By Brittney Dunkins
Mark Kennedy, director of the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, traveled to Mexico last month to reinforce the university’s relationship with government officials, students and universities.
The trip offered Mr. Kennedy a chance to address members of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), the ruling party in Mexico, and to reach out to Mexican students who represent 50 percent of the school’s web-based, Spanish-language Latin American political communication and governance master’s degree program.
“Given that Mexico represents a key student population in the program, the trip took on heightened significance as it offered an opportunity to expand our relationships with universities, look for further collaborations and elevate the profile of GW in this important country,” Mr. Kennedy said.
The online degree program launched in 2011 recently celebrated the program’s first graduating class in May.
“We are a school of applied politics, and parties are even more significant in Mexico than in America. Connecting with politicians and their staff was important for us,” Mr. Kennedy said.
PRI, the center-left political party in Mexico, is the party of the majority of the Mexican students in the program. A number of GSPM alumni are now serving in the national Senate and state Congress in Mexico.
Mr. Kennedy added that the other two primary Mexican political parties, the more conservative Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and the largely socialist Partido de la Revolución Democrática, are also represented in the student population.
Additionally, Mr. Kennedy presented a speech titled “Making Democracy Work.”
The speech lays out the path from election to governance and focuses on tactics to practice governance that produce results and minimize conflict.
“We also focus on executive training at GSPM, and part of my trip was speaking at the Fundación Colosio [Colosio Foundation], the think-tank arm of PRI, as part of their program for PRI’s 700 newly elected mayors and state legislators,” he said.
Mr. Kennedy said that maintaining relationships with leaders, students and alumni across Latin America is an important part of strengthening the presence of GW in those countries, which spurs collaboration.
In addition to the master’s program, GSPM also has a decade long program in collaboration with the Corporación Andina de Fomento (Andean Development Bank) that provides professional training to Latin American government officials, campaign staff, corporate CEOs, NGO leaders and candidates who wish to secure office or govern.
“Another of GSPM’s decade-long relationships in the Spanish speaking world is with the Universidad de Navarra [University of Navarra] in Spain,” Mr. Kennedy said. “We bring their students to the U.S. to study as a part of their master’s program, and we are exploring those options with Mexican schools as well.”
Mr. Kennedy was able to meet with GSPM’s many collaborative academic partners, including Tecnológico de Monterrey, Universidad de las Americas Puebla and Universidad Panamericana, a sister school to Universidad de Navarra.
In the future, GSPM hopes to connect with the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de Mexico, the nation’s most prestigious economics school.
Mr. Kennedy said the success of the program can be traced to the economic growth that Mexico is experiencing. He noted that the Latin American political communication and governance degree is a means of fulfilling the educational needs of Mexico’s future leaders.
“In America, there is a lot of energy around a very narrow view of Mexico that fixates on two issues: beaches and borders,” he said. “However, if you look closely at Mexico, with more than 100 million people and a vibrant economy, it is clear they have made progress on their maturation of democracy.”