Dr. Edward Drachman is much more than a professor in the mix of faculty here at Geneseo. While he works in the political science and international relations department, he is also greatly involved on campus and in the surrounding community and has a fascinating past.
Drachman has been a part of the Geneseo faculty since the fall of 1991. Prior to working at Geneseo, he was a professor at Boston University as well as the University of Hartford in Connecticut.
According to Drachman, he was attracted to Geneseo because, "one of my former colleagues, who was a professor here at the time, had told me about Geneseo and what a good experience it was to be a professor here. It was through his encouragement and awareness of the position that I applied."
This semester, Drachman is teaching three courses; Introduction to International Relations; Politics of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean; and Politics of Genocide - a course created last year that is now taught regularly.
"I developed the course because it is very important to understand what has happened and what is currently happening [regarding genocide]," Drachman said.
Besides teaching these courses, Drachman serves as one of the advisors for the Model UN club and is the director of a Geneseo-student volunteer tutoring program in Rochester sponsored by the Puerto Rican Youth Development and Resource Center. This program allows students to work with at-risk youngsters in the city of Rochester.
"Technically, the students are there to help with homework but there is much more to it than that," he said. "Students unofficially serve as mentors and talk to the kids about college and what they might want to do after school."
He has long had an interest in urban schools. In the past, he has also worked as a tutor for individual students in the second and third grades to improve their reading skills, which he believes is a very important issue.
Drachman has an impressive number of degrees and articles under his belt. He earned his bachelor's degree in government from Harvard College, graduating cum laude. He received his M.A. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.A.T. in social studies from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He received his Ph.D. in international relations at the University of Pennsylvania.
He has also published articles that concentrate on various topics ranging from controversial cases in American politics to access to higher education for undocumented students.
"There are many areas, domestically and internationally, that interest me," Drachman said. His current research focuses upon the resegregation of American public schools.
The most gossip buzzing around Drachman concerns his work for the CIA. The rumor is indeed true; Drachman worked as an intelligence analyst for the CIA during the Cold War. When asked about this exciting time in his life, Drachman jokingly responded, "Well I can't tell you all of my secrets!"
The position was his first professional job in the field of international relations after graduate school.
"The area that I was responsible for was Soviet policy toward the Far East and South and Southeast Asia," he said.
Other fascinating aspects of his life is that he lived in East Germany when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, and also was present for Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C. in 1963.
"We got so caught up in the emotion that we ended up marching ourselves," he recounted.
Drachman currently lives in Penfield, N.Y., just outside of Rochester. He enjoys playing the piano, and is an avid sports fan. Growing up in Boston, Drachman supports the Boston Red Sox and is also a big Boston Celtics fan.