucky to experience firsthand a taste of what CIA officers do every day,” she said.

Messier also found watching how her teammates reacted to the changing situation under the time restrictions instructive. So did Richonne, who said they questioned each other but ultimately worked well together and built off one another’s conclusions.

As their sponsor, Bakich said he couldn’t have been more impressed with his students. “The pace was intense and grueling. The banter was candid and professional. The focus on the part of the participants was all-encompassing,” he said. “They performed brilliantly under substantial pressure.”

Senior Sarah Jones acted as the cell leader for Sweet Briar’s team, which also included Kat Alexander ’11 and Rachael Stein ’13.

The simulation situations were close enough to those used in real CIA training exercises that the event was kept largely under wraps until it was over. Other participating teams included William & Mary, Norfolk State University, Old Dominion University, University of Mary Washington, University of Richmond, Virginia Tech and Washington College.

—  Lauren Schoff  ’11