ACADEMICS

Faculty

Institute Director: Ms. Michelle Le

Michelle Le is a two-time alumna of The Fund for American Studies. She attended the Institute on Political Journalism in 1995, interning with the Military District of Washington as a staff reporter. The following year, she participated in the American Institute on Political and Economic Systems in Prague. In 1997 she returned to TFAS again, this time, serving as a program assistant for the international programs. In 1998 she joined the TFAS staff full time. Ms. Le currently works as the director of international programs for TFAS.

Ms. Le is originally from Independence, Mo. She earned her bachelor's degree summa cum laude in political science with minors in history and French, from Missouri State University. She completed her master's degree in international economics and European studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. She spent her first year of graduate school overseas in Italy, studying at the SAIS Bologna Center. 

During her undergraduate and graduate studies, she completed a foreign policy internship in the office of John Ashcroft, then U.S. Senator of Missouri, as well as a print media internship with Inside Report, Evans & Novak. Ms. Le  also worked as a political researcher for a member of the government in the British Parliament in London, United Kingdom.

Journalism Professor/Academic Director: Professor Laura Kelly

In her role as professor and academic director for EJI, Laura Kelly leads class discussions that encourage participants to consider the challenges and practices of professional journalists who serve to provide their societies and readers with the information they need to be free and self governing.
 
Kelly has taught journalism in Albania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and has worked with student journalists in Armenia, Kosovo, Mongolia and Georgia. She’s also been a professional journalist in print and radio for more than 25 years.

 Kelly says that students often seem surprised to hear and understand that the challenges facing journalists are similar all over the world. "While our individual cultures dictate particular practices and stylistic differences with the way we present news and information, at the heart of all journalism that serves free and democratic societies are a handful of principles applicable for journalists from Bulgaria, Brazil or Benin."

Kelly says that the mix of students encourages the establishment of an internationalculture in the classroom. “The students recognize that they are all active participants in creating that culture. I believe that recognition, which might be subconscious, encourages receptivity to the idea that they have valuable things to learn from one another,” Kelly says.

Currently living in Arizona, Kelly spent a year in Albania as Fulbright Scholar and in 2000 helped found a post-graduate journalism program in Slovakia at Academia Istopolitana Nova in Bratislava. Her most recent posting was as the head of the journalism department at the American University in Bulgaria. Her stories and essays have been published in U.S. newspapers and magazines.

Program Manager: Martina Mareckova