Public Affairs

AUK Students Participate in the 55th Annual Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference in USA

07th May 2015 | by the Department of PR & Marketing

Yasir Tineh and Batul K. Sadliwala, students from the American University of Kuwait (AUK), were selected by the College of Arts and Sciences to represent the University at the 55th Annual Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD from April 13th-15th, 2015. Batul was awarded the prize for best international essay for her paper "Energy Security and the US Pivot to Asia: The Caveats of Energy 'Independence.'" Dr. Roman Kulchitsky, who read and commented on the winning paper, acknowledged Batul's "amazing capacity to understand and analyze global events and issues."

Founded in 1961, the Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference brings together undergraduate students from around the world for three days of critical discussions, lectures, informal exchanges, and social events surrounding foreign affairs. This year's conference theme was "Sustainability and Sovereignty: Global Security in a Resource-Strained World" and explored global resource challenges and natural resource conservation strategies as relation to foreign policy. The conference is very prestigious and can be intimidating, noted Dr. DeAngelis who nominated the students; however, both students approached it with grace and confidence.

The roundtable discussions of the conference allowed Batul and Yasir to interact and debate with collegiate peers from over a dozen different countries. The conference included keynote lectures by prominent foreign policy leaders, such as Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, USN (Ret.), Assistant Secretary of the Navy Energy, Installations and Environment, Mr. Robert J. Duncan II, Senior Vice President of Nuclear Operations Duke Energy Corporation and Mr. Kurt Campbell, Chairman and CEO of The Asia Group. There was a panel each day on a different topic: Food and Water Security, Energy Security and Resource Conflict.

Additionally, the conference required submission of a thematically relevant research paper, which both Yasir and Batul created and revised under the guidance of various professors and colleagues. Yasir's paper discussed United States resource security as related to past foreign policy, specifically with countries in the Middle East. Batul wrote about the relationship between energy and national security and viable foreign policy strategies regarding natural resources for the United States. Dr. DeAngelis describes Batul and Yasir as "amazing young scholars" and notes how pleased and proud she is to have been a mentor to the two. She thanks everyone involved for their support and AUK for making the trip possible.