First AUSN Graduates and Youth Ambassadors

AUSN is honored to have the first three graduates graduate in the Asia-Africa Summit Hall, Bandung, Indonesia, on 24 May 2015. The three, Mr. Sol Erwin Diaz (the Philippines), Mr. Muhammad Ziaul Huq (Bangladesh), and Ms. Ananya Tritipthumrongchok (Thailand), had started their lectures in the Postgraduate Certificate in Community and Peace in August 2014 in Arizona while attending the Ninth Youth Peace Ambassador Training Workshop there. Two completed the Certificate in 2014, and waited to receive the Certificates in the historic hall that saw the historic Summit in April 1955, that was considered the launch of the non-aligned movement. It was a fitting venue for the first graduates of American University of Sovereign Nations, that as a global faculty and curriculum, valuing all sources of wisdom. AUSN was also honored to receive the official 1955 Summit Anniversary record book as a gift from the staff of the Summit Hall, who hosted the group, together with delegates from the YPA10 Conference. First AUSN Graduation Ceremony in Historic Setting, Bandung, Indonesia

Four AUSN Faculty with the three graduating students, 24 May 2015, in front of a display in the museum with statutes of some of the leaders who convened the 1955 Summit. See the AUSN facebook page for more photos inside the Summit Hall.



 AUSN's first graduates - the first Alumni, with some professors

Preparing for graduation and a lecture on the Asia-Africa Summit 1955



Sixth Youth Looking Beyond Disaster (LBD6) Training Workshop

LBD6 was held 17-21 June 2015 in AUSN, Scottsdale, USA. The second part of this training will also be held 16-19 July. The delegates came from around the world, and shared the results of their action plans, and discussed how governments, the UN, and other bodies, can better support youth as agents of change. They visited seven Native American Indian reservations, not only being based on SRPMIC where AUSN is located. The joint organizer was Eubios Ethics Institute and Youth’s UNESCO Club, Nepal, which will cooperate together for LBD7 in Kathmandu, Nepal. Some of our Nepalese delegates shared their practical work in rebuilding after the 2015 earthquakes there. The photo is from Oak Flats, Apache Sacred Land that is threatened by a Land Exchange agreement to mine for copper underneath it. The LBD6 learnt from San Carlos Apache Council member Wendsler Nosie and AUSN Sovereign Nations Scholar Lian D’Avignon, and other members of the Occupy movement their concerns over mining as a disaster.

Some LBD6 participants at Oak Flats, Arizona 

Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community

We also learned of the SRPMIC Emergency and Disaster Strategy from Cliff Puckett, Emergency Manager of Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Prof. Govindan Parayil, Director, AUSN Institute of Sustainability Sciences and Knowledge Traditions; Former Vice-Rector, United Nations University, also discussed some detailed guidance on disaster and sustainability.

Many Masters students are now writing their thesis

AUSN accepts students to join lectures and enroll in the degree and certificate programmes most weeks of the year. We now have more than a dozen students conducting their research and working on their Master’s thesis. We also have our first students to have completed the minimum contact hours in lectures, although most are still joining lectures since they share the passion for learning that is at the heart of this endeavor.

Some students required ethical approval from the AUSN School of Medicine Institutional Review Board (IRB), which met to consider their research proposals, and approved the first batch of submitted applications. The proposals were approved after some rounds of revisions to met the consent and ethics requirements that are critical for protection of research participants. I have been busy with students developing their thesis proposals, and now writing. We are awaiting the first complete drafts and expect that we will have our first Masters’ graduates in September 2015. After their public defense and graduation we will start a page to list the thesis titles, which are innovative and cover a wide range of themes in bioethics, environment, medicine, sociology and public health.

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