EDUCATION PROFILE:US Mitchell scholar Alec Schierenbeck wants to learn all he can about Ireland, writes LOUISE HOLDEN

“Why can’t the Irish get their act together? What are they going to do after I’m gone?”

A meeting with an Irish delegation in Washington in the 1990s prompted the late US senator Ted Kennedy to fret for the health of the Irish-American connection. According to his former foreign policy adviser, Trina Vargo, Kennedy feared that if he was not on the end of the phone the Irish relationship with the US might languish.

Enter 22-year-old Alec Schierenbeck.

Schierenbeck, who has just started a Master’s in International Relations in UCD, comes fresh from a degree programme in political science at Grinnell College in Iowa. His involvement in student politics on campus at Grinnell was to prove instrumental in the election of Barack Obama earlier this year.

“I moved from New York to the Midwest to college and got involved with the college Democrats pretty early on,” says Schierenbeck, who does not come from a political background but from a “politically literate household”.

“I became the youth outreach officer for the Democrats’ chapter at my school. We were involved in an aggressive campaign to bring freshmen students into the process. I cut my teeth on the mobilisation of voters at Grinnell.”

As a result of this campaign, this year in Iowa there was a higher voter turnout for under 29s than for over 65s, for the first time in US history.

Schierenbeck has come to Ireland through the Mitchell Scholarship programme, conceived by Vargo to address Kennedy’s fears about the future of Irish-American relations. Every year for the past decade, the programme has brought 12 future US leaders to Ireland, where they spend the year studying and, hopefully, build lasting connections with the country. Schierenbeck is one of this year’s dozen.

Vargo served as Kennedy’s foreign policy adviser for 10 years. She points out the threats to Ireland’s profile in the US. “Fewer Irish people have left for the US in the last decade, and the success of the peace process has shifted US foreign policy emphasis away from Ireland.”

Through the Mitchell programme, it is hoped that Ireland can establish new bonds based on culture, science, education and business, rather than romance, roots and patronage.

“In the early years the programme attracted predictable candidates, with interests in Anglo-Irish studies and peace studies, for example,” says Vargo. “However, the profile is changing now. This year we have four physicists, for example. Word of the scholarship is spreading throughout the college network in the United States and students are coming from all disciplines.”

The George J Mitchell Scholarship is the flagship programme of the US-Ireland Alliance, a non-profit organisation started by Vargo in 1998. Within three years, the New York Times listed it as one of the most prestigious scholarships in America. “The Irish Government has committed to matching everything the alliance raises, up to €20 million, toward a permanent endowment for the program,” says Vargo.

The advantages for Ireland are obvious, she adds. Apart from creating a new generation of US leaders with an Irish connection, the programme is raising the profile of Irish universities in the US. “A number of applicants who did not succeed in getting the scholarship have ended up paying to come and study in Ireland anyway, after having their interest piqued by the application process.”

It’s no surprise, then, that the Mitchell scholars are feted in Ireland and shown the very best the country has to offer.

Although Alec Schierenbeck has only spent a couple of weeks in the country, he’s already getting to grips with the Irish political scene.

“There’s a lot going on here at the moment, and I have plenty to learn about Ireland and Europe,” he says, adding that a snap election would be a useful learning exercise for him if happened in the next few months. He already has some observations about the level of voting among students in Ireland.

“We encouraged high rates of voter registration at Grinnell using a range of methods, including Facebook, activism and volunteering. We also brought Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to campus – that created a lot of excitement. Obama was such a phenomenon that we had to set up overflow rooms with CCTV cameras to accommodate the crowds.”

Schierenbeck’s leadership won him attention and led to his election to run the statewide College and Young Democrats of Iowa. As president during a caucus year (when Democrats and Republicans choose a candidate to run for president), Alec raised the youth vote to 52,000 young Democrats, an increase of 30,000 from the previous nomination year.

The Iowa caucuses attract attention because Iowa is always the first state in the US to complete the nominating process, and the results traditionally serve as a first indicator of the national trend. Consequently, Schierenbeck went on to be elected as vice-president of the College Democrats of America at the Democratic Convention in Denver.

“One of the things that benefited our campaign enormously was the US system that allows students to register to vote in either their hometown or their college town,” he says. “Many students would not have gone home to vote, but we organised a huge drive to get them to register on campus. That made a big difference to the number of students that voted.

“If a similar arrangement was brought in here it would probably make a positive impact on student participation in the election process.”

Whether Schierenbeck will make his own impact on the Irish political scene is hard to say; a year is a short time, and he has a thesis to worry about. However, he plans to base his thesis on a close comparison between the security policies of the US and EU member states, such as Ireland, so he should leave here with a much better understanding of Irish public life.

“I wouldn’t have come to Ireland without the scholarship, but now that I am here I’m intrigued by the place. I have already spent time in GAA pubs on match days, which is a good way to get to know Irish people.

“I’m blown away by the granular discussions I’ve had with Irish people about the US healthcare debate – the level of awareness of our political system is impressive. I have a lot to learn in a year.”

The re-greening of America

The Mitchell Scholarship programme brings promising US graduates to Ireland, where they will, hopefully, fall in love with the country and maintain a connection to Ireland when they assume positions of leadership in the US.

The 10-year-old programme has already born fruit, as in the case of Mitchell Scholar Cassie Farrelly, who, studied Irish drama in Dublin, and brought her experience of Irish theatre writing back to New York, where she co-founded the Irish Theatre Festival, now in its second year.

The 2008 festival was an unexpected success, with 86 per cent capacity over three weeks. As a result, this year’s event is extended to five weeks, showcasing 21 productions at 12 venues.

This year’s Mitchell scholars come from a range of backgrounds. For example, Matthew Baum is a graduate of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at Yale, while Michael Solis was a Princeton Fellow. He worked for Human Rights Watch and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Santiago, Chile. They are joined by 10 other US graduates.