The following is based on a story that was published July 22, 2003 in The Daily Star, Oneonta, N.Y.
This summer Concordiensis editor-in-chief, Jeremy Dibbell will jump from covering campus affairs to foreign affairs.
A senior at Union College in Schenectady and editor-in-chief of the student
newspaper, Concordiensis,
Dibbell is one of a dozen college journalists from
around the country participating in the 11th annual Anti-Defamation League
Albert Finkelstein Memorial Study Mission to Israel, Poland and Bulgaria.
“Everybody keeps
saying, 'Aren't you scared to go to Israel?' But I say it's a chance, it's an
opportunity and you can't turn down opportunities when they come to you,” Dibbell, 21, said. “So I see it as an adventure.”
The students, who all
hold leadership positions at their college papers, will visit several sites and
meet with government officials, historians, journalists and others to learn
about the Israeli-Palestinian situation and the history of Jewish communities
in Europe and the Holocaust, according to information provided by the ADL.
“These students are
the future journalists of tomorrow,” Sara Ladenheim,
an ADL spokeswoman, said. “It provides them with an
interesting perspective that they otherwise wouldn't be able to get just by
reading other media.”
The Anti-Defamation
League, which fights anti-Semitism, was founded in
1913. The study mission was established by a gift from
philanthropist Bidi Finkelstein, in memory of her
late husband.
Dibbell said he plans to keep an extensive journal
while on the trip, parts of which he'll publish, in
addition to other pieces he'll write for the student newspaper.
“It's a lot more
than covering events on campus, which are important and exciting to cover,” he
said. “This is a whole new ball game.”
Concordiensishas a world news section, Dibbell said, but “it's
hard to report world news in a college newspaper 'cause
… you're a weekly, and you can only get what you find in other places.”
He said some
discussion panels stemming from the trip will probably
be held on campus.
Dibbell said he's excited
to see everything on the trip.
“It all, to me, is
going to be a new world,” he said. “I've been to Spain, France and England before, but never ventured forth to Poland and Bulgaria.”
One of the issues he
hopes to examine is Israel's national service program, as Concordiensisand
Union College have been very active in pushing for a
national service program for high school and college students.
The students, who
leave July 31 and return Aug. 15, were chosen from
between 80 and 100 applicants, through interviews and essays, said Ladenheim, who described Dibbell
as a “dynamic kid.”
“He exemplifies
leadership. He's an excellent writer,” she said. “He's coming to the mission
with a very open mind.”
Dibbell graduated from Gilbertsville-Mount Upton Central School in 2000. While a senior in high school, he
was active in campaigning for Sen. John McCain's bid for president.
“I've left
organized politics,” the self-described moderate Republican said. “I'm still
active in terms of advocacy. I tend to fire off letters to the editor every
once in the while.”
On campus, he's a resident assistant and a member of several college
committees, he said.
A political science
major, Dibbell said he hasn't
decided what he will do after he graduates next spring. Though he enjoys
working at the college newspaper, he said, he doesn't
plan a career as a reporter. His interests are history and politics, he said,
and he's considered eventually teaching at the college
level.
But, he said, “it's too far down the road.”
“But what can a
youthful adventurer, a mere individual, hope to accomplish for the benefit of
virtue or the world? What! Almost anything he wills to
undertake and desires to persevere in.” Eliphalet Nott, 1811