Death of an Alliance - A Conversation with the Dalai Lama.” She has also written in numerous publications, such as The New York Times, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. She is the mother of three sons and a grandma of five. The Center for Public Leadership The Center for Public Leadership The mission of the Center for Public Leadership is to enhance democracy by helping people prepare to actively engage as citizens, leaders, and members of institutions. The center focuses on helping students develop skills and experiences that will empower them to assume and succeed in leadership roles in personal and professional life. Through the Center, students will engage in research on citizenship and leadership, learn skills to prepare them for leadership positions, and provide leadership opportunities for them to learn these skills. In 2015, The New York Times published a series of articles about the U.S. war in Afghanistan, an 11-year endeavor that has seen tens of thousands of deaths and tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars expended. Among the main articles, “How Much Will All This Cost?” looked at whether the United States should continue pouring so much blood and treasure into Afghanistan. The center was established in 2006 by a grant from the National Science Foundation to The University of Texas at Arlington. It is made up of several projects. The first project is an empirical study about the attitudes and beliefs of citizens in the United States and two countries, India and Mexico, that make up the largest non-European populations on the planet. The study's central question is whether one’s attitude towards democracy depends on the education one received about democracy at school. This project will examine the empirical evidence on how students are taught about democracy and democracy promotion and the impact of this experience on their attitudes towards democratic practice. The second project is an empirical study about the effects of national identity on political behavior. The study looks at the differences between identity dimensions and their effects on a variety of political outcomes. A sample survey was administered to both a representative sample of the United States population and to a large national panel of more than 10,000 participants from the online American Panel Study. This project will examine the effects of educational experience on political identity and attitudes, particularly comparing the effects of political experience versus non-formal education. The third project is a series of empirical studies and a model that examines issues related to the effects of national identity on participation in democratic institutions. This project will identify how national identity affects attitudes and participation in educational institutions and political institutions. The project will also develop tools to facilitate the integration of democratic institutions in countries that were once considered dictatorships. One of the outcomes of this project is a series of public outreach events, including lectures and a panel discussion, aimed at creating opportunities for dialogue between the local U.S. community and their counterparts in India and Mexico, and to develop dialogue between the U.S. and Latin America communities and the North American diaspora communities in the United States and Canada. The center also administers the International Democracy Fund (IDF), which was formed by a grant from the United States Department of State to conduct research about the role of the social, cultural and political environment in democratic institutions. The center administers this program in collaboration with Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. The center is named after John Gast (1937-2009), who was a founding director of the National Science Foundation-funded Project on Democracy in Higher Education and a pioneer in intercultural education who believed that the way to deal with ethnic conflict is to get all the parties to the table, not to shout at one another, talk out of the sides of their mouths or throw stones at each other. This is what he did, and in doing so, he created forums that not only brought opposing sides together but also promoted a commitment to democratic institutions. The U.S. Department of Education has funded the center since 1992. In 2006, the center received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Annenberg Foundation for a study titled, "The Costs of Citizenship: Perspectives from the United States, India, and Mexico," and began the IDF in 2009. Dr. James Duderstadt, the Ernest Cockrell Jahnke Distinguished University Chair in University Leadership and professor of political science and public affairs, is the director of the Center for Public Leadership and one of the center’s co-directors. He is a leading expert on intercultural and international education and, in addition to teaching courses in intercultural education and international studies, he has published numerous books and articles on the topics of intercultural education and international conflict. Duderstadt serves on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, on the Academic Advisory Committee of the National Conference on Citizenship and has also served on other national panels. He has consulted for the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Science Foundation, as well as a range of foundations and corporations. In 2013, he served on a State Department International Advisory Board, as part of the first round of National Security Study Group’s recommendations for changes in U.S. foreign policy in light of the Arab Spring. Duderstadt is the recipient of the Outstanding Educator Award from the National Society for the Promotion of Co-Curricular Activities, which is the U.S. honor society for student-centered education. He has been named one of the most influential scholars in the field of intercultural education by Diverse Education. He has been the recipient of several lifetime achievement awards from groups in North America and abroad, such as the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Association for Bilingual Education, and the Organization for Transformative Works, and in 2009, he was the recipient of the International Citizenship Education award from UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). In addition to his academic appointment at The University of Texas at Arlington, Duderstadt is a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the director of the Global Intercultural Leadership Program (GILP), a post-doctoral program designed to train intercultural and international leaders. Duderstadt is the founder of the Global Leadership Program, which has received state and federal grants for its studies on intercultural education. He is also the founder of several academic programs at The University of Texas at Arlington, including the International Education Leadership Program, which focuses on intercultural education. “I wanted to create a comprehensive study about the role of education in peacebuilding, both domestically and internationally, so that I could better understand the relationship between intercultural education and peace,” Duderstadt said. “I was especially interested in how such education encourages citizens to act with one another and how this intercultural education helps to develop people to take action in society.” What kind of a society are we creating when the only role models are violence and hate? We have enough bad models around. - John Gast By John Gast On October 31, 1964, I was in a helicopter just a mile off of the coast of Vietnam when I saw a North Vietnamese Army patrol boat loaded with armed men. The helicopter landed in the river and the helicopter crew went out to meet the patrol boat. They met in front of us, shook hands, and the commander of the patrol boat approached me to give his name: Nguyen. I shook his hand and the commander told me that the other soldiers were a “little bit nervous” about my visit. I told him that I was a reporter and that I was happy that they were there and I was glad that we met. I said I was impressed with their courage, bravery and sacrifice. A few days later, during an evacuation from an airfield near Saigon, I was assigned a seat next to the commander of the patrol boat, Nguyen. He told me about the people in his country and about their history. After several hours we landed at another airfield in Thailand where I walked to a landing craft. There, they boarded me and took me to a boat and flew me back to Saigon. Nguyen’s visit to me is still vivid in my mind. It was a lesson that changed my life forever. Nguyen is just one of hundreds of courageous Vietnamese who risked their lives to help my family and me as a boy. I still believe in Vietnam and I still believe in its people. I could write an entire book of stories like that about Vietnam and those whom I met during my travels, but what is more important to me is that we will never win their hearts and minds unless we begin to have better faith in one another, regardless of our nationality, religion, or background. When peace in our world is possible, it is because we have done that. I believe we can succeed in building a better world. Our world, our future, depends on it. John Gast has spent most of his adult life as a public-private scholar dedicated to