Careers for Change is a lecture series that brings in activists from varying fields of social justice and human rights work. The lectures are free and open to the public, and we encourage students and community members to attend.

Roy Bennett, deputy minister of agriculture and a major opposition figure in Zimbabwe

Date: Tuesday, Oct. 4
Time: 12:30 p.m.
Place: Room 1117, UCC
Free and open to the public

Bennett is treasurer of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe’s opposition political party headed by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. He has been imprisoned repeatedly by President Robert Mugabe’s government, faced intimidation and physical attacks on himself and his family, and lived for several years in exile in South Africa.

Read more about Roy Bennett

Past Lectures

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Refugees: Is the International Protection Regime Failing the World’s Most Vulnerable Individuals?

Tuesday, April 13, 12:30-1:30 p.m. 1117 University Capitol Centre

Neil Grungras Founder and Executive Director of ORAM (Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration).

ORAM is the first NGO devoted to protecting LGBT refugees worldwide. Grungras is an internationally known expert in matters of LGBT refugee law and procedure, he will examine the legal and procedural instruments and systems currently in place to support these persecuted and vulnerable individuals. The lecture will present international law and procedure against an analysis of ethno-cultural realities in selected sites in the Global South.

The past year witnessed an unprecedented lethal epidemic of violence against sexual minorities in several locations around the world. These acts, described by some as “moral cleansing,” drive thousands of persons to escape their home countries in search of safety.

This event is co-hosted by the UI Center for Human Rights, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center, the Iowa City Human Rights Campaign, and the Department of Gender, Women’s, & Sexuality Studies.

Journey to a Girl’s School in Pakistan

Friday, March 5, from 12:30-1:30 p.m. in room S301 of the Lindquist Center

Jane Cranston, Lecturer for the University of Iowa College of Education, will discuss her 2009 trip to Pasrur, Pakistan to visit a girls’ boarding school built by First Presbyterian Church in Iowa City. Jane works to arrange educational sponsorships for impoverished girls in Pakistan. Jane will present a video of her trip and discuss some of the challenges for girls’ education in that part of the world.

Fall 2009 Lecture Series

David Maus, Field Organizer for Bread for the World, will speak about food security and insecurity

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 4:30 p.m. in 1117 University Capitol Centre

David Maus is currently Bread for the World's Field Organizer for the Upper Midwest. David has previously lived and worked in several developing countries, most recently Laos, where he worked for a local NGO on a project to revive traditional Lao textile arts and provide young women with economic opportunities and training in a region plagued by sex trafficking.

At Bread for the World, David works on building support for federal legislation aimed at improving America's foreign aid policies and reducing hunger domestically and internationally. David has also spent time in Russia and China and can boast to having been detained by Russian police and getting off without paying a bribe.

Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our nation's decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. By changing policies, programs and conditions that allow hunger and poverty to persist, we provide help and opportunity far beyond the communities in which we live. Bread for the World collaborates with other organizations to build the political commitment needed to overcome hunger and poverty.

Ambassador Kenneth Quinn Speaks About World Hunger

Monday, November 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm in Room 22 Schaeffer Hall

Kenneth M. Quinn, former U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia and one of his generation’s most decorated foreign officials, assumed the leadership of the World Food Prize on January 1, 2000. Following the profound vision of Norman Borlaug, he has endeavored to establish the annual prize of $250 000 as “the Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture”. Ambassador Quinn’s own insight on agriculture and foreign affairs led to the final eradication of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. His plan on agricultural enhancements and rural roads dramatically improved the lives of Cambodian farmers during his term as U.S. Ambassador.

Kenneth Quinn also served as Rural Development advisor in the Mekong Delta; on the national Security Council staff at the White House; as Narcotics Counselor at the U.S. mission to the United Nations; for four years as Chairman of the U.S. Inter-agency Task Force on POW/MIAs. He was also the Director of Iowa SHARES, an initiative that sends Iowa physicians, medical staff and supplies to Cambodian refugees.

As a fluent speaker of Vietnamese, he served as the personal interpreter for President Ford during high level meetings at the White House. He was also able to negotiate the first ever U.S. search for POWs in a Vietnamese prison. His role in humanitarian endeavors and diplomatic aptitude has implored international recognition. For more information on Kenneth Quinn’s career please visit www.worldfoodprize.org.

Gebisa Ejeta-2009 World Food Prize Winner

Building Partnerships to Enhance Global Development

Dr. Gebisa Ejeta is an agronomy professor at Purdue University in Indiana.  This year he is also the recipient of the World Food Prize, which has often been called the Nobel Prize for Food. The World Food Prize was established in 1986 by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Norman E. Borlaug. It honors individuals from all walks of life who have made outstanding contributions to the quality, quantity or availability of food around the world.
Dr. Ejeta won the $250,000 World Food Prize for his monumental contributions in the production of sorghum, one of the world’s five principal cereal grains.  His invention of a drought and weed resistant variety of sorghum has dramatically enhanced the food supply of hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa.
Gebesa Ejeta is viewed as a national hero in his home country of Ethiopia. His inspirational story began in a hut in rural Ethiopia, and has led him to the heights of academic success. His journey is a testament to the pursuit of dreams.
Dr. Ejeta will be honored for his achievements on October 15 at the World Food Prize International Symposium in Des Moines. But first he will come to share his insight on global hunger and its solutions with the UI community on October 13. Don’t miss the opportunity to meet this incredible speaker, and learn how a career in science can lead you down a human rights path.
For more information please visit the World Food Prize web site at: www.worldfoodprize.org
Date and Time: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 1:00 pm in Room 1117 University Capitol Centre in the Old Capitol Mall.

Careers for Change: Wall Street Journalist Roger Thurow

Enough is enough: Iowa Alumni and Wall Street Journalist discusses new book, Enough

Co-author of the world-renowned book “Enough”, and Iowa alumni, Roger Thurow will be giving a guest lecture for the UI Community. Thurow has been a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal for twenty years, and in 2004, he and his co-author Scott Kilman were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for their coverage of 3 instances of famine in 2003. The duo also wrote Enough, which is a gripping picture of hunger painted in the personal accounts of African families.
In Africa, hunger is the real deadly disease, killing as many people as AIDS and malaria combined. Thurow and Kilman shrewdly analyze world patterns leading to such crippling hunger in an age of unprecedented excess. Why does hunger persists if all resources to squash it are available? The authors break-down the causes of famine, and it’s not the usual susupect drought, but rather ineffectual policies and neglect. Enough discusses the agricultural revolution failed to reach Africa, and how despite of our best intentions, policies on hunger have fallen short of relief. But Thurow and Kilman are not cynics. They believe the possibility of a solution to world hunger. Enough argues that we are the chosen generation. We can be the ones to put an end to this unnecessary killer.
Welcome the Iowa Alum back to campus, as he discusses the true causes of hunger, and the means to its end.                    
F or more information on the authors, book, and tour dates please visit: www.enoughthebook.com
Date and Time: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 12:00 pm in E146 Adler Journalism Building

Fall 2008 Lecture Series

Ashley Hoffman
Outreach Coordinator at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, UI Alumni.
October 9 - 4:00 p.m.
Room 1117 University Capitol Centre

Anne Fadiman
Details TBA
March 9 - 7:30 p.m.
Papajohn Building

Spring 2008 Lecture Series

Laurie Garrett
Award-winning journalist, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations
March 10 - 2:00-3:30 p.m.
Room 1100 University Capitol Centre

Trudy Petersen
Former Acting Archivist of the United States, UI visiting professor
April 8 - 1:30 p.m.
Room 302 Shaeffer Hall

Fall 2007 Lecture Series

Ibrahim Ahmed Elbadawi
Lead Economist, World Bank Development Economic Research Group
September 7 - 12:40-1:20 p.m.
Room 1117 University Capitol Centre

Ann Lion Coleman
U.S. President's Plan for Emergency AIDS Relief
"A Career in Global Health: Highlights and Lowlights"
October 1 - 7 p.m.
Room 1117 University Capitol Centre

Philip Nelson
Food Scientist, 2007 World Food Prize Laureate
October 15 - 7 p.m.
Room 1117 University Capitol Centre