New Fellowship Honors Arias

At a reception honoring Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Oscar Arias Sanchez, Kennedy School Dean Graham T. Allison '62 yesterday announced the inception of permanent fellowships that will enable two Costa Rican students to attend the K-School.

Arias, who won the celebrated award last year for his Central American peace plan, said he was grateful for the opportunity to have citizens of his country educated at the K-School.

"I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this gesture." Arias told the reception of nearly 100 invited guests in the K-School penthouse. "These two fellowships [are] for the best and brightest students of my country so they can get the education you all have got."

"Costa Rica does not honor its name. It does not have a rich coast. It is a very poor country," Arias said later. "Our best resource, undoubtedly, is our people, the knowledge, and the education of our youth. You're undoubtedly supporting the effort [of] previous generations [who] for a long time [have] had the wisdom to make education compulsory and free."

The fellowships, funded by an anonymous donor, will allow two Costa Ricans to attend the K-School's Edward S. Mason Program in Public Policy and Management each year. The program was initiated in 1971 to educate leaders from developing and newly industrialized nations.

Steven R. Singer, a spokesman for the K-School, said the one-year fellowships were designed to educate Costa Rican public servants so they can provide leadership for their country when they return.

Upon introducing Arias, Allison related the Costa Rican president's political philosophy to what he said was his favorite quotation from former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy '48.

"Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream of things that never were and ask why not?'" Allison quoted Kennedy, adding "Oscar Arias is a public servant who asks `why not?'"