Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: This is the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. This is the alumni edition. Listen to the exciting story of the american community schools of Athens. Check out what drives all the members of our international community of learners as we create the education of the future.
Here's Jean Padakis.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Welcome to today's alumni edition of the Owlcast. Our guest is Costantinos Caneloplos, class of 2010, who visited our studio recently to share with us his story before, during, and after ACS Athens. An educator himself today, Kostantinos has traveled extensively following his passion for education and declares his dedication to continue working with the youth with studies in political science, economics and philosophy. He just finished his phd dissertation titled why does Greece fail? A perennial question which he tries to answer by doing a comparative analysis of the economic crises of the 1930s and 2010s.
Constantinos Canelopoulos reflects on his preparation to join ACS Athens at a time when students from greek schools were able to join the ACS Athens Academy when enrollment had just begun to rebound after a period of decline. He shares memories, describes the transition to his college studies while earning scholarships, and talks about the preparation for his current career as an academic in higher education.
His advice to the future graduates will resonate with many of them at a time of uncertainty and need for hope, focus, and perseverance.
It's not that many years that you graduated from ACS Athens, so I'm pretty sure that it's still fresh in your mind, correct?
[00:02:16] Speaker C: Very fresh. Couldn't be more fresh. And coming back to the ACS Athens campus brings back these memories, and they're very vivid.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Do you remember your first memory when you came in?
[00:02:28] Speaker C: First memory was meeting you.
So I graduated from ACS Athens in 2010. I completed my last two years of high school here at ACS Athens. It was a necessary decision for my career to transfer to an american high school in light of my ambition and determination to pursue studies in the United States.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: Did you come from greek school?
[00:02:50] Speaker C: I came from a greek school. I had just completed studies at a summer school program in the United States. I did a summer school program focusing on intensive English language at Harvard University, and it was time to take my career and my goals very seriously. And the best way to do that was to remove myself from the greek system.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Before we go into your experience with ACS Athens, I'm curious to see what was your experience preparing to come to ACS Athens. You said that you went into a summer program in the states.
That takes a little bit of decision making, and for a 15 year old at that point that takes a little bit more of not just determination, but a focus. So you went to the states. Was this an experience that you expected to have, or was it something completely foreign to what you have lived up to that point?
[00:03:50] Speaker C: Well, it wasn't my first time in the states. I had traveled to the states since my early teenage years, had traveled to Washington, DC initially, and then some trips to Orlando. But it was completely different traveling to the US under an f one student visa.
It was completely different moving as a student and living on my own for the first time. It was the summer school program, specifically focusing on intensive English. And the program focused on three core areas, politics, the environment, and issues related to human rights. And it was a fascinating program because in order to be able to transfer to ACS, I needed to make sure that my English was at the level that was required here. And it was my parents'dream to send me here because my mom also wanted to come here.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Was it conscious to you those limitations, or was it mostly the decision of the family?
[00:04:44] Speaker C: No, this was an entirely decision that I had to take on my own. It wasn't a decision that it became clear at that point in time, but the effort to try to attend and to apply for a summer school program in a competitive environment was what conveyed the limitations and shortcomings of the greek system.
The second fact that had to do with the shortcomings was that I realized that there was a system that I needed to back me up in my goals and dreams, regardless if I was overshooting myself.
And I found a home here at ACS.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: So you submit to your application, you come to the school, you register. What's your first memory from ACS?
[00:05:29] Speaker C: First memory was meeting you and then meeting with the principal, Dr. Brian Kelly, whom we had an extensive meeting with. And the meetings were facilitated with parents and with myself alone. And I had to write a personal statement. I was lucky that at the summer school at Harvard, I had written and there was an essay contest about the importance of English in our lives. So thankfully, I had a good rough draft that had guaranteed me the dean's essay prize. So I used a portion of my essay from Harvard Summer School.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: You're trying to save it now?
[00:06:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Self plagiarism is a problem, I realized later in my academic life. And then first instructor I met was Mrs. Margarita Gunares. Topics in modern history. And coincidentally, I completed a PhD focusing on economic history and contemporary politics. History. Ib was after that, and of course, the humanities course by Jason Edison Carvignaris.
These teachers made the long lasting impact. And I'll come back to that because these courses exactly what I pursued all my life until this point, this is what I've focused my life on and dedicated my life on.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: So I don't think you need a guide to go around ACS Athens. Although in the.
[00:06:47] Speaker C: I got lost.
I still got lost.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: 1415 years since you graduated, many things have changed in the campus.
Can you share a memory from those years that has to do with a specific place or a specific corner in the AC southens campus?
[00:07:05] Speaker C: Well, there are two moments I'll share. One is more personal and the other one is more community oriented. But of course they're both community oriented. The first one was sitting outside here in the amphitheater in a fall afternoon, right after lunch, students gathering and I have just arrived to the school. I just transferred here. Thankfully, there were a lot of peers that I had been acquainted with earlier, and I decided that I would love to run for class president for grade eleven. And nobody knows you, and it's all this political strategy and whatnot.
That was a very memory, trying to address these students and trying to ask for them to vote for me for a class president.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: Do you remember what you promised?
[00:07:52] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
Well, they say I'm not the type of person that goes ahead with promises.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, you're going for an election in a student body. And from what I've seen all these years, they all have something to promise to the rest of the students. Do you remember your promise?
[00:08:10] Speaker C: Well, it was the elections of 2008, so we have Barack Obama running for president against John McCain. And there is a very political environment. So I promised them hope. That's all. I think politicians should not make promises that they're overshooting themselves, but rather make promises that they can keep. So I'm not one of those individuals that will make promises I can keep. I'm a man of my word.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: You were one of the first students of my admissions career, and it's always a challenge when I have to speak to students who are coming from a non american school.
What is this that makes life different in a school like ACS?
[00:08:54] Speaker C: I came here with my wife, who's from Serbia, so we visited Julia de Catalidu, who's the dean of academics, and we held a meeting with I the first word that comes to mind, and I think she will agree with me as she volunteers. Not the youth to youth program, is the ethos of global citizenship. It's a truly global, multicultural, diverse environment which allows you to flourish because of that it's an open environment, it's a community, but more importantly, it's a home. And I see all the faculty, staff and administrators that I've been acquainted with all these years and held lifelong friendships, including yourself. It is that there are no kind of obstacles to bonding with people. And what I love the most about the school is that in contrast to the greek system, what I loved here about ACS was that they embraced my goals and dreams rather than telling me to settle for mediocrity. And ACS is a place that embraces excellence, it embraces diversity. And what I love really about know we were doing Newscoop together in my junior and senior year.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: I was looking at some pictures the other day from the event that we had done in the theater.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: Yes, and that was the second memory then that's why I said with sky television and theacosioni was moderating the discussion. That's what I loved about it. It wasn't purely focusing, it was above and beyond.
Learning was not just happening in the classroom in the traditional binary, kind of archaic way.
You think you're in a Pink Floyd music video. That's how the greek system was to me.
I think the song and it could be my musical preferences affecting me here. But really what it was, it was that sense of community and that sense of shared belonging. Even if it was only two years, these were the most brilliant times of my life. And I created friendships for the rest of my life that I could never ever dream of.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Do you still keep contact with these.
[00:11:10] Speaker C: People initially right after graduation and you go to college and some bonds that in high school they hadn't reached that level. After high school they reached completing another level in the sense of the shared experiences. So one of the individuals that I haven't been able to keep in touch with, and I really wish I did, but we are both not in the social media cycle, is Daniel Speckhard with whom we spent. We had some fantastic Thanksgiving dinner. So it was that sense, but the international sense too, the diversity that you see here, but also the fact that individuals, they come together to learn and the sense that students were teaching each other.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: I think that I would like to stress that from what you just said, it's not, as you said, the binary system of teacher versus student. And what we like to say is that the teacher does not teach. The teacher allows the student to find the ways to learn on his own. The idea is to find people who know how to think, but think critically. And if you think in a critical way, it doesn't matter. If I tell you something that is wrong, I know that you're going to take it, you're going to research it, you're going to go back to the source, you're going to come back and you're going to say, you know what, you're mistaken. That's what we would like to see of our students. And thankfully, if you see the graduates profile that we have as a school, that's exactly what we're looking for, and you are approved. So if you would fill us in, in your life after ACS, you graduated here in 2010.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: Yeah. So thanks to the excellent guidance and I think the accommodations of the various administrators associated with the college application, the.
[00:13:09] Speaker B: Counseling, now we call it the center for student success.
[00:13:13] Speaker C: That's why I didn't want to use it. Okay, so the former counselors, you remember your counselor? Oh, yes, it was, but there was a transition before that.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:24] Speaker C: So I had to go to summer school. So I did another summer school my last year at ACS.
And that summer school focused on. I took a course on globalization and terrorism, again at Harvard Summer School and a course on political philosophy. So these experiences were essentially what shaped my decision for what I wanted to decide to pursue my undergraduate studies in. And so I am at ACS and we have these college visits that happen. So the admissions counselor from American University in Washington D. C, Evelyn Levinson, had come to ACS to present the school, know, meet with the students. And that was the first school I got in, and it was the school I ended up pursuing my studies. So I did a double major at american university in Washington D. C. What fields? So my first major was international relations, and my second major was philosophy. So what ACS allowed me to do, which carried me to my undergrad, was I did an internship at a member of parliament. At the time, Kiyakuz Mitsotakis was at that point in time holding the portfolio. He was shadow minister for energy and climate Change. So the thing was that while being at ACS, I started an ngo called the Forum for the union of the Mediterranean, which focused on raising awareness on climate change in the mediterranean countries in the mediterranean basin to combat climate change. And I held an event with various embassy representatives. Of course, I passed the torch to Greta Thunberg. So I'm very happy about that. I started off with international relations. I was fascinated with international events. And of course, graduating from a high school like ACS was the perfect place for that.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: And my follow up question to this is, why philosophy?
[00:15:07] Speaker C: Why philosophy?
[00:15:08] Speaker B: This is quite rare.
[00:15:09] Speaker C: Well, philosophy is the love of wisdom. And who doesn't love wisdom? And when you read Plato's apology, I don't think there is a text that can shape you more as a person in terms of self examination, self reflection. The things that my instructors and teachers here at ACS were trying to tell me in trips like in Delphi, unoffice after know thyself, the ancient Apollo, and Maxim.
You have that humanities background? Well, philosophy actually helped me principally with my writing. I developed a lot of analytical writing skills through majoring in philosophy, but also I was able to kind of have foundations to engage in critical thinking and robust analysis that were quintessential for pursuing master's studies and of course, completing a doctorate PhD.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: You are listening to the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: What's fascinating to me is that you didn't just do philosophy, you did it in an american university. I mean, if you. If you were in a greek university, okay, you know, this is a philosophy course. It's greek, it's ancient greek. It's all about Greece. But to go to an american university and being fascinated by the philosophy as a field of study and then combine it with what you did on your master's program. What was your master's program?
[00:16:45] Speaker C: Yeah. So in between my graduation from acs and my undergraduate studies, I started an internship in Washington, DC at the greek embassy. And in between, this small thing called the greek crisis happens, which transforms everything.
You think that the next big thing is climate change, and it is important, but then you find your country at the eye of the cyclone of a global financial catastrophe. That's the worst. Even, perhaps we could say in retrospect, worse than the Great Depression. Well, that changed everything. So then I pivoted to european studies and focusing on Europe. And, of course, you had to acquaint yourself with economics. You needed to undertake formal economic training and to be economically and financially literate. So in the middle of all this, as Greece confronts itself and is on the brink of default, the European Union integration projects which we had taken for granted and of course, has been supported by the US. And these bonds between the two sides of the pond that we take for granted, sometimes we see some challenges there, and your country is receiving the largest bailout that any country has received. The social political situation is completely fragile and getting worse. So my philosophy professors convinced me to pursue the major in philosophy because I was so passionate. Of course, a Greek analyzing ancient Greeks is fascinating for the instructors themselves, I'm sure. And I was bringing the ancient greek text the original text and the greek perspective. And the greek perspective.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Think about it like this.
[00:18:25] Speaker C: Yes. Especially with words like Eudemonia. When you get to Aristotle and you get to ethics, which is. I'm teaching ethics right now.
That's where you see the vitality and the shared perspective. I applied for my master's in a very, very financially difficult situation. So I got a full scholarship from Stavros Nyahus foundation to pursue my master's at the Johns Compkins School of Advanced international Studies. And then my first year of my master's in Bologna, which was also where the european and eurasian studies was also based off. Then 2015 happens, 2015. I remember I was taking summer courses in Washington, DC. So I'm returning back to Washington, DC after completing my first year of my master's studies in Bologna. It was international economics and international relations, the program. It was a difficult transition to become formally trained as an economist. And of course, being greek did not help.
I was very good with macro, but horrible with micro. Like our peers in the politics at that point in time, a very vivid memory was being in Greece, getting a haircut, talking to a greek barber and.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Him asking an actual haircut?
[00:19:43] Speaker C: An actual haircut.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Not the financial one.
[00:19:46] Speaker C: Not a financial haircut, no, that had happened in 2012. We got two of those and then we got another one.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: I was referring to the greek haircut.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. When our prime minister at that point in time wore a tie for the first time and the only time, well, there was this moment, you get the haircut and you're talking about the politics, and we still haven't gone ahead with the referendum. And I tell the barber, hey, listen, don't worry, we're going to do a somersault. It's going to be a colotuba. We're going to be great. Don't worry. By the time I finish the haircut, my phone is catching on fire, both of my phones. And they haven't announced the referendum. And I realized there that the greatest accomplishment of the baby boomer generation, my parents, what did they contribute to us? That Greece became a part of NATO in 1952 and Greece became a part of the European Economic Community, which then became the European Union. These were the biggest things that was all in question. There was no certainty. And in the middle of all this, you're like, what's going to happen? So there I go, the day that they announced the referendum, there are all these events. I love the think tank in the DC beltway, in Dupont Circle. I go to CSIS, who's the speaker? Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF. What is she talking about? Climate change, global warming, and how the IMF is pivoting towards that. What does the ACS alumnus do? He goes there and he raises his hand when the q a comes. What is the IMF's position on this matter? And the question to her was whether the IMF was liable or responsible, whether they supported this situation not directly, but indirectly. And I was sitting next to a journalist from a channel who was a correspondent in DC, and they thought that he had put me on the job. So then that's what I did.
I went to the State department, asked questions to see what was happening. So then I finished my master's in 2016. Greece is not out of the cyclone, out of the crisis yet, but the situation seems to be stabilizing. I complete my master's, and at that point in time, my objective was to pursue a fellowship at Chatham House. And Chatham House had a fellowship open for young, early career professionals in policy and politics and policymaking to focus and do a project on the european integration. The idea was basically to do a project about the United States of Europe, european federalism, and to participate in various interviews. The fellowship was accepted. However, Brexit happened, and all the funding for that fellowship focusing on the European Union, was withdrawn. So then I decided that I wanted to pursue a PhD. It was a dream that I was born at this very place.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: So, briefly, where are you at this point? I mean, your career right now is an academic one, correct?
[00:22:53] Speaker C: Yeah. Principally, I am in a transitionary phase in my career. I am transitioning from the University of Manchester, where, in addition to completing my phd, focusing on a comparative examination of the greek crisis and the Great Depression through the prism of historical institutionalism.
And as I'm transitioning now, I'm holding a role at UAsis, the University association for Contemporary European Studies, which is essentially a consortium for scholars focusing on european politics, on Europe, broadly defined, as we say it. And I'm focusing on, actually on events management. But on the other hand, currently I'm involved as a managing director of a private postsecondary educational institution, Southeastern, which started from the same campus at Tatoyu and Strait, that ACS started in 1945.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: You know your history.
[00:23:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
And at this point in time, in addition to that, I'm working on study abroad, facilitating study abroad programs in collaboration with us universities.
What is the bottom line? Is that coming to ACS and the inspiration and motivation, I. Gosh, from my instructors, my mentors, the administration, individuals like yourself, like Dr. G. Like Dr. Kelly, I decided to commit myself to being an educator.
I am at the university level right now after completing my phd and also facilitating teaching in the UK. I teach courses focusing on politics, political science. I teach a course on the European Union, teach a course on introduction to philosophy, also teach courses in economics, and also handling the entire process of recruiting faculty. But in addition to that, I'm also working with a study abroad. And the ACS was the place. It was so contagious, in the most positive sense of the word. And I decided that I wanted to pursue my life and career doing that. Committing myself to education, to critical thinking, the hallmark of the american educational system, its modus operandi. To be honest with you, I don't think that our generation and that we can define ourselves by a profession. Look at you, you're a director of admissions, but you built a beta when you did newscoop, and now you have here basically a school of journalism.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: That's where we started the first project, right?
[00:25:35] Speaker C: That's another thing. The skills, the diversity of skill set, and you building on your skills, the transferable skills. So I learned from you with the ideas and of course with Dr. G. I need to make a comment about that one. When we were at the gala, I didn't mention it, but I made a brief reference, I think the most vivid memory that completely differentiates acs. So the late Dr. G and I, we were doing the new scoop, and the newscoop was comprised about twelve students. Daniel Speckhardt was principally the editor, and I was working also on the editorial team. And before we did the big event here at the ACS afitheater, there was an opportunity when we had released the newscoop, which focused on the israeli palestinian.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Conflict, which is more relevant than ever.
[00:26:24] Speaker C: Yes, I think, Dr. Jean, yourself, you foresaw things.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: It was a collective from the academy effort, if you remember, with Brian Kelly and everybody, and especially the counseling team, because that was as Madeiros. That's right. Mr. Madeiros was there, Dr. Peloni was there. So the idea is to give these opportunities to students, and we still do. There are different kinds of projects now. But I think what you mentioned as a project, the palestinian israeli documentary, but.
[00:26:57] Speaker C: I think marbles was your number two.
I created debates in my courses out of the things that you wanted to explore.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: The thing is that from what I see, from what you're mentioning, the experience that you draw from ACS has helped you in your career. And my last question to you is, you're talking to a group of seniors, you're talking to a group of juniors to become seniors from your career. As I said before, it's very clear that you were able to overcome so many obstacles, situational obstacles. What would you advise those students who are here? They see what's going on in the world. We have two major wars going on in our neighborhood. We see the commerce being disrupted all over the world by what is happening, and they're full of insecurity of what is going to be their world in the next 5678 years. So from your end, thinking critically, thinking ethically, thinking philosophically, what would you tell them? What would you advise them?
[00:28:09] Speaker C: Now I feel old.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: Well, you're not an 18 year old anymore, definitely.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: Well, first and foremost, I think I would tell them to chase their dreams because they're at ACS, they're at the right place. They're at the right place at the right time in the face of adversity, in the face of challenges. They need to not give up. I'm not going to go back to masters and philosophy in my lectures. They should never give up and they should have hope. And most importantly, to be grateful, that you should be grateful for what you have, prepare for the worst and hope for the better. But at the same time, if they commit themselves to their goals and dreams and they invest their entirety of themselves towards that end, they'll be successful.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Class of 2010, thank you for stopping by. Thank you for the whole tour that you did of your academic career. I think it's definitely inspirational, the things that you've done, and you're always welcome to come and visit and share other memories at some other point that we didn't have time to explore at this time. Thank you so much.
[00:29:21] Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me, John. It's a real pleasure.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: You are listening to the Owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. Make sure you subscribe to the owlcast on Google Podcasts, Spotify and couple podcasts. This has been a production of the ACS Athens Media studio.
