Senior political science and history major Christina Griffin was one of 15 college students selected for a recent trip to Israel sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League.

The “Current and Future Leaders Study Mission to Israel” offered students an opportunity to get a close-up look at the issues surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to learn the history of the modern Jewish state.

“The trip gave me the opportunity to see things for myself and consequently derive my own perspectives and analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Griffin says.

Students also were given the opportunity to tour Israel and engaged in a series of briefings with a broad spectrum of voices from Israeli and Palestinian perspectives. The group met with Israeli government officials and Palestinian representatives. “We spent the majority of our time in Jerusalem where we visited with various scholars-in-residence, students, journalists, police and military officials,” Griffin says. “We also went sightseeing, visiting the Separation Barrier, the Wailing Wall and the path that Jesus took on what came to be known as Palm Sunday.”

Griffin is president of Southwestern’s College Republicans and is a state executive officer of the Texas Federation of College Republicans. She was invited to apply for the ADL program, which selected students based on their leadership in student government organizations and their plans for careers in politics or public service. The trip was funded by a grant from the Charles and Mildred Schnurmacher Foundation.

After graduation, Griffin plans to work for an international law firm in Houston and then move to Washington, D.C., to attend law school.