Congratulations to Anand Habib, selected this weekend for a Rhodes Scholarship. Habib, 22, of Houston, Texas, is a 2011 graduate of Stanford, where he earned a bachelor's degree in biology, with honors in international security studies. He plans to pursue a master's degree in public policy and in medical anthropology at Oxford.

Habib is currently working on community health programs at St. Joseph's Clinic in Thomassique, Haiti, under a one-year global health fellowship awarded by Medical Missionaries. The nonprofit organization is a volunteer group of more than 200 doctors, nurses, dentists, and others who work to improve the health of the poorest of the poor in the United States and throughout the world.

In 2011, he won a Deans' Award for Academic Accomplishment which honors extraordinary undergraduate students for "exceptional, tangible" intellectual achievements. One of the professors who nominated him for the award described him as a "superb critical thinker" whose work is characterized by "creative genius" and "mature insights," adding that he "exemplifies exactly the kind of deeply informed, pragmatic and caring leadership that the world needs and Stanford enables."

As a Stanford student, Habib worked on behalf of politically and medically disenfranchised people in India, Mexico and Guatemala. On campus, he turned the Stanford tradition of the annual Dance Marathon into a vehicle dedicated to addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic by engaging not only Stanford students but also local communities and corporations, raising more than $100,000. His exceptional work was recognized by his participation in the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference in April, 2011.

From Haiti, Habib discussed his current position, his plans in Oxford, and how his CISAC thesis relates to his work. 

What are you currently working on? 

I am currently working on a global health fellowship with an NGO that operates a clinic in Haiti's Central Plateau. As part of the fellowship I am helping to manage a number of community and public health projects including fortified salt (to counter iodine deficiency and filariasis), a point-of-use potable water system, a malnutrition intervention program, and a small system of community health committees and community health workers. For the past two months, I've taken on a number of administrative functions along with my co-fellow, who is also a recent college graduate. I started the fellowship shortly after graduation at the end of June 2011 and I am slated to be in Haiti until the end of June 2012.

What will you do at Oxford?

I proposed two one-year Masters programs: a masters in public policy from Oxford's new Blavatnik School of Government, and an M.Sc. in medical anthropology. As of now, I'm thinking of sticking with my proposed programs -- probably pursuing the medical anthropology degree first as it is a bit more theoretical. I think it would be better to have the more "academic" experience first before gaining the practical tools that an MPP will hopefully afford me. After a short send-off in Washington, D.C., at the end of September 2012, I will fly with the other American Rhodes Scholars-elect to Oxford the first week of October with term beginning shortly thereafter.

How does your work in the CISAC Honors program relate to what you are currently doing, your plans for Oxford, or what you'll be doing afterward? 

My honors thesis has allowed me to contextualize my experiences in Haiti in some fairly amazing ways. Two very persistent issues in Haiti are that of poor governance -- e.g. lack of strong regulatory structures, lack of government effectiveness, etc. -- and ineffective aid modalities, or the ways in which aid is delivered. My thesis was situated exactly at this nexus: how to deliver aid more effectively in order to improve governance. Ninety-nine percent of relief aid after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti was funneled to non-state organizations and only 12 percent of recovery aid went toward supporting government activities. In Haiti, I've witnessed how detrimental a patchwork system of NGO activity can be with little coordination between NGOs and little harmonization of NGO activities with government objectives. It becomes very frustrating at times, because, if my thesis is any indication, things need not be this way if both NGOs and states were engaged in collaborative partnerships -- along the lines of what Dr. Paul Farmer, deputy U.N. special envoy to Haiti, calls "accompaniment."

My initial interest in the topic of global health financing was spurred by work out of Oxford's Global Economic Governance Project. The director of the project, Dr. Ngaire Woods, was actually named the Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government through which the MPP is offered. I'd love to continue exploring the issues broached in my thesis at Oxford -- especially issues of aid effectiveness and sustainable systems of delivering development aid for health. In the future, I hope to become a physician-policymaker, helping to not only deliver care to individuals in difficult conditions around the world, but also in fostering more robust global health governance.

- Interview by Michael Freedman

 

Ten years after the terrorist attacks, five leading experts weigh in on the state of the jihadist movement, U.S. intelligence, and the cost of safety.

Martha Crenshaw It depends on what we mean by safer. If we're asking how likely it is that we'll experience an attack of the magnitude of 9/11, I don't that it's likely. Our awareness of the possibility is so much greater. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the attack, is in custody. Other major players are dead or under arrest. Osama Bin Laden is gone. The drone strikes in Pakistan have been very effective. However, we're not entirely safe from the threat of terrorism against U.S. interests and citizens abroad. We're still vulnerable in many ways. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are still threats. They've inherited anti-Americanism from the original Al-Qaeda, and while Al-Qaeda central is weakened, these affiliated groups will likely become stronger because of the power vacuum that's left in the jihadist movement. These different factions could unite. Al Qaeda itself was a merger of different national movements. This could happen again -- they could reconstitute themselves into a very powerful organization.

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar We are safer -- up to a point. In 2003 I wrote that there was little reason to think we were safer than we were on Sept. 11, 2001, and that in order to improve our security we would need to invest in meaningful long-term changes rather than focusing on quick fixes. Much has changed today. American attacks have been devastating to al-Qaeda, showing how 9/11 was perhaps a tactical success for the group but almost certainly a strategic miscalculation. Americans have forged alliances with countries throughout the world, sharing financial intelligence and pooling efforts to disrupt terrorist mobility. Many communities have made important strides in safeguarding airports and chemical plants. Federal lawmakers enacted landmark, bipartisan food safety legislation to bolster the safety of the food supply, and doctors working with public health authorities have enhanced their capacity to respond to infections and biosecurity threats such as the H1N1 virus. Meanwhile, pressing issues like cyber-security and emergency preparedness are starting to receive much-needed attention.

But Americans continue to face profound challenges, too. We must work to enhance the infrastructure that protects our public health, cyber-security, and emergency response.  The Sept. 11 attacks starkly show the need to reconcile security goals with laws and constitutional principles. Policy makers and the public must focus attention on strengthening the economic and social foundations supporting America’s long-term position in the world. At the same time, the nation must remain determined, creative, and vigilant in confronting the continuing threats posed by non-state actors and failed states.

Karl Eikenberry If we talk about the defense of the homeland, we are clearly safer against the international terrorist threat. Our level of awareness is much higher. We were asleep when we got hit. And the systems that we've established, I think have made us safer. Now, that's very specifically against the terrorist threat. Is the United States of America stronger on a relative basis than on 9/11/2001 -- are we a stronger nation? I think the answer is no. I think that our economic strength has declined. And I think there's been a degree of militarization of our foreign policy over the last decade that’s made us less attractive globally.

Thomas Fingar We are safer with respect to the danger of a major terrorist attack than we were 10 years ago but not with respect to other risks that endanger more of our citizens and are more likely to occur. We have spent billions of dollars to detect, prevent, and respond to terrorist threats from abroad and we have reduced the already low probability of death or injury from terrorist attacks to even lower levels. These gains have had a high opportunity cost because achieving them was at the expense of efforts to reduce other dangers. Far more Americans continue to die from inadequate hospital procedures, unsafe food, drunk drivers, and other well-known dangers than have died in terrorist attacks. We will not be much safer until we address these and similar problems, repair and replace our aging infrastructure, and do more to prepare for the more severe weather that will result from climate change. 

Amy Zegart Osama bin Laden is dead. Yet 10 years after 9/11, it would be dangerous and wrong to think that the terrorist threat is behind us. Violent Islamist extremism comes from many places, not just the 50 to 100 core al Qaeda fighters holed up along the Af/Pak border. The years 2009 and 2010 have seen a spike in plots against the U.S. homeland. Nearly all of them have come from radicalized homegrown terrorists or “franchise” groups with loose and murky ties to the core al Qaeda organization.

In addition, WMD terrorism remains a haunting future possibility. And the FBI has not made the leap from crime fighting to intelligence. FBI analysts, whose work is vital to connect dots and protect lives, are still treated like second class citizens -- labeled “support staff” alongside janitors and secretaries, and relegated to middle and lower rungs of the bureaucracy. So long as FBI analysts are treated like second-class citizens, Americans will get second-class security. These three factors -- diversification of the terrorist threat, the potential to combine destructive motives with devastating weapons, and the FBI's continued weaknesses -- suggest that the future may not be any safer than the past.

Ten undergraduates recently received the 2011 Deans' Award for Academic Accomplishment, which honors extraordinary undergraduate students for "exceptional, tangible" intellectual achievements. Among them: CISAC honors student Anand Habib, a senior majoring in biology with honors in international security studies. He is completing an honors thesis focusing on health governance.

Habib sees his work as an intentional synthesis of scholarship and larger social commitments. He has lived this out in many ways at Stanford, including working on behalf of politically and medically disenfranchised people in India, Mexico and Guatemala. On campus, he has turned the Stanford tradition of the annual Dance Marathon into a vehicle dedicated to addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic by engaging not only Stanford students but also local communities and corporations, raising more than $100,000. His exceptional work was recognized by his participation in the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference in April.

English Associate Professor Michele Elam described Habib as a "superb critical thinker" whose work is characterized by "creative genius" and "mature insights." She holds him up as a model for others, saying that "he exemplifies exactly the kind of deeply informed, pragmatic and caring leadership that the world needs and Stanford enables."

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former FSI Advisory Board member Susan Rice '86 urged Stanford's graduating class to fight global poverty, conflict, and repression, saying "These massive disparities erode our common security and corrode our common humanity." Conflict-ridden states not only cause suffering for their people, she noted. "Poor and fragile states can incubate threats that spread far beyond borders -- terrorism, pandemic disease, nuclear proliferation, criminal networks" and more. "In our interconnected world," she said, " a threat to development anywhere is a threat to security everywhere."

When Susan Rice graduated from Stanford in 1986, the Soviet Union was a formidable foe, China barely registered on the global economic scene and the first computer laptops – weighing in at 12 pounds each – were just hitting the market.

And if someone had told her that she'd serve in the Cabinet of the country's first black president as ambassador to the United Nations, "I would've asked them what they were smoking."

But in her remarks delivered during Stanford University's 119th Commencement on Sunday, Rice put the advances of the past 24 years in perspective. She called the fight against global poverty "not only one of the great moral challenges of all time, but also one of the great national security challenges of our time."

"The planet is still divided by fundamental inequalities," she said. "Some of us live in peace, freedom and comfort while billions are condemned to conflict, poverty and repression. These massive disparities erode our common security and corrode our common humanity."

While she did not discuss any specifics of her role as the country's ambassador to the United Nations or the organization's recent move to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran, Rice did talk about the link between poverty and security.

"When a country is wracked by war or weakened by want, its people suffer first. But poor and fragile states can incubate threats that spread far beyond borders – terrorism, pandemic disease, nuclear proliferation, criminal networks, climate change, genocide and more. In our interconnected age, a threat to development anywhere is a threat to security everywhere."
-Ambassador Susan Rice

Rice's address marked a very public return to Stanford. She graduated with a bachelor's in history from the university as a junior Phi Beta Kappa and Truman Scholar in 1986.

She was confirmed as ambassador to the United Nations in 2009 after being nominated by President Obama. It was a job that followed her role as Obama's senior adviser for national security affairs during his presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008. Before that, she served as the country's assistant secretary of state for African affairs and as a special assistant to President Clinton. She was also a senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council.

During a trip to a displaced persons camp in war-torn Angola in 1995, Rice saw firsthand the global poverty she talked about on Sunday. Of all the people she saw in the camp, she said one of her most striking memories is the smile she received from a malnourished little boy when she gave him her baseball cap.

But she's haunted by thoughts of what may have happened to him.

"I had to leave that camp," she said. "And when I did, I left that little boy in hell. I like to think, and I sure hope, that kid is OK. But he could well have become one of the 9  million children under the age of 5 who die each year from preventable and treatable afflictions."

And that boy, she said, should be a symbol to Stanford's graduates of the challenges that face them and the good they can do in the world.

"That little boy's future is tied to ours," she said. "Our security is ultimately linked to his well-being. So we must shape the world he deserves."

Rice's weighty remarks still left room for graduation levity. And the student procession – known as the Wacky Walk – showcased much of it.

The graduates hit the field of Stanford Stadium with balloons and signs thanking mom and dad. They were dressed as Egyptian kings and Vikings, wizards and butterflies. Some wore bathing suits and flowing togas. Others covered up with costumes paying homage to the pop culture past of Pac-Man, as well as more timeless pursuits like dominoes and poker.

It was a final blast of carefree fun for college students about to contend with an uncertain job market.

"We have everything we need on campus," said Tyler Porras, a graduating biology major who took to the field with a bolo tie and black cowboy hat. "Now it's off to the real world where you need to find a job."

The ceremony marked the award of 1,722 bachelor's degrees, 2,100 master's degrees and 980 doctoral degrees.

Departmental honors were awarded to 365 seniors, and 272 graduated with university distinction. Another 74 graduated with multiple majors and 33 received dual bachelor's degrees. There were 110 graduates receiving both bachelor's and master's degrees.

Among international students, there were 102 undergraduates from 45 countries other than the United States, and 955 graduate students from 75 foreign countries.

"As you leave Stanford, I hope you carry a deep appreciation of the values and traditions that are everlasting, as well as a willingness to be bold and to approach challenges with a fresh perspective," Stanford President John Hennessy told the graduates.

The day also gave parents a time to beam and brag.

"These kids have the potential to contribute so much to the world," said Tim Roake, whose daughter, Caitlin Roake, is graduating as a biology major and is planning to join the Peace Corps.

Roake and his wife, Kathleen Gutierrez, had front-row seats in the stadium bleachers next to Dave and Lori Gaskin. Their son, Greg, has been dating Caitlin Roake since their freshman year.

"The last four years for Greg have been such an enriching experience from an academic perspective but also on a personal level," Lori Gaskin said. "I attribute that not only to the university but the wonderful people he's met and the relationships he's made."