This is, of course, not an easy task, and in today’s heated political climate, it’s somewhat of a novelty. But the D.C.-based nonprofit organization, which was founded by and is the brainchild of CEO and “coach” Kathy Kemper, has had success in bringing together and fostering a dialogue among diverse representatives from business, politics, diplomacy and media over the past two decades.

Those 20 years in pursuit of civility was the occasion of a Dec. 7 banquet at the stately residence of Belgian Ambassador Jan Matthysen to honor the Institute for Education (IFE) and its mission of “making world affairs our business.” The event, dubbed “Looking Forward, Looking Back,” was attended by a collection of politicians, diplomats and corporate leaders emblematic of the heavyweights who have supported IFE’s signature public policy roundtables over the years.

These IFE-INFO roundtables have become a staple on the Washington circuit, bringing together an eclectic range of luminaries such as Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, former White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while she was a New York senator, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, Undersecretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs Robert Hormats, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, and ambassadors from Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Monaco and Norway, among many others.

“Greetings sports fans” is how Kemper — a seasoned tennis coach — welcomes her roundtable guests, and it was her opening at the Dec. 7 tribute dinner as well.

Participants in the LearnServe Egypt student exchange program stand in front of the Qaitbay Citadel in Alexandria.

“For 20 years we’ve had the privilege of asking the questions, hearing the answers, and engaging with our speakers, usually gathering for breakfast before the rest of the town has had their first cup of coffee,” she told her guests.

“We’ve had more than 200 distinguished speakers promoting civility and finding common ground,” she proudly added, noting that “for the last two decades we’ve enjoyed hearing from U.S. Supreme Court justices, House and Senate leaders, Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, governors, mayors, a vice president of the United States, and senior members of the fourth estate.”

Belgium Ambassador Matthysen, an IFE diplomatic steward, chimed in, adding a Miss America to that list of speakers and praising the institute as a “wonderful network to get to know new friends in Washington” — high-powered ones at that.

“IFE has been ahead of the game for some time now — stressing civility and dialogue at the expense of knee-jerk partisanship. It works,” wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman of the group. “The people who attend IFE events understand that they are absolutely expected to make their points without holding back, but they know that IFE is different — there is good humor, fellowship, and a spirit of collaboration. And IFE attracts the nation’s leading officials as speakers, as well as an audience of who’s who in Washington. IFE has been and continues to be at the forefront of ‘changing the way Washington works.’”

In an interview with The Washington Diplomat, Kemper said that despite operating within the partisan vacuum, her guests, even the political big shots among them, virtually always respect the overarching message of civility.

“Everybody it seems that has come responds to it very affirmatively, and embraces it, and thinks it’s a very important component,” Kemper said. She added that they all believe in “solving problems and collaborating and building trust” as an antidote to the prevailing lack of comity, both across the country and inside the Beltway.

In addition to fighting the good fight on civility at home, the institute has also developed an international program, seeking to build links between Washington and the rest of the world. And it’s increasingly worked to engage the next generation of leaders in its efforts.

To that end, IFE hosts spinoff roundtables exploring topics such as emerging markets, media and technology, and “NextGen” talks. It also launched the Youth Global Citizenship Initiative to build a sense of international consciousness among young participants, many of whom Kemper has taken under her wing and who are often seen at her high-profile events.

IFE’s most ambitious endeavor has been its LearnServe educational exchange program, which debuted last summer. For six weeks as part of LearnServe Egypt, six students from American universities and six Egyptian students and recent graduates collaborated in teams, both in person and via social media, to create entrepreneurship projects that proposed business solutions to social problems in the Arab world and beyond.

The participants from U.S. institutions including Johns Hopkins University, American University, Lafayette College and the University of Pennsylvania traveled to Cairo for two weeks to meet their Egyptian counterparts and brainstorm ideas with marketing professors from the American University at Cairo, CEOs of technology start-ups, and other business leaders, including Wael Fakharany, country manager of Google Egypt. The Egyptian students likewise traveled to the United States for a two-week visit, meeting with some of IFE’s supporters, such as John Hamre, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (also see “LearnServe Egypt Exchange Seizes Moment of Opportunity” in the September 2011 issue of The Washington Diplomat).

“We have an exchange with American and Egyptian kids and they work on social entrepreneurship,” Kemper explained, adding that the institute can serve as an alternate channel of communications for nations when needed. “If countries are having issues with each other, we will be on call, often through the back door, to try and facilitate some sort of understanding or respect and try to find some answers to problems.”

The institute first began working to find solutions to world problems at an unexpected place: the tennis court — a reminder that sports can often be a unifying arena for building camaraderie and dropping partisan guards. Kemper, a longtime tennis pro who has coached various senators and officials in several presidential administrations, says it started with an idea from her husband.

“My husband Jim Valentine suggested to me that I should invite some of my tennis students that I was coaching … to get together with some of his people and have breakfast. It would be small and off the record and educational and be a nice dialogue with people,” she recalled.

A signature of the Institute for Education (IFE) has been its IFE-INFO roundtables, the 20th anniversary of which was recently fêted with a reception at the Belgian Residence featuring some of the high-profile names who've headlined past discussions, including former CIA Director Michael Hayden, second from right, pictured with his wife Jeanine, IFE founder and CEO Kathy Kemper and her husband Jim Valentine.

The initial get-together seemed to be enjoyable and edifying for all involved, so Kemper repeated it. And repeated it again. And again. Eventually, her sessions developed a reputation, and people began seeking her out to request invitations. At that point, Kemper turned what had been a periodic and informal gathering into something much more enduring: the Institute for Education.

After decades spent on D.C. tennis courts, Kemper has the skinny on the skills of a number of White House bigwigs. Of the current administration, she says Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, is probably the most skilled player. She also singles out James Baker (Ronald Reagan’s White House chief of staff and secretary of the treasury and George H.W. Bush’s secretary of state), Lloyd Bentsen (Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary), and Larry Summers (also Clinton’s treasury secretary, as well as a just-departed member of the Obama administration) as the Roger Federers and Rafael Nadals of previous administrations.

These men together have decades of service at the highest level of the executive branch in very different administrations, but Kemper laments that the personal relations among partisan rivals are now fraying and disappearing altogether. Kemper says she particularly noticed a change in tone around the turn of the century, when reactions to her proposed tennis matches began to change. Instead of signing up to square off against whomever Kemper had lined up, political operatives began to make sure that they didn’t have to share the court with their adversaries.

That wasn’t always the case; tennis used to be just tennis, rather than another theater of partisan warfare. “Years ago when one of my students would say let’s play some doubles, no one would ever ask who was playing, because they would trust me to pull together a good doubles game,” Kemper said.

She pointed to the invasion of Iraq as a possible source of the civility-eroding acrimony. Tensions were so inflamed that no one around Washington was willing to put differences of opinion aside and build personal friendships based on other activities, such as, of course, tennis. For that reason, underlying all of the institute’s events is an emphasis on sociability.

“Everything has to have an element of conviviality and friendship and fun,” she said. “And I think in Washington that’s a very important component, because we have a lot of people that are very smart, very academic and intellectual, and it’s important that people remember that laughter is healthy.”

But she declines to blame either party for the growing gap between the two. Her writing — she has a column for the Huffington Post and has blogged for the Hill — is decidedly nonpartisan, and hits many of the same notes that drive the institute’s mission.

“We’re not really political,” she said. “I never really take a stand on one thing or another. My stand is always that we try to look at the positive. And focus on the commonality, and embrace that.”

Kemper does, however, point to structural factors in electoral politics as eroding the civility of generations past. She blames expensive campaigns and the need for legislators to constantly concentrate on fundraising as a big part of the problem. Such efforts take politicians away from their colleagues, reduce the opportunity for the sort of conviviality the institute seeks to cultivate, and instead encourages them to fire up their donor base.

For her part, Kemper says she’s not a born fundraiser, and that she has struggled with that aspect of running a foundation, noting that IFE is constantly focused on making the best use of its resources and connections.

Nonetheless, after 20 years, the group is clearly doing something right. While the institute remains a small operation in a sea of mammoth think tanks and foundations, Kemper says she is thrilled with the niche her organization has found.

“I am especially proud of the team and the institution that IFE has grown into, to be a real integral part of public policy life and making world affairs our business. We’re a very, very small organization … and I am very proud of the positive and important footprint we have [had] over the last 20 years.”

Patrick Corcoran is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat. Last Edited on February 2, 2012

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R David Edelman, IFE Fellow; Louise Akerblom, and Judge William Webster, IFE Steward.

Tuesday, January 30th

IFE Steward, Judge William Webster, hosted a luncheon at the Alibi Club. David Hawkings (CQ/Roll Call) shared his views on the upcoming Florida primaries and GOP candidates, while Heather Conley (CSIS) shared her insights on the state of European economic situation and debt crisis.

Lively group conversation and intimate dialogues provided a unique opportunity for guests to share their wealth of knowledge on the key topics but also other timely subjects—Egypt Spring, U.S. economy, presidential race, and more.

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Heather Conley and Cecelie StrommenDavid Hawkings and David Fenstermaker

Coach Kathy Kemper, Marci Robinson, and Sally Oren

The Institute for Education kicked off its 21st season of our flagship INFO Public Policy roundtable program with a salon discussion venue, hosted by H.E. Dino  Patti Djalal, at the Indonesian Embassy.  Dr. Robert D. Hormats, the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs was the special guest.  Dr. Hormats had just returned from a tour of the Middle East and shared with the salon his thoughts on the status of the Arab Spring.

IFE Intern and University of California – Berkeley student Nick Gaines, opened the evening by talking about the website that he is launching, MyGovHub.org. Politics Gone Social GOVHUB will be a nonpartisan, web based citizen’s forum that will provide a personalized platform for political engagement. GOVHUB will create for each of its users a personal page with links to information to every representative and issue that reaches his or her life. GOV HUB can be exported and adapted to every nation on earth. We believe it will revolutionize politics. The website’s goal is to help to make politics and government more interactive and sustain engagement between elections.  As Nick described it, this site will help to encourage “Democracy beyond the voting booth.”  The site will launch at the end of the month, in Berkeley.

Dr. Rosa Rai Djalal, Jill Dougherty, H.E Ichiro Fujisaki, Ambassador of Japan, and Mrs. Fujisaki

Addressing the attendees, which included ambassadors from Japan, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, and Belgium, Dr. Hormats emphasized several themes that reflect the mission of the Institute for Education: the importance of communication, collaboration and engaging with different perspectives.  Describing the origins of the Arab Spring, Dr. Hormats argued that, fundamentally, “People want a sense that they can participate in their governments.  They don’t want to be subjects; they want to be citizens.  They want to have their voices heard.”

Mrs. Agnes Matthysen, H.E. Jan Matthysen, Coach Kathy Kemper, Dr. Robert Hormats, and Major General Mohamed Elkesky (Embassy of Egypt)

Dr. Hormats spoke of the progress across the Middle East in moving towards more open and democratic societies by emphasizing that each country faces unique challenges and different paths, despite being driven by a common desire to participate in their governments.  Whether looking at countries well into their revolutions like Tunisia or Egypt or countries making reforms without outright revolutions like Saudi Arabia or Morocco, Dr. Hormats described how these countries are looking to Indonesia, Turkey and Malaysia for models of how to have a modern, Islamic democracy.

Ambassador Djalal joined the conversation to share lessons from Indonesia.  It is essential that these countries be able to “make mistakes,” argued Ambassador Djalal.  Further, they must “sprint” into democracy and make reforms quickly in order to establish and maintain democracy, modernity and Islam in one system and not revert back to old models of government.

Dr. Hormats outlined the limitations to US involvement given our economic and political realities at home, and shared ways in which the US can play a constructive role.  By providing technical assistance and working to develop commerce and trade, the US and partner countries can help create economic stability, and in turn political stability. 

Dr. Hormats, H.E Dr. Dino Patal Djala and Dr. Rosa Rai Djalal with Institute for Education interns

Dr. Hormats ended the evening by discussing university students in Cairo trying to foster democracy by recounting his visit to Tahrir Square.  Dr. Hormats compared his visit to the epicenter of Egyptian protests to the local Occupy DC protests.  In Tahrir Square, he recalled seeing many young protestors wearing sweatshirts with the names of American universities.  When he spoke with several, he heard no anti-American sentiments and, in fact, heard from several that they went to American schools like the University of Texas and simply wanted to bring back the same sense of opportunity to their home country. Hope remains strong.

 By Nick Seaver, IFE Fellow

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The United States has advocated democratic and liberal reforms in the Middle East for over half a century. Sometimes, it has worked behind the scenes. Other times, it has been out in front, trying to catalyze change. Whatever the strategy, U.S. policymakers have repeatedly found their efforts stymied by the grip of long-standing authoritarian regimes, the persistence of deeply-rooted cultures and social norms, and hostility to Western “meddling.” How ironic then that, when change finally arrived in the Middle East, the United States was taken by surprise — just like everyone else watching from the outside — and left scrambling to keep up as the situation on the ground changed on almost a daily basis. Even more ironic, now that the historic transition that the United States has long supported is finally underway, American policymakers — like their counterparts in Europe — are hardly in a position to lend the Arab world much support.

Given the major political and economic constraints on more active international engagement, how can the United States play a constructive role in the Middle East and support the many Arab voices speaking out for dignity, opportunity, and greater representation? That is the big question that Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs Robert Hormats put on the table at the Institute for Education’s first INFO salon of its 21st season.

Speaking at the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia, Under Secretary Hormats had arrived the night before from a trip to the Middle East — to countries he described as being part of the “great historic events of our time.” The overthrow of old, corrupt regimes has opened up space for civil society, including young people and women, in the Arab world to decide what kind of institutions and norms ought to govern their respective countries. Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia are at the vanguard of this transformation, but across the Middle East, reforms are taking place. Saudi Arabia, to name one example, recently established a co-ed public university, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, for the first time.

U.S. policymakers have waited for decades for a moment like this. But now that it is here, Hormats pointed out, we’re not in the same position we were after the Cold War, when U.S. policymakers were able to extend billions of dollars in aid to both Russia and the ex-Soviet republics to ease tensions and boost economic development. This time around, facing large deficits and carrying an unsustainable debt load, the United States does not have the budget, much less the political will or public support, needed to invest in the Middle East transition in the same way it invested in dispelling the ghost of communism once and for all.

This time, there will no big foreign aid programs. But there are other ways that the United States can play a constructive role in the region and support progress at a pivotal time. Engagement with the Arab World must begin with the recognition that each country in the midst of transition will have to find its own way and do the heavy lifting required to build strong, responsive institutions and space for civil society to thrive.

To view this column online, please visit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-kemper/supporting-the-arab-world_b_1228284.html

To view Kathy Kemper’s columns on the The Huffington Post’s website, visit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-kemper

To see all of Coach Kemper’s articles go to: http://www.instituteforeducation.org/category/news/coach-kemper-columns/

After an intimate cocktail gathering, Ambassador and Mrs. Sager welcomed guests to their elegant dining room. The roundtable discussion was initiated with welcoming remarks given by His Excellency and Coach Kemper, followed by Mr. Shane Green’s introduction of the mission of IFE’s MTR as a catalyst and enabler of thought and relationship-building among public and private sector leaders exploring evolving technological trends.

The discussion entailed an overview of current U.S. cyber security policies, privacy, and best practices. The group explored the role of the International Strategy for Cyber Security as a framework for understanding the emerging importance of cyber security in foreign policy and emphasized the need for international collaborative partnerships in a world where governments are insisting on engaging in an international level playing field.

Concern about the imperfect patchwork of various governments’ accountability with respect to providing their citizens the right to adequate and secure internet access was mentioned and the need to build a consensus among states involving partnerships among governments, civil societies, industries and individuals.

Other topics covered by the group included privacy, the implications of evolving social media and cloud computing trends on privacy, security and the law as well as the emerging role of the internet as an basic human right as Secretary Clinton stated earlier this year.

Guests remarked on the exquisite setting and excellent menu Mr. and Mrs. Sager graciously provided. Guests in attendance included , MTR Founders and Trustees Shane Green and Henry Ellenbogen, Catherine Bohigian, Peter Egger, IFE Grand Slam member, Greg Farmer, Josh Galper, Joanne Ke, Nancy Libin, IFE Steward and Grand Slam member Beverly Perry and IFE Fellows R. David Edelman, Carine Dumit, Pascale Dumit, Carla Langjahr and Paul Selker.

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‘Lanier’s statements seemed to reinforce comments she made in mid-October, although they were not specific to the District. “The psychology of crowds is very unique,” Lanier said at an event hosted by the Institute for Education. “I think we’re at risk for some very large, very violent protests here in the United States. And they can spark off instantly.”’

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