About this Program

EPIIC is a carefully integrated, multidisciplinary program. Through its innovative and rigorous curricula and projects, EPIIC prepares young people to play active roles in their communities, whether at the local, national or global level.

Overview
Colloquium	Symposium	Archives

"For more than a decade EPIIC has provided our students with an opportunity to examine the most complex international issues which generate enormous amounts of partisanship. EPIIC has demanded only one thing: Learn when fact informs opinion, and when opinion informs fact...That has been the standard of the EPIIC programs: high intellectual engagement, passion and heat by necessity, and the capacity to educate with genuine objectivity...It is the cornerstone of our international relations education for the twenty-first century."
--- Sol Gittleman, Former Senior Vice President and Provost, Tufts University

When education works, it not only instructs, it inspires. And when education embraces the complexities and consequences of global issues and brings students face to face with those suffering injustice, poverty, human rights abuses, dislocation, and human loss -- as well as with those directly involved in causing and confronting these issues -- it engenders a lifelong dedication to changing lives around the world. The Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) program at Tufts University does just that... EPIIC is a carefully integrated multidisciplinary program. Through its innovative and rigorous curricula and projects, EPIIC prepares young people to play active roles in their communities, whether at the local, national or global level. Many students consider their participation in EPIIC a profoundly formative experience: challenging them to reassess or even jettison prior assumptions or beliefs; expanding their understanding of how historical, cultural and ideological forces can affect both individuals and nations; and inspiring them to pursue careers in public service or international affairs. As educators and practitioners lament the lack of informed involvement of the younger generations in their civic communities, EPIIC is working to promote the active engagement of young people in global and national issues and to create tangible, collaborative relationships within and among the academy, the general public, and the professional community. EPIIC's main components are:

An intensive, year-long academic Colloquium for both undergraduate and graduate students
A global RESEARCH AND INTERNSHIP PROGRAM that includes multi-year integrated internships and capstone honors theses
INDIVIDUAL PROGRAMMING
An INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
PROFESSIONAL WORKSHOPS
A MEDIA FORUM for editors and reporters
INQUIRY, a national high school global issues simulation program
PUBLIC SERVICE initiatives

Each year, EPIIC's initiatives explore one central global dilemma, a broad theme that tests and transcends national sovereignty. The process provides the intellectual space where students can explore the complex issues emerging from these dilemmas and can create projects that enhance and invigorate the traditional curriculum. It is student-centered education that promotes the linkage of theory to practice and encourages moral responsibility, life-long learning, and engaged citizenship. In the public realm, through its programs dedicated to presenting a continuum of viewpoints, EPIIC contributes to civil discourse and substantive debate. From its inception, its non-polemical setting has helped to move forward policy discussions at both the national and international levels. Diverse practitioners such as senior intelligence experts, human rights activists, journalists, and government officials, have noted that EPIIC affords them an open forum, critical to developing new ways of thinking and new initiatives. The EPIIC program was featured in the cover article "Educating Global Leaders" for the Winter 1999 issue of the magazine New Designs for Youth Development .

Read these Articles in our NEWS section

The Boston Globe: A Global View of Corruption Refreshing Thought The Tufts Route to Fixing the World's Rough Spots

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Getting Students to Think Globally

International Migration Review: An Educational Tour de Force at Tufts

New Designs for Youth Development: Educating Global Leaders