Buxton Urges CEU Students to Take Risks during Inaugural SPP Faculty Practitioner Career Talk

“You have to be willing to take risks. You may fail. Be honest about your failures. It is how you recover from those failures that’s important.” That was some of the advice that SPP Acting Dean and Professor of Comparative Politics Julia Buxton gave to CEU students during the inaugural SPP Faculty Practitioner Career Talk on January 19. She also urged students to look for – and seize – opportunities as they come up. “Life is short. Try to take advantage of the time in your life when you have fewer responsibilities – family, a mortgage. Your 20s and 30s pass quickly.”

Buxton recounted her career path that took her from a teenage interest in the Manchester club scene to activism around AIDS and race issues in her twenties, to being an internationally recognized drug policy expert and Latin American specialist. There were many steps along the way and, according to Buxton, most of them were unplanned. She credited the influence of “key individuals” she met along the way – people like her PhD advisor George Philip, who urged her to work on Venezuela at a time when “everyone else” was working on Chile or Mexico, and Bernardo Alvarez, the late Venezuelan ambassador to Washington who she met during her fieldwork

It was because of the decision to study Venezuela that Buxton found herself one of the few western academics with expertise on the country when Hugo Chavez was elected its president in 1998.  Although she still works on Latin America, Buxton has also developed other interests and areas of expertise on, for example, drugs and later gender. She has also done extensive work outside of Latin America, including six years working on issues related to post-conflict peace consolidation in Nepal and three years working on a capacity development project with a women’s university in Pakistan. “I was broadening out,” said Buxton. “I urge you to do the same.” The point that Buxton made most often during her remarks, however, was the importance of being “an ethical and principled person.”

Thursday’s talk was the first in a series of faculty practitioner career talks that SPP Career Services is organizing this term.  On February 2, SPP Assistant Professor Cameran Ashraf will be speaking about his work in the areas of human and digital rights. “We are very grateful to Julia for sharing her story and career insights with students. SPP is fortunate to be able to draw on the experience and openness of our faculty practitioners. These talks are an important part of our careers education programming for the current academic year,” said Ann Gagliardi, director of SPP’s Career Services and Alumni Relations.