Mr. Bowman, Tear Down this Wall

On the fateful day of the Harvard-Yale football game, most would expect to see Undergraduate Council President Johnny F. Bowman ’11 yelling wildly from the stands, decked out in crimson. Not this year, mon frere. Instead, Bowman will be 30,000 feet in the air, flying back from Moscow with 14 other American college student leaders.

In an attempt to forge a stronger partnership between Russia and the United States, the Russian Federation’s Federal Agency on Youth Affairs has invited the select group to spend a jam-packed week primarily visiting government sectors like the Presidential Administration and the Supreme Commercial Court. The agency is offering this trip for the first time and will determine its permanence once the students return home.

However, this isn’t Bowman’s first experience globe-trotting as UC President. In late August, Bowman spent six days in Hunan and Beijing, China with a delegation of Ivy League student leaders thanks to China’s Central Committee of the Communist Youth League. Highlights included visiting a model communist village, (it was “100 percent clean and extremely well-organized” according to Bowman); meeting Xiao Yayu, the deputy director for the Standing Committee of Hunan Provincial Growth; and conversing with Chinese college students.

“They were open about their disappointment in some of China’s policies. They were much more open than I had anticipated,” said Bowman, a reflection which just might fulfill the committee’s hope that the visit helped promote a connection between the two groups of students.

Likewise, UC Vice President Eric N. Hysen ’11 will travel to Shanghai at the end of this month to attend the World Expo Youth Summit.

“International relations is not our main purpose on the UC, but it’s a nice opportunity for us,” said Hysen.