And So It Begins (Again)

By Yasmine Hung

Just as the Institute has existed for many years, so too have there been many attempts to create and sustain a student publication. Yet, for such a talented student body, the one thing that has not emerged is a student press that has lasted for beyond approximately two years (that I currently know of, at least; physical copies of previous publications can be hard to locate, and the online versions are difficult to find if you don’t know what to look for). As anyone will tell you, a student publication is important in any institution – whether as a platform to discuss key issues of administration, to keep records of events that have happened, or as a way to augment the existing cultural life of students here.

That’s not to say that no one has tried before. Throughout the years, there have always been efforts to establish a student publication in some way or another. We at The Graduate Press (taking its name from the previous student publication, The Graduate) present the latest incarnation of publications run by students at IHEID, continuing a long (if occasionally interrupted) tradition of free expression for the students by the students at this institute. A dedicated few of us have decided to, once again, take on the task of creating a student publication that will hopefully last!

While we certainly hope that this iteration of a student publication will succeed long after we leave this institute, it is difficult to say what the future holds. Perhaps we are simply embarking on another fool’s mission, as many have done so before; maybe we will simply be another one of the many archived attempts at a flawed GISA initiative. But that won’t stop us from trying. Transient as our institutional presence may or may not be, we still hope to leave our mark in some way or another, just as students from all these years ago have done.

What were the issues that students were preoccupied with ten years ago? To celebrate the renewal of this initiative, we’ve decided to release past issues of student publications. Thanks to some of our esteemed members of the GISA board members and PhD students who’ve been here longer, we’ve been able to recover some past editions of student publications – and what a joy they have been to read, almost like opening a time capsule. The old adage is true: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Apart from the global events that were taking place at the time, it’s striking how starkly different things were for students a decade ago – for instance, IHEID did not even exist, but was instead two different schools called HEI (L’Institut universitaire de hautes études internationals) and IUED (L’Institut universitaire d’études du développement) until 2008 – and yet, some things never change, such as the perennial concern with finding cheap eats around the city, tuition fee crises, and the dreaded online course registration server issues.

The Graduate Press is open and now accepting submissions!

Onto the goodies – here are some of the stories that capture the zeitgeist of the institute from 2006-2014. You can find the complete editions on the bookshelf in the Picciotto Common Room.

Merger between HEI and IUED

One of the foremost issues that concerned student life some ten years ago was the unification of HEI and IUED into what we know as IHEID today. The fears, uncertainties, and administrative obstacles that they had to deal with are fully explored and discussed in the February 2007 edition of Lac Leviathan.

The Evolution of Technology

Eleven years ago, Facebook had just started and course registration was still a thing! In just a decade, we’ve come to the point where we can make friends months before ever setting foot in Geneva, as well as rage at the fact that we refreshed too soon and are now number 295 in the queue for course registration.

Cheap eats around Geneva

One thing that certainly hasn’t changed around Geneva (and in fact they may have increased) is the price of food. But did you know that a meal at HEI used to cost 8 Francs? (Although that was at the old campus under a different caterer, of course.) Hmm…

And finally, a more scandalous debate: