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Spotlights Terrence Graham '92 University of Dayton Quarterly, Fall 2005 Terry Graham’s introduction to Russia came from the pages of Dostoyevsky and Turgenev, who wrote of struggles with evil and the intricacies of peasant life. It was a sentimental view, but, as a high school student in the 1980s during perestroika, it captured his imagination. “I was inspired by the dissident movement, where writers and intellectuals in their own sort of quiet way ... were seen as a conscience of a nation and had a big impact,” he said. Years later, Graham is having his own impact on a Russia decidedly different from the one of 19th century literature. As director of American Councils in St. Petersburg, Graham oversees one resource center in a worldwide network for those interested in U.S. higher education. He also recruits for the FLEX high school exchange program, a job that often involves small-scale diplomacy. “The kids are more open to ideas, but the parents can be skeptical or suspicious, asking why the U.S. State Department would pay for their child to study in the States,” Graham said. To help dispel their fears, he tells his own story of cultural immersion as a student in 1993 in Yaroslavl, a town 175 miles east of Moscow. Exchange, Graham said, is about developing language skills, as well as being an ambassador for your nation. It is also how he met his future wife, Yulia. Graham can see the impact the program has, in the lives of individuals and the way English is taught in school. The transparency of the application process also is changing business as usual. “They see that there’s no point in offering us a bribe, in saying ‘my son is the son of a governor.’ There’s beginning to be a shift in mind-set,” he said. While the old Russia is giving way to ideals of Western democracy, Graham said the level of cynicism there is very high, among old and young alike. Working with young people, whose exchange experience gives them a first-hand look at democratic society in action — however imperfect and messy it might be — can help overcome that cynicism, he said. —Michelle Tedford

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