Robinson-Martin Security Scholars Program
PSSI launched its Robinson-Martin Security Scholars Program (RMSSP) in February of 2002. RMSSP offers highly qualified and motivated students from Czech universities the opportunity to participate in a two-semester program on the premises of PSSI covering a broad spectrum of security-related subjects. PSSI looked to other Western security studies programs to guide its RMSSP development.
The prestigious Charles University in Prague accredited the PSSI year-long program. Over the past two years the relationships between the University and PSSI has grown steadily. In 2005 the Institute concluded and agreement with Charles University to sponsor and help structure an undergraduate major and Master´s Degree program in Security Studies. The undergraduate portion of this arrangement went into force in the fall of 2006 as the Master´s Degree program will commence in the fall of 2007.
The Security Scholars Program is presently comprised of a series of lectures and seminars led by a distinguished list of senior former and current policy professionals from the Czech Republic and other countries who are experts in their respective fields. The content and sequencing of over twenty lectures each academic year are coordinated by PSSI Executive Director Oldřich Černý. Reading lists accompany the lecture topics. Our Security Scholars Program differentiates itself by affording its students direct access to international policy luminaries in small group settings.
In addition to the lecture series and reading lists, written assignments are periodically required. The students also participate in “challenge exercises” designed to stimulate critical thinking regarding traditional security concerns as well as breaking issues. Fieldtrips are arranged to topic-relevant locations where students take part in security and intelligence-related conferences and workshops. In each of the Institute’s first four years, field trips were arranged to NATO Headquarters, the Czech Mission to the European Union, the Parliament of the European Union and various think-tanks in Brussels.
Our scholars also attended the historic NATO Summit in November 2002, during which the Alliance was substantially expanded. Select students participated in a NATO “mini-summit,” in which they were given rare individual access to important figures in the fields of global security and international affairs, including Hon. Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State; Hon. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor; Hon. Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN; and Timothy Garton Ash, author, historian, and political scientist.
Our security scholars are also exposed to joint programs with foreign institutions as well as high-quality seminars led by visiting experts, a series that we term our “Security Debates.” Over the past four years, PSSI has convened a special three-day agenda of lectures and meetings with some twenty young journalists of the Collegiate Network, a part of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. We envision replicating this program in the years ahead.
Among the distinguished lecturers engaged in the Institute´s “Security Debates” include Alexandr Vondra, Czech Foreign Minister ; Michael Žantovský, Czech Ambassador to Israel; Petr Kolář, former Deputy Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to the U.S.; Jaromír Štětina, Czech Senator and War Correspondent; Joyce Davis of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; Vojtěch Cepl, Justice of the Czech Constitutional Court (ret.); and others.
At the end of the program, a special certificate is issued to all scholars who successfully completed the two-semester RMSSP course to help advance their pursuit of academic and career objectives.
