By Alyssa Wessner Recently, the tragedy of the Amazon burning has consumed environmental news. There are many implications both environmentally and politically due to the large impacts of this event. A country of importance during this ongoing event is Bolivia in which a large portion of the Amazon blaze has occurred in.   Images of the fires in the Bolivian Amazon that scorched almost 5% of its territory between September and October 2019. Bolivia’s newly constructed constitution does include specific protections for the environment as Eastern Professor Mendoza-Botelho explained at the Octo ..read more

By Leigh Generous (Class of 2019) This past July, I was extremely excited to learn that I was one of 70 individuals selected from a pool of international applicants to participate in the fall internship session at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC. OAS is a regional organization comprising all 35 independent states of the Americas. It acts as the primary social, political, and juridical forum for the Western Hemisphere. Since September, I have been working full-time within OAS’s Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation (DECO), and experiencing all of the ch ..read more

Hartford Courant: Students to lead strike for climate action on Friday at Capitol https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-connecticut-climate-strike-20190919-juhcy74ayjhzvhaya4eunhebi4-story.html  By Amanda Blanco Sept. 19, 2019 Inspired by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg, college students Sena Wazer and Mitchel Kvedar of Sunrise Movement CT will lead a climate action protest at the state Capitol Friday. More than 1,000 people are expected to attend, demanding that Gov. Ned Lamont declare a climate emergency and establish a Green New Deal for the state. Wazer, a 15-year-old UCo ..read more

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By Vania Galicia Martin Mendoza-Botelho, a political science professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, attended the Gathering of Bolivianists (Encuentro De Bolivianistas) on May 27 at Harvard University in Boston. Mendoza-Botelho is the chair of the Bolivia Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), which sponsored the gathering. He conducted a panel titled “Bolivia’s political future: Is the permanence of Evo Morales and MAS in power imminent?” Panelists included Pamela Calla of New York University, Tulia Falleti of the University of Pennsylvania and Laurence Whitehead ..read more

By Alyssa Wessner Professor Mendoza-Botelho delivering his keynote address at the CSCU Research Conference Political Science Professor Martín Mendoza-Botelho was honored as one of the keynote speakers at the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) Faculty Research and Creative Activity Conference (RAC). The conference was held at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) in New Haven on May 4. This conference gathered a large number of scholars representing all the CSCU institutions. Dr. Mendoza was also distinguished as recipient of a research grant that allowed him to continue ..read more

By Jordan Corey Eastern Connecticut State University student Demitra Kourtzidis ’19 of East Hampton was one of two researchers from Connecticut who presented their projects at the highly selective Posters on the Hill (POH) research conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on April 30. The annual event featured 60 representatives from colleges and universities across the nation. Eastern has represented Connecticut eight out of the past 12 years. Kourtzidis, a political science major, presented her research poster titled “What Drives Criminal Justice Reform: A Qualitative Analysis of the P ..read more

On May 6, 2019 Senator Chris Murphy released a report on food and housing insecurity among college and university students. Senator Murphy cites research that Eastern students conducted in Professor Patrick Vitale’s Geography of Food class. The report notes that given the lack of uniform data, students are collecting their own research on food insecurity on Connecticut campuses. This report cites that 35% of surveyed Eastern students reported limited access to nutritious food in 2018 (in fact, the Geography of Food report shows that 44% of surveyed Eastern students had limited access to nutrit ..read more

By Quanece Williams (Class of 2017) August 26th 2017 represents a transformative day in my life. It was on that day that I boarded a one-way flight to the Czech Republic, where I would live and teach English for 10 months as a Fulbright Grantee. Although I was afraid of stepping into the unknown, I suppressed my fear. I recognized that I’d been given a unique opportunity to engage in the global world, which is something I’ve always yearned for. With this mentality, I was ready to accept any and all challenges that would come my way.   ECSU Polisci graduate ’17 and U.S. Fulbright Student Ambass ..read more