The POSCO NGO Fellowship Program which has been generously supported by the POSCO TJ Park Foundation of Korea is terminated as of August 2009. A consortium, consisting of Columbia University, Indiana University, George Washington University, Stanford University, and the University of British Columbia, has hosted thirty Korean NGO fellows for the past three years. Professor Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC, has been the Chair of the Fellowship committee.

Rising leaders from some of the world’s most complex and challenging nations, including China, Russia, Ukraine, Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have just completed a three-week seminar at Stanford as Draper Hills Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development. This year’s extraordinary class of fellows included members of parliament, government advisors, civic activists, leading jurists, journalists, international development experts and founders of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Each year, several hundred applicants apply to FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), the convener of the program, for the 26-28 slots available to study and help foster linkages among democracy, economic development, human rights, and the rule of law. Now in its fifth year, the program has received generous gifts from William Draper III, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, in honor of his father, Maj. Gen. William H. Draper, Jr., a chief advisor to Gen. George Marshall and chief diplomatic administrator of the Marshall Plan in Germany, and Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills, a former journalist, in honor of her husband, Reuben Hills, a leading San Francisco philanthropist and president and chairman of the board of Hills Bros. Coffee.

Draper Hills Summer Fellows are innovative, courageous, and committed leaders, who strive to improve governance, enhance civic participation, and invigorate development under very challenging circumstances," said CDDRL Director Larry Diamond. “This year’s fellows were absolutely extraordinary, learning from us we hope, but also teaching all of us about the progress they are making and the obstacles they confront in a diverse set of countries.  We were not only sobered by the difficulties they must address on a daily basis but also uplifted by their accounts of programs that are working to deepen democracy, improve government accountability, strengthen the rule of law, energize civil society, and enhance the institutional environment for broadly shared economic growth.”

The three-week seminar is taught by an all star faculty, which in addition to Diamond, includes CDDRL Deputy Director Kathryn Stoner, Stanford president emeritus and constitutional law expert Gerhard Casper, FSI Deputy Director and political science professor Stephen D. Krasner, Erik Jensen and Allen S. Weiner from the Stanford law school, Avner Greif from the Department of Economics, Peter Henry from the Graduate School of Business, FSI Senior Fellow Helen Stacy, former FSI Director and current Program on Food Security and the Environment deputy director Walter P. Falcon, Mark C. Thurber, acting director of FSI’s Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, and Nicholas Hope, director of the Stanford Center on International Development.

Other leading experts and practitioners who engaged the fellows included democracy and governance expert Francis Fukuyama, who joins CDDRL as Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow in July 2010, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, United States Court of Appeals Judge Pamela Rymer, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict founding chair Peter Ackerman, the center’s president, Jack DuVall, former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo, and former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Condoleezza Rice.

Faculty devoted the first week of the seminar to defining the fundamentals of democracy, good governance, economic development, and the rule of law, and in the second week turned to the issue of transitions and the feedback mechanisms between democracy, development, and a predictable rule of law. The third week examined the critical – and often controversial – role of international assistance to foster and support democracy, judicial reform, and economic development, including the proper role of foreign aid.

Against this backdrop, fellows emphasized domestic imperatives for fostering growth, social inclusion, and transformation, centering on the importance of political will and sound institutions.  In session after session, they wrestled with the concrete and all too common impediments to progress—from corruption, cronyism, and authoritarian regimes, to the fragility of conflict-ridden, multi-ethnic polities.  As an activist from strife-torn Iraq said, “Democracy is not just a way of governing. It is a way of living, a way of thinking about life.”“Democracy is not just a way of governing. It is a way of living, a way of thinking about life”

In spirited debates, in the formal seminar sessions and beyond the classroom to the Munger residence where the fellows stayed, the fellows stressed how they had all taught and learned from each other.  A rising leader from South Africa aptly summarized, “We have dispelled each other’s myths.”

As the Draper Hills Fellows expressed their profound gratitude to their faculty and mentors, they reinforced the importance of staying in touch through a virtual online community – a “common space” as defined by a member of parliament from Ukraine, that would let them look forward and look back, perhaps a decade from now, at case studies of success and failure, and the all important roles that political will and leadership played in determining outcomes.  “Stay tuned,” said Diamond and Stoner-Weiss. “Important lessons are still to come.”

FSI benefactor Ronald P. Spogli, former U.S. ambassador to Italy and San Marino (2005-09), has been elected by the Stanford University Board of Trustees to a five-year term beginning in October 2009. Spogli will take his seat at the next meeting, scheduled for Oct. 12-13. Spogli has had a highly distinguished career in business as well as public service as a founding partner of Freeman Spogli & Co, a private equity investment firm he established in 1983 with fellow Stanford alumnus Bradford M. Freeman. Both Freeman and Spogli have offered exemplary leadership to Stanford in many capacities. Freeman served on the Stanford Board of Trustees from 1995 to 2005 and both Freeman and Spogli currently serve on the FSI Advisory Board.

The Stanford University Board of Trustees recently elected Ronald P. Spogli, former U.S. ambassador to Italy and San Marino, to a five-year term beginning in October.

The board, which last met in June, used electronic ballots to conduct the election, which took place in July. Spogli will take his seat at the next meeting, scheduled for Oct. 12-13.

Including Spogli, the board will have 31 members, four fewer than its limit of 35.

"Ron Spogli has a long track record of commitment to and support for Stanford, and we are fortunate to have him join the board," said Leslie Hume, chair of the Board of Trustees. "With a distinguished career in both business and in public service, he brings a global perspective to the board that will serve the university well."

Spogli, who was nominated by former President George W. Bush as U.S. ambassador to Italy, was sworn in as ambassador in August 2005. In 2006, Spogli also became the American ambassador to San Marino—the first person to hold the title in the small mountainous country, which is completely surrounded by Italy. Both terms ended last February.

Spogli is a founding partner of Freeman Spogli & Co., a private equity investment firm he established in 1983 with Bradford M. Freeman in Los Angeles. In 2005, the longtime business partners and friends donated $50 million to Stanford's International Initiative. The initiative was launched to promote collaboration on campus on three themes: pursuing peace and security; improving governance locally, nationally and internationally; and advancing human well-being.

In recognition of their generous gift, the university changed the name of the Stanford Institute for International Studies to the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Currently, Spogli is a member of the institute's advisory board.

When he became an ambassador in 2005, Spogli was required to sever all ties with Freeman Spogli & Co. He rejoined the firm in June 2009.

Spogli, who was born in Los Angeles in 1948, earned a bachelor's degree in history from Stanford in 1970. During his junior year, Spogli was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the nation's oldest academic honor society.

As an undergraduate, Spogli traveled to Italy to study at Stanford's Florence campus. After graduating, he spent a year working as an assistant to the directors of the Florence program. Later, he spent more than a year living in Milan, where he was the lead researcher for a project studying the social impact of labor migration from southern Italy to the Italian industrial north.

In 1975, Spogli earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.

In 2002, President Bush appointed Spogli to a three-year term with the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, which establishes worldwide policies and procedures for the Fulbright Program and issues an annual report.

From 2002 to 2005, Spogli also served on the Overseas Studies Program Council, an advisory panel to what is now known as Stanford's Bing Overseas Studies Program.

Spogli has endowed two positions at Stanford: The Gesue and Helen Spogli Professorship in Italian Studies, which was named in honor of his Italian immigrant grandfather, who arrived in America in 1912, settled in Pennsylvania and moved to California in 1941, and his mother; and The Spogli Family Overseas Studies Director position in Florence, Italy.

Spogli served as regional chair of the major gifts committee of the Campaign for Undergraduate Education from 2000 to 2004. The campaign, which ended in 2005, raised more than $1 billion.

Spogli also has served as an active volunteer at many Stanford events. He served as co-chair of the "Think Again" event in Los Angeles and as a member of the steering committee for the "Think Again" event in San Diego. The 12-city tour – a component of the Campaign for Undergraduate Education – was designed to reacquaint alumni with the university and the strides it had made in undergraduate education over the past decade. He also served as co-chair of the Special Gifts Committee for his 35th class reunion.