Tom Barry

Prior to joining the ICE / IEAPA cohort at Stanford GSE, I spent four years working as an international admission director at my alma mater, Colorado College, where I had the opportunity to interact with students and school administrators from around the world. The experience took me to dozens of schools across Africa, Europe, and Latin America and the more places I went, the more I became interested in the complex historical and social characteristics that shaped schooling in different countries. On one trip through Bosnia and Herzegovina, I was particularly struck by the ripple effect that the ethnic violence of the 1990's continued to have on the education system that persisted in the country almost 20 years later, and I began looking for graduate programs that would enable me to explore this interest in post-conflict education while also providing a broader context with which to look at education elsewhere in the world. 

The IEAPA program at Stanford was just the opportunity I was looking for, allowing me to focus intensely on my own research and draw connections between what I saw in Bosnia and the larger sphere of international education that we discussed in our classes. The eclectic makeup and diverse interests of the ICE and IEAPA cohort was an invaluable part of that experience, as class discussions reflected not just recent scholarship but also interesting experiences and personal anecdotes that helped broaden my perspective of what education could and should mean in different contexts. But if there is anything that was universal, it was the passion for education that I found in my classmates and professors and the stimulating conversations that sprang from our shared belief in the power of schooling.

Since completing my studies, I have been working for the African Leadership Foundation and African Leadership Academy (ALA), a need-blind, pan-African boarding school located in South Africa. My role is to cultivate partnerships between ALA and a number of US and European secondary schools, universities, and scholarship sources that enable our students to further their educations before ultimately returning to help serve their home communities. In my professional life, just as I did during our 12 months at Stanford, I continue to draw ideas and inspiration from the work of my ICE and IEAPA colleagues. I am excited to see what the future holds for the rest of the 2012 cohort!