4th Quinquennial Fox International Fellowship Reunion Highlights Global Coordination, Community

On May 8-10, 2023, about 100 current Fox Fellows, alumni, and friends attended the 4th Fox International Fellowship Reunion at Yale University to discuss recent lessons learned on the importance of international coordination and to reconnect with friends from around the globe.

“The Fox community is so vibrant, diverse, and intellectually excellent in every way. We love having the opportunity to bring our alumni together,” said Emily Erikson, Joseph C. Fox Academic Director of the Fox International Fellowship and Professor of Sociology and School of Management, “Very little can surpass the incredible intellectual, cultural, and social benefits of cross-cultural exchange.”

The Fox International Fellowship is a yearlong graduate student exchange program between the Yale MacMillan Center and 21 prestigious academic partners around the world; Yale hosts a cohort of approximately 20 Fox Fellows from partner institutions on its campus and sends around 18 Yale students on exchange to the partners each year. Established in 1988 by Joseph Carrère Fox ’38, the Fellowship exists to enhance mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States and other countries by promoting international scholarly exchanges and collaborations among the next generation of leaders.  

Every five years, the Fellowship hosts a reunion for all alumni and current fellows at one of its partner institutions. Past events have been held at the University of Cambridge (2007), Sciences Po (2012), and Jawaharlal Nehru University (2017).  As part of this year’s reunion, the Fox Fellowship hosted a conference on “Coordinating Global Communities.” The Fox family and alumni from cohorts spanning more than three decades joined the program.

Highlights of the conference included panel discussions and presentations from keynote speakers Rohini Pande, Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics, Director of the Economic Growth Center, and Director of Inclusion Economics at Yale University, and Julian Go, Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture, and the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago.

On the third and final day of the gathering, the Fox Fellowship staff team hosted tours of New Haven that included stops at the Yale University Art Gallery, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and Arethusa Farm Dairy.

At the reunion, 2010-11 Fox Fellows Kerem Morgül and Yuanyuan Ren, who met during their year in New Haven, were delighted to be able to introduce their young son, Atlas, to the wider Fox Fellowship community. Morgül, a Fox-Zucker fellow from Bogazici University in Turkey, said that accepting the fellowship was the best decision of his life. On the professional level, meeting intelligent, curious people from around the globe broadened his perspective on the world, leading him to pursue a Ph.D. in the United States. He is now an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Elon University, where he studies populism, nationalism, and international migration.

Morgül’s year at Yale also allowed him to make meaningful and long-lasting friendships with people of diverse backgrounds—from the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa—friends who, he said, “I know would give me a big hug whenever and wherever we meet again.” Moreover, he added, “At Yale, I found my soulmate Yuanyuan Ren,” a Fox Fellow from Fudan University in China. Morgül and Ren stayed in touch after the program and “transcended their national and cultural boundaries,” eventually getting married in the United States, where they are now raising their five-year-old son, Atlas. Morgul emphasized that none of this would have been possible without the Fox International Fellowship, adding, “I will remain forever indebted to the Fox family and everyone at Yale who make this wonderful program possible.”

For photos from the event, visit the Reunion 2023 page.

To learn more about the program, visit the Fox International Fellowship website.