Tufts Initiative for Leadership and International Perspective

The Tufts Initiative for International Leadership and Perspective (TILIP) is a program that seeks to foster cross-cultural team building through intensive intellectual inquiry and practical study. Each year delegations of students from the U.S. service academies and universities throughout the world travel to Tufts to attend the annual EPIIC symposium, present their research, and interact with their peers.

The Institute regularly hosts delegations from Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, the Gaza Strip, Greece, France, Iraq, Israel, Kurdistan-Iraq, Russia, Rwanda, Singapore, and South Korea.

The Institute plans a series of activities designed to intellectually engage the students with the year’s EPIIC theme and encourage informed discussion.  The students share readings, and via e-mail and Zoom discuss the annual theme with Tufts students and the other international delegations. In addition to attending the symposium panels, each international delegation prepares a presentation on a designated topic.

 The goals of TILIP are to promote cross-cultural interaction, create an open environment for discussion, break down barriers between cultures, and encourage students to educate others about issues in their home countries that are relevant to the theme of the symposium. Through TILIP, the IGL helps students look beyond preconceived notions they may have about others by facilitating thought-provoking discussions about salient topics and encouraging our participants to conduct research together.