Michael Morell

Just a Typical Tuesday: 8 Speakers, 3 Events

Melanie Balog — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 19:56:33 +0000

Just a Typical Tuesday: 8 Speakers, 3 Events Melanie Balog Wed, 09/21/2022 - 15:56

The day began with a morning talk with a U.S. senator discussing details of the upcoming midterm elections and ended in the evening with a top executive of the world’s second-largest retail company explaining the intricacies of his job. In between, a panel including two former White House appointees tackled the thorny topic of the handling of classified information. Just a typical day at the Schar School.

Cassidy (l) and Pearlstein. Photo provided

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) was the guest for Robinson Professor of Public Affairs Steven Pearlstein’s “First Tuesday” series, which took place at 9 a.m. at Fenwick Library’s Main Reading Room in Fairfax. Cassidy joined Pearlstein and students—many of them Schar School Democracy Lab Learning Community participants—for a discussion regarding November’s bellwether congressional elections; he also described his experience as a medical doctor serving the uninsured and detailed what led him to run for public office. The next “First Tuesday” guest is GOP media strategist (and Mason grad) Danny Diaz on Tuesday, September 27, also at 9 a.m. The speaker series is open to all. The complete schedule is here.

From left, Michael Morell, Mary DeRosa, John Fitzpatrick, and Larry Pfeiffer discuss what Top Secret means. Photo by Buzz McClain/Schar School of Policy and Government

Why does information become classified, and what does that mean? And what are the ramifications if classified material isn’t secured and falls into the wrong hands? Who better to answer those questions than Schar School Distinguished Visiting Professor Michael Morell, former acting director and deputy director of the CIA, and Larry Pfeiffer, director of the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security and former senior director of the White House Situation Room. They were joined at 7 p.m. in the Hayden Center’s first live event in two years—called “Keeping Secrets”—by former National Security Legal Adviser Mary DeRosa and chief security officer for Ball Aerospace and former White House senior director for records access and information security management John Fitzpatrick. Morell moderated the conversation which drew some 75 attendees to the auditorium at Van Metre Hall at Mason Square and 95 watching via livestream. Another 355 have watched it at the Hayden Center’s YouTube channel this week.

Schar School assistant professor Ally Coll, right, with Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky. Photo by Buzz McClain/Schar School of Policy and Government

At 7:30 p.m. undergraduates from the Schar School’s new Jurisprudence Learning Community, Mason’s Patriot Pre-Law program, and the Scalia Law School Business Law Society hosted senior vice president and general counsel of Amazon David Zapolsky at Hazel Hall at Mason Square. Schar School assistant professor of legal studies Ally Coll moderated a conversation in which Zapolsky described how it is to manage a team of thousands of in-house lawyers and how he goes about addressing complex legal issues while conducting international commerce.
He also reflected on his own career path and gave advice to students about how to pursue their passions and find legal jobs that they will find both challenging and rewarding. His advice? Always be open to questioning the status quo, and don't assume something has to be done the way it's always been done in the past.

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Schar School News September 2022

Ally Coll

Scalia Law School

Jurisprudence Learning Community

Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence Policy and International Security

What does it take to understand global terrorism? This Mason team is finding out.

Mariam Aburdeineh — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 00:05:00 +0000

What does it take to understand global terrorism? This Mason team is finding out. Mariam Aburdeineh Tue, 04/28/2020 - 20:05

More than a dozen students, alumni and faculty at ��AV are working on a digital terrorism database that will help policy makers and researchers understand and defend against terrorism.
Front row (left to right): Becca Cooper, Alexis Polo, Caitlin Ford, Amanda Darby, Chukwuma Onyia.
Back row (left to right): Ernest Ogbozor, Mathieu Bere, Isaac Williams, Russ Travers (guest speaker during his tenure as Acting Director of The National Counterterrorism Center), Manuela Chyang, Vincent Nicosia, Haider Semaisim. Photo by Buzz McClain.

To defend against terrorism, you have to understand it. Thanks to more than a dozen students, alumni and faculty at ��AV working on a digital terrorism database, everyone from policy makers to researchers around the world will be a step closer to that goal.

“There are many other databases focusing on [terrorism], but very few have the international reach that we do, most of them are regional or country-specific,” said Vincent Nicosia, a 2019 alumnus of the Schar School of Policy and Government who is working on the database at the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC).

Since the early 1990s, the U.S. Congress has mandated that the State Department produce a report on global terrorism. Part of that includes keeping a database of every terrorist incident around the world, said TraCCC Deputy Director Judith Deane.

Development Services Group Inc. (DSG), partnering with Mason, was awarded the five-year contract from the State Department in August 2018 to work on the reports. Mason hires and trains the multilingual data analysts who interpret, categorize and enter the information, while DSG produces a statistical annex based on the data, Deane said.

“We’re really thrilled to get this,” Deane said. “It’s an educational opportunity for Mason students, and it’s a real opportunity for students to contribute something in the world.”

As the database is congressionally mandated, it informs foreign policy decisions, said Mason professor Mahmut Cengiz, senior data analyst on the project.

Mason’s team complements DSG’s automated open-source information gathering, by analyzing the incidents to ensure the data is as accurate as possible. It’s an innovative approach, Deane said, and unlike most other data collection efforts, the Mason team collects up to 52 attributes for each incident, including facts on the perpetrators, targets, victims and weapons.

Team members have cultural and historic understandings of the countries they work on, and all have studied terrorism or counterterrorism. Front row (left to right): Manuela Chyang, Ernest Ogbozor. Back row (left to right): Matheiu Bere, Isaac Williams, Chukwuma Onyia. Photo by Buzz McClain.

Many students have cultural and historic understandings of the countries they work on, as they’ve lived in the regions and can speak the languages, Cengiz said. All have studied terrorism or counterterrorism.

The diversified staff and their expertise help ensure the database is not overly U.S.-centric in its interpretations, which had been a critique of the database before it was in Mason’s hands, Deane said. There are also members, such as 2017 Antonin Scalia Law School alumnus Haider Semaism, who have been personally affected by terrorism.

The database also looks at trends over time. For some students, the findings have been surprising.

“There’s a lot of different security issues that I wasn’t aware of before,” Nicosia said. “There are hotspots in areas like Chile and the Philippines; most people in the United States would probably imagine terrorism is a Middle Eastern phenomenon, but it’s truly a global issue.”

Being near the hub of U.S. government and policy also allows students to learn from experts who have visited as guest speakers. This semester the team heard from leaders, including former military advisor to the president of Bangladesh General Munir Munirizzaman Ret, former deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center Russell Travers and former acting and deputy director of the CIA Michael Morell, who is also a Schar School Fellow.

“These are some of the same people who are going to be looking at the data when it’s published,” said Caitlin Ford, who earned her bachelor’s in December and returned to Mason for her master’s in public policy. “It’s helpful to get multiple points of view so that we can be as objective and well-rounded as possible.”

“For education and professional growth, this is the place to be right now,” said Vladimir Semizhonov, an international security graduate student originally from Kazakhstan. “It has to do with phenomenon that stands very tall in the political and global agenda, and is not a purely academic exercise.”

In addition to learning more about counterterrorism, their efforts have global value.

“It makes me even more proud to be an American knowing that we are helping combat [terrorism] and that possibly one day we don’t have to have a database for this,” Ford said.

Former CIA acting director Michael Morell joins Mason as a senior fellow

Damian Cristodero — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 14:54:43 +0000

Former CIA acting director Michael Morell joins Mason as a senior fellow Damian Cristodero Mon, 01/28/2019 - 09:54

Topics

Quality

Schar School of Policy and Government

Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence Policy and International Security

Michael Morell

Larry Pfeiffer

Former CIA Acting Director

CIA Deputy Director

contemporary policy issues

Podcast Intelligence Matters

Beacon Global Strategies

Faculty and Staff News