IRC, Weatherhead Join Forces

The International Relations Council (IRC), which runs programs on international relations across the country, hopes to gain more of a presence in Cambridge this year.

Facilitated by closer ties to the Weatherhead Center for International Affair, the IRC plans to host more on-campus events for undergraduates this year.

The student-run IRC will work with the research institute to host a number of new events, including an international health and public policy forum and an international relations week.

“Our mission is to provide international awareness on and off campus,” said IRC President David K. Kessler ’04. “But we weren’t doing things on-campus.”

According to Kessler, the IRC’s main programs have always been oriented outside the Harvard campus.

Its Model U.N. conferences take place in the Boston area and across North America, its International Review is distributed internationally and its tutoring program focuses on high school students in Boston, he said.

But starting this year, the Weatherhead Center, the largest international research center in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, will provide increased access to scholars and a budget of around $5000 for the IRC to host events on campus.

As part of the new arrangement, the Weatherhead Center’s 12-person student council has dissolved, and its members are now part of the IRC. And the IRC will run events previously under the jurisdiction of the Weatherhead Center’s student council, including international careers week, human rights week and panel discussions.

The IRC will also add more speakers events and a series of student debates.

Swati Mylavarapu ’04, co-vice president for external relations in the IRC, said the new relationship will benefit all involved.

“This was [a case of] two groups that had the exact same niche to fill,” said Mylavarapu, who was also co-president of the Weatherhead Student Council. “There were two student groups that were similar. One just had an institutional affiliation and the other was a large, active student group.”

The 12 members of the student council were selected by administrators, she said, and the group did not have the presence of the IRC, which has over 300 students and an e-mail list of around 1000 people. And coordinating campus-wide events was difficult, she said.

So at the end of second semester last year, Mylavarapu suggested the change to Kessler, who pitched the idea to Weatherhead Center administrators in a written proposal this summer.

After deliberation, the Weatherhead administration accepted the proposal.

“We were impressed that they took the initiative to come to us and to ask us to collaborate with them,” said Clare Putnam, coordinator of student programs and fellowships at the Weatherhead Center, who was involved in the decision.

“[The new arrangement] benefits us because we want to connect more with undergraduates,” she said.

Steven B. Bloomfield, associate director of the Weatherhead Center, said the center is “happy to provide an opening” to help the IRC “expand their mission.”