Professors are the lifeblood of Pace. As such, we want the world to know what some of our faculty’s brightest minds are working on, thinking about, and of course, who they would have over for a dinner party. This month, we talked to Associate Professor of Political Science Matthew Bolton, PhD. A 2017 Jefferson Award winner, Bolton is heavily involved in both student life and research, and is among the world’s brightest minds when it comes to an increasingly relevant issue, nuclear disarmament.

You’re the Director of Pace’s International Disarmament Institute. Tell Us About Its Aims.

Pace’s International Disarmament Institute is intended to generate research and ideas to feed into global policy debates in New York City and beyond about disarmament, arms control, and non-proliferation. We’re close to the UN at Pace, so we’re well placed to have a role in multi-lateral policymaking conversations about mitigating the human and environmental harm of weapons.

The Institute plays a role in disarmament education—raising awareness of students, policymakers, and the public of the impact of weapons and efforts to control them. Finally, we have a convening role; given our location, we at Pace have a space that we can bring people together to have important conversations.

Those are the three key elements of the institute—research, education, and convening.

What Are You Working On Now?

This year I have been involved in the negotiations of a treaty banning nuclear weapons at the United Nations. The agreement was achieved in the beginning of July and will open for signature this month.

I studied the treaty drafts, researched relevant precedents in other treaties and provided analysis to advocacy groups, international organizations and governments on the implications of the text as it evolved. I focused primarily on a part of the treaty that obligates countries to provide assistance for victims of nuclear weapons use and testing and remediate contaminated environments. I’m now starting to do some research on how this would be implemented.

The treaty is a really interesting one. It’s the first international treaty on nuclear weapons that mentions human rights, gender and the particular impact on indigenous peoples. The negotiations started from the point of view that governments don’t stop using weapons until they are stigmatized, until officials think that’s not what good people do, that’s not the sort of thing good people engage in. There’s a tradition in international law of declaring certain kinds of weapons inhumane, because they cause unacceptable suffering or are incapable of discriminating between non-combatants and combatants. Chemical weapons, biological weapons, landmines have been placed in this category by international law. Nuclear weapons were the only weapons of mass destruction that have not been so banned. This treaty does that with nuclear weapons. Even if the nuclear-armed states don’t sign the treaty, the treaty is building a norm, establishing a nascent custom that there are no good hands for nuclear weapons.

What’s Your Favorite Thing about Pace University?

My favorite thing about Pace is the wide variety of different kinds of people that we have in our community. It’s an interesting and diverse and exciting place to teach. I really like the students and the expansive scope of their experiences in the world—they and their families come from all over the world, from many different types of backgrounds and cultures.

I enjoy the ferment of the classroom of all these different ideas and people and views of the world. It’s a great place to teach international politics.

What Three Things Would You Bring to a Desert Island?

• I get very bored if I don’t have books. I would need to have a book that would be fun, but have some depth to it so I can read it more than once. Maybe Don Quixote.
• I’m trying to learn to surf. That’s going quite slowly, but maybe I’ll have a surfboard. That’ll make my island stay more enjoyable.
• A pen. I love to write and maybe I would feel like I had some time and space to do it! I guess I would have to write on bark or something. Of course, you haven’t said there aren’t other people already living on the island...maybe I could borrow some paper from them or exchange it for some political science classes!

If You Could Invite Any Four People to a Dinner Party, Living or Dead, Who Would They Be?

Duke Kahanamoku—A Hawaiian Olympic gold medalist in swimming who popularized surfing. I live in Rockaway, there’s actually a street named after him out here. I find it fascinating that there is this symbolic link between New York City’s surfing beach and Hawaii. Surf culture has so often been white-washed, I think it is important to consider its roots in indigenous culture.

Hannah Arendt—I find her a bracing thinker, and even though she was writing about political issues that are now in the past, she still seems fresh and relevant. Her foresight is quite chilling, about the dangers of nationalism, racism and prejudice, about politics based on exclusion and marginalization of people.

Amy Winehouse—I find her music really interesting. When I was in graduate school in London I lived in Camden, the neighborhood where she lived and often performed. She was very much in the airwaves while I was working my way through my master’s degree and PhD.

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o—I went to Kenya as a volunteer during a summer in college. It really reshaped my thinking about international politics. I’ve really been wrestling with trying to understand the impact of (I’m half-British, half-American) British colonialism in Kenya. Ngugi’s novels have forced me to think carefully about that legacy. He really ought to have the Nobel Prize in literature, I think it’s a scandal that he doesn’t.

I think there would be a lot of very intense dynamics. I would be a little worried about how the dinner party would go, but it would be an engaging evening!

For some, the idea of travel consists of comfortable hotels, accommodating tour guides, and getting to know different cultures. But for Hospitality and Tourism Management student Topaz Smith ’14, traveling means education through cultural immersion.

Last spring, through a connection with Claudia Green, PhD, director of the hospitality and tourism program at Pace, Smith interned at Le Sirenuse, a luxury boutique hotel in Positano, located on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. As a front desk intern, she operated the hotel’s switchboard, took reservations, and handled reception, clients, and more. She also helped host high-profile guests like CEOs and celebrities.

This unique internship gave her a hands-on opportunity to learn Italian hotel business, as well as Italian language and culture as a whole. “I worked in a different language from my native, which was nothing short of motivational because of the challenge,” she says. “Everything was Italian. I worked in Italian, lived in an Italian village. I got infused in the culture; I had to speak Italian on a daily basis.”

Although Smith wasn’t fluent in the language before her trip, attending an international high school afforded her the opportunity to study Portuguese, French, Spanish, and Japanese, as well as gain a passion for travel at a young age. Ultimately, her interest in culture is what prompted her to go after an internship in a foreign language.

But she says taking a couple of Italian courses at Pace prepared her for the experience, as well as studying in Rome for a semester at John Cabot University during the fall before her internship. “That helped me understand the Italian culture and how to engage in conversation with locals and foreigners. [From] the customer service aspect, you need that on a daily basis. You need to be able to converse with people from different backgrounds and cultures,” she says.

Since returning to the states, Smith has been getting a taste of American hotel business through two internships. One at Gild Hall, a Thompson Hotel near Pace, as a room division intern, which involves rotating between the front desk, housekeeping, and executive sales departments to learn the ins-and-outs of the industry. She acquired this position by taking initiative after the general manager of the hotel visited her management class and gave her his card.

Her second internship is at FoodForce, a boutique food industry staffing agency, as a marketing and social media intern. Instead of simply taking marketing classes at Pace, Smith wanted an experience-based understanding of the industry, so she sought out a marketing internship through the Career Services’ eRecruiting website. “I’m just trying to get as much experience as I can before graduation,” she says.

While she might be enjoying home, sweet home, Smith recently completed another big overseas adventure: traveling to southern Brazil with Professor Green and the International Management Field Study class over spring break to study Brazil’s sustainability in tourism and business, update the green map, interview locals on their feelings toward the 2016 Olympics, and more. “As people travel more, they may damage places. People can travel, but also keep the world’s natural resources intact,” she says.

But of all her worldly travels and opportunities, she thanks Pace for making them happen. “I tell people that I lived in Italy for seven months and they’re amazed that I’m still in college. I feel that Pace is a school that prepares its students. I’m really glad I took advantage of all the opportunities it afforded me.”

Biology alumnus and one of Dyson's first graduates to attend medical school shares his prescription for success.

I saw every course as a step closer to my goal and I truly enjoyed the process of learning.

Harold Brandford ’72 calls himself the accidental Pace student, and one can say the outcome has been positive, and even miraculous.

Arriving in United States from Barbados as a young man, he was first tipped to Pace College, as it was known in 1968, by an admissions officer at another institution he considered attending, who had praised Pace for its experience guiding foreign students. When he sat for his entrance exam, so much in the educational system of this new country seemed novel to him: the use of #2 pencils, instead of pen. Multiple choice questions, instead of essays. A required dress code of jacket and tie.

Once accepted to Pace, Brandford immediately set his sights on going to medical school, and to further this, he had found the perfect mentor in Professor of Biology Dudley Cox.

A family member of Cox had also emigrated from Barbados, so the two men immediately shared a common bond, developing a friendship over the years. When Brandford expressed concern that Pace, known primarily at the time for being a business school, had not yet seen a graduate go on to medical school, Cox was confident that it would only be a matter of time. Brandford was guided to enroll in challenging courses, seeing each as a step closer to his goal, and enjoying the process of learning.

“I will never forget the look on [Cox’s] face when I showed him my first acceptance letter from medical school. He started giggling, looking back and forth between me and the letter,” Brandford said.

Today, he is in private practice in Seattle as an anesthesiologist with a focus on outpatient surgery.

His dream of being a doctor is rooted in his childhood, a time in which Brandford describes himself as rather sickly, suffering from asthma, eczema, and frequent injuries. When he visited the office of his local doctor, Brandford admired him as a man who could “fix” people, and he aspired to do the same one day. Initially studying surgery, he later switched to anesthesiology, finding it a perfect mix of the understanding of anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology, and how these disciplines interacted.

Celebrating his 40th year in the profession, he loves his work and is inspired to keep going, hoping that through his efforts, the quality of care in outpatient surgery will continue to improve.

The journey wasn’t easy, as Brandford admits to finding the development of self-discipline initially challenging. He recalls his days at Cornell University Medical College, when he would hear the sounds of laughter and good times outside his apartment while he was studying. The habits he acquired then, however, served to benefit him.

He said, “Many people are endowed with considerable natural talent, but without self-discipline and the will to excel, they will, at best, be mediocre. Most of us are not especially gifted, but if we set a goal, and make a commitment to achieve, miracles are possible.”

Brandford, who will now be collaborating with his alma mater as part of a recent membership on the Dyson Advisory Board, also has a prescription for success for students.

“Make your priorities. Be brutally honest. If you are interested in high achievement, there will be hard work, sacrifice, commitment and self-discipline. I promise, you can surprise yourself in what you can achieve.”