For Mariah Halperin, it was an extraordinary moment.

The Stanford senior – who is writing a thesis on the development of democracy in Turkey – sat across a table from Kemal Dervis, a former Turkish minister of economic affairs and treasury. Halperin was among several students in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law honors program spending the better part of an hour listening to Dervis speak on the global economy and other topics.

“It was an amazing opportunity,” said Halperin, who was able to ask Dervis about his reform efforts as minister.

The meeting was one of more than a dozen similar sessions the students participated in over five days during a visit to Washington, D.C. The mid-September trip to the nation’s capital was a highlight of CDDRL’s honors college program, which was recently endowed with a gift from philanthropists Sakurako and William Fisher. 

Led by CDDRL Director Larry Diamond and Francis Fukuyama, this year’s honors program director and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the students saw the inside workings of government and development organizations and had lively question-and-answer sessions with a host of prominent figures.

They went to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Millennium Challenge Corp.  They met with Stephen Hadley, who served as President George W. Bush’s national security advisor, and Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy. And they spoke with Inter-American Dialogue President Michael Shifter.

“Expectations were high; the trip lived up to them,” said Imani Franklin. The international relations major joins Halperin and seven others in this year’s honors class.

“Just mind-blowing to me, that you’re meeting just all these incredibly famous people in such a small setting,” Kabir Sawhney, a management science and engineering major, said after meeting with Dervis at The Brookings Institution, where he is a vice president and director of global economy and development.

The program, whose formal name will be the Sakurako and William Fisher Family Undergraduate Honors Program at CDDRL, was created by a group headed by FSI senior fellows Kathryn Stoner and Michael A. McFaul, who is now Washington’s ambassador to Moscow.

The program allows seniors to graduate with honors in democracy, development and rule of law. Its roots go back seven years, when Stoner-Weiss was teaching a single class to 20 students. 

"Our goal had always been to truly create...an interdisciplinary program,'' Stoner-Weiss said. "It's become, I think, a lot more than we thought it might be.”

Initially the program was for students studying international relations or political science. That changed last year, when the university made CDDRL honors an interdisciplinary program. Diamond said at that point the program crossed a critical threshold, that now it can engage a wider range of students and has become more competitive and more selective.

“It wasn’t as rich and diverse a mix,” said Diamond, who also believes opening the program to students across campus has benefited those who are accepted.

“I think, in a way, it’s more fun for them because they have a more diverse group,” he said.

This year’s group does include two international relations and one political science major. But Halperin is majoring in history and others are studying human biology, public policy, earth systems and economics.

“I wanted to do it because I wanted a challenge, and I wanted to work intensely in a discipline in which I had no experiences,” said Holly Fetter, who is pursuing a bachelor’s in comparative studies in race and ethnicity and a master’s in sociology. “I knew I wanted an international perspective that I had not sought out yet as an undergraduate.”

Sawhney said the honors program allows him to pursue a thesis outside his engineering major and gain a measure of depth in something other than his major before he graduates.

“This is something I can do that’s going to be a very unique experience,” said Sawhney, whose thesis will be a study of the effect of regime type on a country’s propensity to default on its sovereign debt obligations.

Thomas Alan Hendee – who was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and whose thesis will be a study of the social determinants of health in Brazilian slums and how they affect child health – said he wanted to be a part of the honors program since freshman year.

“This is the second year when they’ve allowed people from all over the university to come in, and I’m really thankful for that opportunity,” he said.

Explaining the decision to endow the program, Sakurako Fisher said she and her husband are making a yearly investment in a group of students “who are going to go out and make the world a better place,’’ and that some CDDRL honors students may in their careers have an impact that brings more than a ripple of benefit to people in distant lands.

“It could be a tidal wave. It could be a tidal wave on another shore,’’ she said. “We may not know that for 30 years.’’

Fisher said whether or not an honors student ultimately works in one of the fields the program focuses on, the experience of going through the program will affect how each lives his or her life.

“Maybe they don’t stay in this area, but it always influences their decisions for the rest of their lives,’’ she said.

Julie Veroff, who was a member of the first CDDRL honors program class, said the experience has served her well since she graduated from Stanford in 2007.

Veroff went on to receive a master's in international development from Oxford and spent three years as executive director of Face AIDS, the San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that was created by Stanford students to engage high school and college students in the fight to eradicate AIDS. Veroff is now in her first year at Yale Law School. 

"First and foremost, it gave me a lot of confidence as an intellectual person,'' said Veroff, who explained that the program led her to thoroughly explore and think critically about issues and ideas, to not just accept something at face value.

She also said the program taught her how to both accept and ask for feedback and how to be more aggressive in speaking to professors and mentors about her goals. It also left her with lasting connections with peers and professors she can turn to for help - or for a simple friendly conversation. 

"I can't remember anything from statistics, but certainly that peer community is long lasting. And for that I'm grateful,'' she said. 

Honors program students must have at least a 3.5 grade point average, and they apply to the program in the winter quarter of their junior year. Those accepted begin their studies with a three-unit research seminar in the spring quarter of their junior year. 

The students are also encouraged to do field work or other research over the summer before senior year, and several members of this year’s group ranged far and wide over the globe. Keith Calix, whose thesis will examine the relationship of post-apartheid education reform and the rise of organized crime in Cape Town, spent the spring and much of the summer in South Africa.

Fetter, whose focus is the influence of U.S. funding on the development of China’s civil society, did research in Beijing. Halperin spent the summer in Turkey. And Franklin, who will assess whether exposure to Western beauty standards impacts the self-image of women in the developing world, studied Arabic in Jordan. 

Lina Hidalgo is studying the social and political impacts of media in Egypt and China and spent time in both countries. Anna Schickele spent two weeks in Peru to explore the determinants of farmer participation in agricultural development projects in the country. Vincent Chen, who was unable to make the trip to Washington, will study how democratic and autocratic systems affect the formation and efficacy of their environmental policies.

Diamond said the number of students admitted to the program is limited not only by the academic requirements, but also to allow the scholars to be able to develop strong relationships with each other and their instructors.

“I think that having somewhere between about eight to 12 students is a good size. That’s kind of been the size the last few years,” he said.

In D.C., students said bonds were being formed.

“We’re getting more of an idea of what we’re all working on,” said Halperin.  And Hendee said there must be camaraderie in order to face the work ahead.

“It’s a struggle,” he said, “a year-long struggle we’re going to be in together.”

Jenna Nicholas, who was in last year’s honors program, said it was valuable to have her colleagues’ perspectives and opinions as she worked on her thesis that examined the growth of civil society in China. She said her group offered hard analysis of one another’s work, and that the program resulted in her improving her own critical-thinking skills. Nicholas, who is completing her master’s in organizational behavior at Stanford, also advised this year’s group to “keep the commitment level up.”

Then, with a laugh, she said: “And remember what your hypothesis was.”

Diamond said that in terms of teaching, the honors program has become CDDRL’s crown jewel. He said students’ research, which results in theses of 75 to 125 pages, is having an impact.

Otis Reid, who graduated from the program last year, was recognized by the university with the David M. Kennedy Honors Thesis Prize and the Firestone Medal for Excellence - the top prizes for undergraduate social science research - for his thesis on the impact of concentrated ownership on the value of publicly traded firms on the Ghana Stock Exchange.

“They’re generating new knowledge,” Diamond said. “It’s not just an exercise.”

Before heading back to Stanford in late September, the students received an invitation to return to the nation’s capital from David Yang, director of the U.S. AID Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights & Governance in the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance.

“Come back,” Yang said. “We’ll share your papers and debate your findings.”

Michael McAuliffe is a freelance writer based in Greenbelt, Md.

Eleven talented Stanford seniors have completed the Undergraduate Senior Honors Program at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) to graduate with honors in democracy, development, and the rule of law. Completing their theses on issues of global importance ranging from the impact of technology on government openness to the effectiveness of democratic governance projects, CDDRL honors students have contributed original research and analysis to policy-relevant topics. They will graduate from Stanford University on June 17.

Over the course of the year-long program, students worked in consultation with CDDRL affiliated faculty members and attended honors research workshops to develop their thesis project. Many traveled abroad to collect data, conduct interviews, and to spend time in the country they were researching. Collectively, their topics documented some of the most pressing issues impacting democracy today in China, Sudan, Greece, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Latin America, and beyond.  

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After graduation, several honors students will leave Stanford to pursue careers at McKinsey & Company consulting group, serve as war crime monitors in Cambodia, work at a brand and marketing consultancy in San Francisco, conduct data analysis at a Palo Alto-based technology firm, work at a Boston-based international development finance startup using targeted investment for poverty alleviation, and conduct research in the political science field. The rest will be pursuing advanced and co-terminal degrees at Columbia Journalism School, the University of Chicago, and Stanford University.

A list of the 2012 graduating class of CDDRL Undergraduate Honors students, their theses advisors, and a link to their theses can be found here:

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law congratulates Otis Reid on being awarded the David M. Kennedy Honors Thesis Prize for his original and rigorous research on the impact of concentrated ownership on the value of publically traded firms on the Ghana Stock Exchange. Reid is a member of the 2012 CDDRL Undergraduate Senior Honors Program and wrote his thesis entitled, “Monitoring, Expropriating, and Interfering: Concentrated Ownership, Government Holdings, and Firm Value on the Ghana Stock Exchange,” under the consultation of Professor Avner Greif.

Four undergraduate Stanford students are awarded the Kennedy Prize each year for their outstanding honors theses in the humanities, social sciences, engineering and the applied sciences. Reid was also recognized with the Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research awarded to the top ten percent of honors theses in social science, science, and engineering. Reid will receive these awards in a medals ceremony on Saturday, June 16.

Reid's thesis combined field research and advanced econometric analysis to conclude that concentrated ownership by the government and private parties on the Ghana stock exchange has a negative impact on the value of firms in Ghana. These findings have important consequences for the regulation of newly established stock exchanges, and ultimately for Africa's economic development. Very little research has been conducted on this topic, and Reid's thesis makes a valuable contribution to this field of study with practical policy implications for developing economies. 

"Otis Reid has produced a highly original work of scholarship—worthy of publication in an academic journal—that has exhibited astute knowledge of the literature and the challenges of firm development on the ground, shrewd formulation of a research design, impressive technical ability, and yet wise and important policy conclusions as well," said CDDRL Director Larry Diamond. "It is very rare to find an undergraduate honors thesis that is able to combine all four of these things."

Reid, a public policy and economics major, held prominent leadership roles in student organizations on campus, namely Stanford in Government and the Stanford Association for International Development, as well as serving as a resident assistant at Crothers dormitory. In recognition of his commitment to public service and enriching student life through these leadership positions, he was honored with the The Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergraduate Education.

After graduation, Reid will travel through Southeast Asia for five weeks before starting a position at McKinsey & Company consulting group in Chicago where he will be working on a combination of business and social sector problems.

The CDDRL Undergraduate Senior Honors Program trains students from any academic department at Stanford to prepare them to write a policy-relevant research thesis with global impact on a subject touching on democracy, development, and the rule of law. Honors students participate in research methods workshops, attend honors college in Washington, D.C., connect to the CDDRL research community, and write their thesis in close consultation with a faculty advisor to graduate with a certificate of honors in democracy, development, and the rule of law.