International Legal and Civil Rights Experts Coming to Campus

A dozen accomplished international legal, law enforcement, and civil rights professionals who are studying this academic year in Washington will present a panel discussion to the University community on the topic of human rights.

The panel will convene on Tuesday, March 10, at 11:00 a.m. in the JSAC G Area.

The presenters are 2019-2020 participants in the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program at American University’s Washington College of Law. They come from Romania, Thailand, Bulgaria, Serbia, Uganda, Albania, Pakistan, Egypt, Brazil, Liberia, Turkey, and China. (Their bios are online.) To illustrate the breadth of their areas of expertise, the fellows include:

• Georgiana Grozescu, an assistant magistrate in the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Romania;
• Daisy Nabasitu, assistant director of public prosecutions with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Uganda;
• Suphawatchara Malanond, former dean of the Faculty of Law at Prince of Songkla University, Thailand;
• Onder Yalcin, director of the Migration Office at the Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality, Turkey;
• Verginia Michevaruseva, a judge at the Sofia City Court, Bulgaria.

The Humphrey program, named for the late U.S. vice president and senator (D-Minn.), is an international exchange program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and a Fulbright Exchange activity, administered by the Institute of International Education. It provides 10 months of non-degree academic study and related professional experiences in the United States for mid-career professionals. The fellows are selected based on their potential for leadership and their commitment to public service in the hope that the interchange between U.S. citizens and their professional counterparts in other countries will foster an exchange of knowledge and mutual understanding.

Connecting the AU Humphrey Fellows with Gallaudet was the idea of William J. Snape, III, professor and assistant dean at the Washington College of Law and a former head coach of Gallaudet’s swimming program. Snape proposed the collaboration to Gallaudet President Roberta Cordano, who was excited by its potential to benefit pre-law students, and subsequently to Dr. David Penna, chair of Government and Public Affairs, Dr. Charles Reilly, executive director of the Office of International Affairs, and Ms. Fernanda Katz Ellenberg, AU’s Humphrey coordinator. An ongoing collaboration was agreed upon for the Humphrey Fellows to interact with undergraduate and graduate students interested in pre-law, international affairs, and human rights.

AU Humphrey Fellows first visited Gallaudet in the fall of 2018 to explore ways to work with graduate and undergraduate students who are interested in entering law school after graduation.