Haile menkerios biography sample

What was your idea of perfect happiness when you were at Brandeis?

Driving into Waltham in the evening with friends for pizza.

When or where were you most miserable at Brandeis?

When Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. I was enraged.

Who was your favorite Brandeis professor?

Ruth Morgenthau, professor of international politics.

Where did you usually spend Saturday night?

Parties on campus, visiting friends in Cambridge.

What is the most important value you learned at Brandeis?

The importance of social awareness, and a commitment to positive engagement in affecting life around me.

Which talent did Brandeis help you develop most?

Listening — there was so much to grasp that was new to me, that I didn’t know and wanted to learn.

What do you wish you had studied harder?

History. I hardly took any history courses, and had to read and study on my own after college.

What three words of advice would you give to current Brandeis students?

Listen, learn, engage.

If you could go back to college, what would you do differently?

Not much, really.

What would your friends say is your greatest strength?

Probably my commitment to social change, to fight for what I believed, even with my life. I joined the armed struggle for liberation in Eritrea soon after graduation and fought for 18 years.

What would your friends say is your greatest weakness?

That I am quick-tempered at times and react quickly but regret later.

What is your blind spot?

I can’t see the obvious negative when I love.

What book do you read again and again?

I haven’t had the time to do that often. Engagement in war during my youth and in conflict resolution — the mediation between social forces in conflict — as a later profession forced me to constantly have to deal with crises throughout my life.

What movie changed your life?

“Z” really affected me, though I can’t say it changed my life.

Which possession do you most like to look at?

Our cattle when I was young, and the plants in our apartment in later life.

Whom would you like to sing a duet with?

Aretha Franklin, although I would stop right away so I didn’t spoil her great voice.

Which deadly sin is your middle name?

Smoking. I did it since my time at Brandeis until December 2010, when repeated pneumonia gave me the hint I might go before I saw the [January 2011] South Sudanese referendum through unless I stopped. And I did.

Which bad break was your biggest blessing?

Being appointed ambassador of Eritrea to Ethiopia at the hardest time — right after separation.

On your deathbed, what will you be most grateful for?

That I was satisfied with what I did to make a difference in the lives of some people.