All articles

In an upcoming presentation April 22, James R. Brennan, an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, seeks to dispel layers of misinformation about controversial African politician Oscar Kambona's life and show what the political stakes of his biography are in Tanzania today.

Zach Heffernen stumbled into his passion. He was handed a book his freshman year at the University of Iowa focusing on human rights and was hooked from the start.

“It started with my freshman year, the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights had a program called One Treaty, One Book,” he said. “Each incoming freshman received a book about child soldiers in Africa. I wanted to help … I went to Senegal last summer and got involved in other human-rights organizations. It all started with the center.”

Senior BSN student Jeannette George has an unquenchable zest for knowledge... and for life.In addition to some of the prestigious, domestic accolades she’s already collected in her young career, including the 2013 Dean's Achievement Award, George has also been actively involved with health care research on an international level. She recently took time out of her hectic schedule to talk about and her experience at UI, her inspirations as well as some of her career aspirations.

Cristina Ortiz remembers growing up as part of the lone Latino family in Leon, Iowa, a tiny town in south central Iowa with less than 2,000 residents.

“My paternal grandparents were Mexican-American migrant workers, and the Latino population in Leon was basically my family,” says the 32-year-old University of Iowa anthropology doctoral student who is pursuing research that includes the Chin Burmese refugee population in Columbus Junction, Iowa, her new home during graduate school.

Julio César Pérez Hernández, one of the leading architects in Cuba today, will present “Havana: The Magic of Architecture and the Poetry of Design” on Wednesday, April 10, 2013, from 4:30-5:30 p.m. in Phillips Hall, Room 315. This talk is free and open to the public.

My grandma, Youa Lee, an old Hmong woman who traveled from the mountains of Laos, through the refugee camps of Thailand, to the hot fields of California and the cold factories of Minnesota, was 93 when she died. My grandma was a refugee from America’s Secret War in Laos. A widow with nine children, she raised seven sons into men and two daughters into women. She would become the root of a tree that carries the fruit of more than 300 descendants.

You may recognize her striking face from fashion spreads in Elle and Vogue or the Victoria's Secret runway, but Alek Wek has another story to tell. Not that of an international supermodel but of the struggles of life as a refugee.

On April 5, Wek will tell the story of her personal journey as a refugee and her current work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) when she appears as a guest on International Programs’ WorldCanvass television and radio program as part of the UI Provost’s Global Forum on Refugees in the Heartland. WorldCanvass will be held in the Old Capitol Senate Chamber from 5 to 7 p.m., on Friday, April 5, 2013, and the public is invited to attend.