Letter from the Director

Welcome to the first edition of the SID Global Alumni e-Newsletter!

Across the globe, SID is now represented by over 440 MA and MS graduates in 70 countries. From its beginning 12 years ago, SID has been an extraordinary community of people dedicating their lives to the eradication of preventable suffering and to the cause of equitable and just development.

This e-Newsletter aims to better bind together this community and to showcase the contributions of alumni, faculty, staff and students to this humanitarian mission.

Those of you who graduated years ago will note our growth. With approximately 120 graduate students matriculating this September, we continue our leadership in the field of academic and practical training in development. Each year our incoming students are awardees of prestigious scholarship competitions including the Joint Japan-World Bank Scholars, Fulbright and Presidential Scholars, and Rotary International. This year, we are honored to have the largest cluster in America of Ford Foundation International Fellows pursing graduate degrees.

The growth of the program also has a brick and mortar component. The new Schneider Building at The Heller School, to open in October, will house SID and our Center for International Development, among other Heller School research institutes.

The program has grown also in substance and expertise. In coming issues of this e-Newsletter, we will highlight the work of our expanded faculty who are available to advise and guide your own efforts and continuing education. One of our newest areas for research and teaching is on a "rights-based approach to development." By September, we will launch a new web site devoted to this work, giving you key resources and links to explore. You will also have access to our syllabi in this area, including new courses on The Right to Health and The Right to Water, among other recognized human rights in development.

SID has also launched ProSeminars and workshops with leading practitioners and researchers on such topics as genocide, development leadership and spiritual movements for development. This e-newsletter will list upcoming opportunities for which the "welcome mat" is always out should you be able to join us. We are also exploring web-based transmission of these events so you can participate wherever you are in the world.

Along with this growth and excitement in the SID Programs comes tremendous opportunity for networking. Together, as development practitioners, policy makers and researchers, we encompass a broad spectrum of overlapping and interrelated development issues. If we take the opportunity to share our ideas, opinions, successes, and other professional news, we can support each other to further each of our ambitions and goals.

This e-newsletter is for and about you. We heartily welcome everyone's comments, photos, articles, news links ---- whatever you want to share personally and professionally with your classmates and other alumni.

Finally, I want you to know the profound respect I have for you. Each of you has followed a calling to serve the interests of the poor and excluded. Our values of service and love run deep in our community. I miss you all and want to know about your lives and work. Write us at sid@brandeis.edu.

Laurence R. Simon, Ph.D.
Professor of International Development
Director of the SID Programs