Academic Year 2011-2012
This Spring - Ambassador Barrie Walkley
March 21, 2012
Special Representative to the Great Lakes Region of Africa, Ambassador Walkley has a long record of service on African affairs. He took part in the negotiations that led to the formation of the new country, South Sundan. His presentation will be followed by questions from a student panel selected on the basis of their knowledge of African affairs and international relations.
Chris Hedges, Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love, Dr. Anas Malik
Monday, September 12, 2011
Panel: "9/11 Plus 10: What Have We Learned?" Chris Hedges, foreign correspondent for 20 years for The New York Times; on the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for NYT coverage of global terrorism; a National Book Circle Critics finalist for War is a Force that Gives us Meaning. Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love, Associate Professor of International Relations at The Catholic University of America, author of Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda and Morality Matters: Ethics and the War on Terrorism. Dr. Anas Malik, author of Political Survival in Pakistan: Beyond Ideology and articles on political Islam, political economy, and development. Dr. Malik is Associate Professor of Political Science at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
Amy Goodman
Oct. 2, 2011
Annual Peace Pledge Ceremony, keynote speaker, Amy Goodman is host and executive producer of Democracy Now! a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 900 television an radio stations in North America. Goodman is the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the “Alternative Nobel Peace Prize.” She is also author of four New York Times bestsellers.
Kambale Musavuli
Oct. 19, 2011
Congo Week 2011, keynote speaker, Kambale Musavuli, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kambale is the national spokesperson for Friends of the Congo. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Foreign Policy in Focus, and Huffington Post. Kambale’s visit kicks off the second annual “Happy Birthday, Dear Hillary” postcard campaign aimed at making peace in the Congo a foreign policy priority for the United States.
Academic Year 2010-2011
Roshi Bernie Glassman
Thursday, March 24, 2011
The founder of Zen Peacemakers, Zen Master Bernie Glassman has become a leading proponent of social engagement as spiritual practice. He is internationally recognized as a pioneer of Buddhism in the West and as a founder of Socially Engaged Buddhism and spiritually based Social Entrepreneurship. He is regarded as one of the most creative forces in Western Buddhism, creating new paths, practices, liturgy, and organizations to serve the people who fall between the cracks of society.
Libby Spears
Monday, March 7, 2011
While traveling to the Philippines in 2001, filmmaker Libby Spears gained first hand knowledge of the horrific practice of trafficking human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation. She discovered that most of these victims were young children. What she was astonished to find was the involvement of the United States and the degree to which the U.S. was influencing the global demand and growth of the sex-trafficking industry.
Lisa F. Jackson
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
On Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s birthday, Lisa Jackson will be showing and discussing her Sundance Film Jury Prize winning documentary The Greatest Silence, Rape in the Congo. Her presentation will serve as the keynote address for the flagship event of the Dear Hillary Campaign, a Saint Michael's College based nation-wide movement asking that peace in the Congo become a foreign policy priority.
Kathy Kelly
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly will keynote the Peace and Justice Club’s annual inter-faith Peace Pledge Ceremony. Kathy is coordinator of Voices for Creative Non-violence and has been a witness for peace in conflict areas around the world, including Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Dr. Vandana Shiva, Environmental Activist
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, philosopher, and environmental and human rights activist. She is one of the most articulate spokespersons of counter-development in favor of people-centered, participatory processes. The stream of important books and articles form and challenge the agenda of development debate and action. In 1993, she won the Right Livelihood Award.
Dr. George J. Borjas & Dr. Patrick Walsh
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Dr. George J. Borjas, Harvard professor of economics, called by The Wall Street Journal, “America’s leading immigration economist,” and by The New York Times, “the pre-eminent scholar in his field,” author of many books, including Friends or Strangers: The Impact of Immigrants on the U.S Economy. Borjas and Dr. Patrick Walsh, Saint Michael's College Assistant Professor of Economics, will present a panel, moderated by Saint Michael's Professor of Geography, Richard Kujawa.
Academic Year 2009-2010
Rashied Omar & Drew Christiansen
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Can Christianity and Islam help bring about peace in the world today? The two most populous world religions have often been associated with war and violence. Come hear a Muslim imam and a Catholic priest discuss their traditions’ different perspectives on peace-making and non-violence.
Helen Caldicott
Monday, March 21, 2010
Stating “You can lead the way to a clean, green future,” Dr. Helen Caldicott, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility will speak at Saint Michael's College on the medical hazards of the nuclear age. She lectures and travels widely, and among her other projects she is establishing a new non-profit that will use social media to spread the anti-nuclear message.
John Pendergast, Tatiana Carayannis & Stephen Lewis
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
“Crisis in the Congo: Different Perspectives,” a day-long series of speakers and workshops addressing one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time.
Dr. Frederick “Skip” Burkle
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Dr. Burkle was the senior medical officer on the disaster assistance response team for USAID in the lead-up to the war in Iraq in 2003. He has consulted many humanitarian emergencies and large-scale disasters in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. An alumnus of Saint Michael's College, Dr. Burkle is currently a senior scholar and scientist at John Hopkins University, and senior fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Omar Barghouti & Dr. Steven Scheinberg
Monday, September 14, 2009
In the international peace community, the movement to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories through the use of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) has been controversial. Our speakers will debate both the fairness and effectiveness of BDS as a method of resolving the conflict.
Academic Year 2008-2009
Dr. George Lopez
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Dr. Lopez’s research focuses primarily on state violence and coercion, economic sanctions, violations of human rights and ethics, and the use of force. He has published widely in scholarly journals; he is co-editor of five books on repression and state terror, most notably, Government Violence and Repression: An Agenda for Research (1986), and he co-authored “Winning without War: Sensible Security Options for Dealing with Iraq” in 2002. This policy brief was called the most influential document for those favoring an alternative to war with Iraq.
Gregory Gause, Omar Badder & Michael Schall
Thursday, January 15, 2009
These speakers will address questions regarding the recent Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip and the hopes for long-term peace in the region. Each offers a different perspective on the current crisis in Gaza, which has taken approximately 1,000 Palestinian lives and at least 13 Israeli lives.
Evans Rubara
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Based in Dar es Salaam, Evans Rubara has written a number of articles critical of the Tanzanian government and of the gold mines in that country, which represent international corporate capitalism at its worst. The mining companies extract gold and use cyanide for processing. The gold mining companies have not put measures to control the cyanide ponds (Tailing dams) which results in contamination of water sources and is poisoning Lake Victoria. The companies avoid paying taxes and have a private air strip to shuttle the gold out of the country. They have been accused by Amnesty International of burying over 50 miners alive in an attempt to “remove” local miners by bulldozing their homes and filling in the “independent” mine shafts. Rubara has eye-witness testimony from this catastrophe; he is continuing to press for an inquiry into the miners’ deaths. For his efforts, he himself has received death threats.
Elias Chacour
Monday, November 3, 2008
Archbishop of Akka, Haifa, and Galilee of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Elias Chacour is an author and peace-activist dedicated to the cause of Arab/Israeli reconciliation. At the age of eight, he was evicted, along with his whole village, by the Israeli authorities and became a deportee and refugee, but remained in the region. He is the founder of the Mar Elias Educational Institutions, inter-faith schools which are open to Muslim, Jewish, Druze, and Christian youth. His two books, Blood Brothers and We Belong to the Land have been best-sellers. Archbishop Chacour is the recipient of several international peace awards including the World Methodist Peace Award which is bestowed annually by the World Methodist Council.
Dr. J. Larry Brown
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Dr. J. Larry Brown is widely recognized as the nation’s leading scholarly authority on domestic hunger. Director of the National Center on Hunger and Poverty, Dr. Brown is on the faculty of the Harvard-based Physicians Task Force on Hunger in America, among other major initiatives. He is the author of Hunger in America: The Growing Epidemic and has appeared on “Nightline,” “The Today Show,” and Good Morning America.”
Academic Year 2007-2008
Kathy McNeely
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
As coordinator of Maryknoll’s 2008 election project, Kathy will address the impact of U.S. policies on people and communities around the globe. Kathy has lived and worked in Washington, D.C., and has been an advocate for social change for the past 10 years. From 2005-2008, she was a Policy Analyst/Advocate for Church World Service with a specific focus on food security and international trade in agriculture, HIV/AIDS and debt. She was previously an Associate for African issues at the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, advocating and networking around issues of peace, social and economic justice, and the environment with particular attention to US-Africa policy.
Phyllis Bennis
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. and Director of its New Internationalism Program. She is also a Fellow of Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Her areas are U.S. Foreign Policy, including U.S./ United Nations relations and the Middle East, particularly Israel/Palestine and Iraq. Her latest books are Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer and Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN defy US Power.
H.W Brands
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Brands is the Dickson Alien Anderson Centennial Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of 20 books which have won critical and popular acclaim. What America Owes the World was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize in International Affairs in 1998 and The Wages of Globalization was a Choice academic book finalist. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, and the Smithsonian, among others, and he is a regular guess on national television.
William Shulz
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Schulz is the former Executive Director of Amnesty International and currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington where he is helping to draft a human rights policy for the next administration. A frequent guest on television programs such as “Good Morning America,” “The Today Show,” “Hardball,” and “Nightline,” he is the author of two books on human rights including Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights. According to the New York Review of Books, “he has done more than anyone else in the American human rights movement to make human rights known in the United States.
Academic Year 2006-2007
Stephen Lewis
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Stephen Lewis, former special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, former Canadian Ambassador to the UN, MacLean’s Man of the Year, author of the best-seller Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa, is considered one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.” Time magazine on Lewis states “There are few witnesses as eloquent and powerful as Stephen Lewis in pleading for international help to save his beloved Africa, a continent he first visited 45 years ago and has remained close to ever since. An indefatigable and passionate communicator, Lewis offers a straightforward message; "without health, poverty cannot be beaten and economic development cannot succeed.”
Lecture: Nils Daulaire & Les Roberts
Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council, and former senior health adviser to U.S. AID, is joined by Les Roberts, Columbia University epidemiologist and co-author of the Lancet report attacked by the Bush Administration that set the civilian death toll for the Iraq War at more than 600,000.
Panel: Jamie Love, Patricia Siplon & Bill Haddad
Panel on the “The Pharmaceutical Companies & Global Health” with Jamie Love, director of CP Tech, which deals with intellectual property rights and health care, and point person for the Doha Agreement which declared that poor countries should be allowed to break patent monopolies of multi-national drug companies and produce their own low-cost drugs; Patricia Siplon, SMC Associate Professor of Political Science and author of AIDS & the Policy Struggle in the U.S. and Drugs into Bodies: Global AIDS Treatment Activism, and Bill Haddad, founder and CEO of Biogenerics, a generic drug company, a founder of the generic trade association and its chairman/president for over a decade.