Public Employee Press

CNR experts explore Obama’s foreign policy

“President Barack Obama and U.S. foreign policy,” was the hot topic of a public forum presented by the DC 37 Campus of the College of New
Rochelle on April 24 at the union.

Some 100 CNR students and DC 37 members attended the discussion, which included as panelists activist and journalist Herb Boyd and CNR professors Victorian Assi and Paulette Mapp. CNR Professor Nibaldo Aguilera moderated the timely dialogue.

Boyd, who is an adjunct professor in the Black Studies Dept. at City College and at CNR’s JOC campus, said that 100 days is still very early to assess Obama’s presidency. But he pointed out that the new president’s foreign policy “starts with diplomacy first and foremost.”

Boyd also stressed the complexity of the issues. “Pakistan is the burning issue of the day, and that region of the world is especially complicated,” he said.

Professor Mapp said she sees Obama’s decisions to close the Guantanamo army base in Cuba and to allow Cuban Americans to visit the island and send money to family there as a positive moves.

She stated that she would like the president to “take the next step and lift the decades-old embargo against the Caribbean island.”

Professor Assi pointed to the importance of improving U.S. relations with Africa and noted President Obama’s recent trip to Egypt as a “step in the right direction.”