St. Lawrence in the News - Feb. 22, 2021
This regular roundup features a selection of recent mentions of St. Lawrence University and its students, faculty, and staff in regional, national, and international media outlets.
Associate Professor of History Howard Eissenstat was recently quoted in two Middle East news outlets. In an article by Al-Monitor on Wednesday, Feb. 18, Eissenstat weighed in on the likelihood of Turkey’s President Erdogan being ousted over mismanagement of the economy. “The overthrow of well-established authoritarian regimes is so rare. Erdogan’s got time. It’s hard to game events that are more than two years out,” said Eissenstat.
On Saturday, Feb. 13, Eissenstat commented on the changing nature of U.S.-Turkish relations and prospects for change under the Biden Administration in an interview with Aval News. ‘‘Personalization and pushing aside of bureaucratic wisdom have fundamentally changed the tenor of how Turkey engages with its allies,’’ said Eissenstat.
Eissenstat's research focuses on nationalism and Islam in the 19th century Ottoman Empire as well as the history of the Turkish Republic. His recent work has focused increasingly on contemporary Turkish domestic and foreign policy, especially on issues of rule-of-law, minority rights, and the reshaping of political culture under the Justice and Development Party (AKP). In addition to traditional academic work, Eissenstat served for over a decade as a Turkey Country Specialist for Amnesty International-USA. He has lectured at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. military, and the Canadian Foreign Service Institute, as well as given testimony to the Canadian Senate and offered briefings to Congressional Committees.
Associate Professor of Biology Susan Willson was an expert commentator in an article by Science News on Thursday, Feb. 11. In the article, Willson shares the importance of interventions by pet owners to reduce cat predation as cats can negatively impact bird populations.
Willson is a tropical avian ecologist and conservation biologist. Her local research projects include the role of Amish hayfields in the nesting success of local grassland birds, American Kestrel breeding ecology and the role of landscape variability at nest sites, and the use of the Birds-be-safe cat collar to decrease domestic cat predation on songbirds.
Michael W. and Virginia R. Ranger Professor of Government Alan Draper provided insight into the fight between Amazon and its warehouse employees who are attempting to unionize in Alabama in a BBC News article published on Wednesday, Feb. 10. "The sense of fear that employers are able to create is tremendous. That the union has been successful enough to get workers past that fear in order to get to an election is remarkable today," he says. "Unfortunately it's very episodic."
Draper's work covers American political development, labor history, and the civil rights movement. He is a two-time U.S. Fulbright Scholar Award recipient and has published op-eds in the New York Times, USA TODAY, and other newspapers, and has authored and co-authored several publications.
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