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Pictured above (left to right): IIE President and CEO Allan E. Goodman, Alison von Klemperer, and IIE Chairman Thomas S. Johnson.
Darien resident Alison von Klemperer received the 2011 Award for Extraordinary Service from the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund at a special luncheon in New York on September 23. Ms. von Klemperer was recognized for her work in helping threatened scholars who have come to the United States with support from the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund for short term academic fellowships to continue their academic work in safety.
Ms. von Klemperer is an active board member and volunteer with international and educational organizations, serving on the Darien Community Association's Academic Lecture Series, and performing committee work for her alma mater Carleton College and The Johns Hopkins University, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where she earned her Masters degree. She further developed her international interests and expertise in a professional career that included working as a consultant to the Soros Open Society Institute’s projects in harm reduction in the Central Asian Republics, directing new business for Europe and the NIS at the International Executive Service Corps in Stamford and serving as assistant director for international trade at The Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
The Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) provides fellowships for established scholars whose lives and work are threatened in their home countries. The fellowships permit professors, researchers and other senior academics to find temporary refuge at universities and colleges anywhere in the world, enabling them to pursue their academic work to continue to share their knowledge with students, colleagues and the community at large. Since 2002 SRF has received more than 3000 requests for assistance from scholars in 102 countries, and has awarded fellowships to 417 scholars from 45 countries and placed them at institutions in 40 countries around the world.
Ms. von Klemperer learned about the Institute and its Scholar Rescue Fund last year through a dramatic connection to her father in law, the historian Professor Klemens von Klemperer, who is noted for his scholarly work on the German Resistance to Hitler. Born in Berlin of an Austrian family of Jewish background, Klemens von Klemperer studied in Vienna until 1938 when the Nazi regime seized his family possessions and he was forced to emigrate to the United States. After arriving in New York on the SS Manhattan, he was assisted by an IIE employee who helped him to get a refugee scholarship to Harvard University, a program supported directly by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After interrupting his studies to serve in Eisenhower's Intelligence Unit of U.S. Army, Professor von Klemperer received a PhD in History from Harvard and taught for many years at Smith College. He published several books on the German resistance, and most recently wrote about his own life and the experiences of his contemporaries in his book, “Voyage Through the Twentieth Century,” noting that his scholarly work revealed to him those who maintained dignity and courage in times of peril and despair, which became for him a life’s pursuit.
The Institute of International Education, a not-for-profit organization established in 1919 with 18 offices around the world, was privileged to benefit from the work of Professor von Klemperer’s sister, who led the Institute’s counseling division for 20 years. Lily von Klemperer is known in the international education field as one of the founders of the study abroad profession during the mid-twentieth century. She worked at IIE for many years, touching the lives of countless students as well as a growing numbers of professionals in that new field, as she traveled to campuses to help establish their student advising activities. She provided not only training but inspiration and guidance to colleagues at IIE and throughout the academic community. For many years, the Institute published her wise and practical advice for students wishing to study abroad as the introduction to its study abroad directories.
After realizing these remarkable family connections, Ms. von Klemperer began to contribute significant time and energy to the Scholar Rescue Fund and the scholars undertaking their fellowships at host institutions in the United States. Ms. von Klemperer met with researchers and professors to understand their concerns and offered advice and personal and professional contacts to help these threatened scholars through the difficult transition in a new country. In addition to countless hours and thoughtful guidance, she set up a special fund to provide scholars and their families with such needed items such essential household items, winter clothing, and educational supplies.
Ms. von Klemperer has contributed to her alma mater, Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, to ensure that Carleton would have the necessary funds to provide an academic “safe haven” to an SRF scholar in the coming academic year. “It has been an honor to work with the Scholar Rescue Fund, and to support persecuted scholars from around the world already on campuses in the United States. I am pleased that Carleton College will join the network of higher education institutions working with IIE to provide safe havens for scholars. Carleton's tranquil setting and academic intensity will be a welcome haven for a new refugee scholar."
Upon presenting the award to Ms. Von Klemperer, IIE SRF Chairman Dr. Henry Jarecki stated “The commitment of volunteers and donors like Ms. von Klemperer to the principles of academic freedom and safe haven makes the work of the SRF possible. And it brings hope for a brighter, safer future to so many who have endured the harrowing consequences of a violent, repressive past.”
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