Former Trustee Jonathan Sperling ’57 spent some time on campus this week talking to students in Global Studies classes about the current situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also spoke at the World Affairs Council of Western Massachusetts on Wednesday at the Instant Issues lunch series. 

While the situation is extremely complicated, it is also timely, and both the students and the large audience at the WAC brown bag lunch series were eager to learn more about the area. As Sperling noted, the culture, historical conflict, and means of governance are all sources of the present problems. Providing development to this area, at the moment an ungoverned political space, is essential to safeguarding the United States against terrorism.

Sperling spent time in Pakistan in the ’90s, and again last spring, as an international consultant after a long career with the U.S. Agency for International Development, during which time he served in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union.