A professor in GW’s business and international affairs schools will spend this fall as an international affairs fellow at Texas A&M University.
Herbert Davis, a professor of strategic management and international affairs, will be this year’s senior Scowcroft fellow in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M, conducting research on developing countries and advising administrators in the school’s Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs.
Davis said he will have more time during the fellowship to research U.S. foreign aid to developing countries.
“I’ve always had an interest in comparative religion, comparative philosophy and comparative cultures,” Davis said.
During the fellowship, Davis will advise administrators, helping them develop programs to strengthen the curriculum and improve its international programs. Senior fellows spend time researching an international issue and produce a policy paper known as a “Scowcroft Paper.”
Davis is looking forward to the flexibility that the fellowship will offer him during the semester he will spend there, he said.
“The Scowcroft fellowship gives me the run of the place,” he said. “It allows me to do what I want to do while I’m on sabbatical.”
He said he first became interested in developing countries as a senior Fulbright professor in Bangladesh in the 1980s. Since then, Davis has furthered his interest through work at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and for the administrations of U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.
Most recently, Davis served for three years as the senior adviser to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq, according to his profile on the business school’s website.
“I’ve always had an interest in business activity and management activities in countries not developed like the United States,” Davis said. “I’ve always found them more challenging because of the cultural difference.”
Davis said his interest in developing countries and working internationally drew him to D.C. and eventually to GW, where he has spent the majority of his nearly 30-year career.
“I went there because the University was internationalizing,” Davis said. “I’ve had students from all over the world. For a lot of professors that would be a very big challenge. For me it’s a challenge I’m comfortable with.”
Davis’s experience working with leaders at the Scowcroft institute will aid him in his teaching and lecturing next semester back at GW, he said. He will teach a graduate-level course in the business school that will cover strategic management in the context of international development.
Davis met Andrew Natsios, the director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, while working at the Chamber of Commerce. Natsios asked Davis personally if he would serve as the senior fellow this year – Davis said that each fellow is usually hand-picked based on their reputation in the field of international affairs.
“I asked him if he would be willing to do the fellowship because I have great respect for him,” Natsios said.
Jennifer Griffin, a professor of strategic management and public policy who works with Davis, said professors who take fellowships work for the greater good of their departments, because fellowships give them the chance to do extended, detailed research.
“I have no doubt that Professor Davis will bring those insights into the classroom with the stories that he tells,” Griffin said. “It invokes the theory and practice together quite nicely like he always has.”
