Lauder Intercultural Ventures (LIVs)
Lauder Intercultural Ventures (LIVs) provide an opportunity to road test earlier lessons on intercultural leadership in the context of a week-long off-site immersion and related pre-departure academic work. Each LIV, led by a faculty member, focuses on a theme relevant to the site’s historical, social, political, economic, and/or cultural context. LIVs are scheduled during Fall and Spring break, and each student will enroll in two LIVs throughout their two years at Lauder. A LIV combines academic and experiential learning activities, and thus has contextual knowledge objectives (such as learning about environmental issues, consumption habits, religious studies, etc.) as well as field-based exercises and leadership development opportunities.
Fall 2024 LIVs
Past LIVs
LIV Application
Students will be asked to apply for a LIV that focuses on a theme of greatest interest to them. The Institute aims to meet student interest, but cannot guarantee first choices. Students will submit an application for participation in which they provide first, second, and third LIV choices and submit an application essay. Criteria for LIV assignments are: the quality of the academic rationale and the availability of slots. Once a LIV has been assigned, students will sign an agreement that commits them to participating in all the planned activities related to the LIV and to follow the policies. After signing the agreement, students cannot change their LIV.
This LIV explored transnational innovation and collaboration between France, Germany, and Switzerland. Although featuring distinct heritages and languages, the three neighboring countries are focused on creating and sustaining a common space characterized by a vibrant exchange of ideas and culture. The unique area is nestled between the Jura Mountains on the Franco-Swiss border, the Black Forest in Germany, and the Vosges Mountains in France. Geographically divided by the Rhine River and steeped in history, which at times was highly turbulent, this flourishing region in the heart of Europe strives to remove borders and barriers that existed for centuries. It is known for its pioneering trinational collaborations and innovations in education, politics, industry, economy, mobility, and sustainability. This forward-looking approach fosters an ecosystem for entrepreneurship and innovation, which has proven highly beneficial for the area’s residents.
Urbanization initiatives and infrastructural investments have been the primary drivers of China’s economic growth and social transformation for decades since the launch of economic reforms by the central administration in the 1980s. High-speed rails, highways, new towns, and monumental structures are trademarks of China’s modernization. Chinese society is standing at crossroads again, and it is crucial to understand how China’s development model might shift and to what extent it would influence the built environment of the world’s largest urban nation.
Wedged between Russia, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in the midst of the dramatic Caucasus Mountains, Georgia has long been a crossroads of civilizations and a natural edge of empires. Though modern Georgia sees its future in the West, it has continued to be a target of Russian imperial expansion after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and still occupies twenty percent of Georgian territory, especially the ethnic enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The first African nation to acquire independence in 1957, Ghana has the reputation of being one of the most stable countries in West Africa. The peaceful cohabitation of citizens of different faiths is particularly remarkable in a region roiled by conflicts between and within religious communities. This LIV explored the ideological foundations and practices of religious tolerance in Ghana. Students focused primarily, but not exclusively, on the relationships between Christians and Muslims that form respectively 70 and 20 per cent of the population of Ghana, examining the political, theological, and spatial forms of expression of religious conviviality in Ghana. What roles did institution building and political inclusion play in fusing the large immigrant and indigenous Ghanaian Muslim community into the predominantly Christian citizenry? What can the quietist Suwari tradition that was central in the Islamization of pre- colonial Ghana teach us about contemporary interfaith dialogues? How has the separation between ethnicity and religion, typical of Ghanaian society, and the culture of Zongos (Muslim enclaves in majority non-Muslim space) impacted the formation of a culture of religious tolerance in Ghana?
This LIV provided students with an alternative perspective to pop-cultural stereotypes about Buddhism by engaging them with Buddhist material culture and ritual practices in Thailand. Popular references to Buddhism perpetuate curated ideals of mindfulness, non-attachment, “emptiness”, minimalism, and disdain for material goods and consumerism. However, these assumptions are true for only a select number of Buddhist schools, like Zen Buddhism, which is part of the larger Mahayana branch of Buddhism. As such, these assumptions undermine everyday practices of a majority of Buddhists across Southeast Asia, which is part of the Theravada branch of Buddhism. Questions like, “Is Buddhism a philosophy, a religion, or a way of life?”, entrap Buddhism to fit a particular mold that does not accurately reflect practices in reality.
Following the success of the Switzerland LIV in October 2022, this LIV was repeated in October 2023. It explored Switzerland’s dedication to sustainability in various aspects of daily life, education and business. The country as a whole, as well as several of its major cities, consistently rank at or near the top of various global sustainability surveys, and Swiss residents enjoy some of the highest living standards and life expectancies in the world.
In this LIV, students travelled to Argentina — a fútbol-mad nation recently crowned for the third time as FIFA Men’s World Cup champions, and the birthplace of some of soccer’s greatest icons. The LIV analyzed the extent to which sports (soccer, polo, rugby, hockey, among others) helped shape the national and civic identity of Argentina. Organized sports arrived in Argentina in the second half of the nineteenth century thanks to the athletic pursuits of middle-class British merchants, bankers, engineers, educators, and manual laborers. Most of these immigrants settled in Buenos Aires and towns that developed along the growing railroad system. Soon, sports spread beyond the exclusive Anglo-Argentine civic clubs and gained popularity with natives (criollos), immigrants, and second-generation Argentines.
Peru boasts one of the greatest archaeological and heritage landscapes in the world, as well as a vibrant and complex array of cultures, communities, and socio-economic challenges. This LIV focused on diverse historic sites in their current setting from urban Lima to coastal pyramid complexes, examining issues of tourism, environment, development, colonialism, and rights. Students learned about these sites within the context of how UNESCO’s World Heritage program, Peru’s own Ministry of Culture, heritage NGOs, and community driven initiatives are crafting Peru’s national image as a major heritage destination. Students were asked to consider how heritage places are entangled with issues of national branding, ethical business development, the role of extractive industries, conflict and resettlement, and the potential for community benefits. This LIV brought together global forces and local outcomes in the context of Peru, providing lessons that can be applied internationally.
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When a street vendor from the remote town of Sidi Bouzid in southwestern Tunisia immolated himself in December 2010 to protest against the harsh conditions of his life and the indifference of the authorities to his predicament, he inadvertently ignited a powder keg of discontent that had been building up for several months. The conflagration of protests quickly spread throughout the country, leading to the fall of the Ben Ali regime, and the flight of President Ben Ali to Saudi Arabia in January 2011. When other peoples of the region saw Tunisians get rid of their dictatorship, a deeply entrenched regime that was once thought to be unshakable, they were inspired to rise against their own autocratic governments.
