BUniverse

U.S./Iran Negotiations: What Is at Stake?

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:00:00 EDT

Iranian experts, a foreign journalist, and a Massachusetts state representative discuss the future of Iran-U.S negotiations, reflecting on the recent agreement by Iran to allow international inspection of its new uranium enrichment plan, the possibility of Iran’s developing an atomic bomb, and Iran’s Green Movement against the current government. The discussion is moderated by Hengameh Saberi, a visiting assistant professor in the School of Law.

Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former member of Iran’s reform Parliament, argues that the Green Movement in Iran is the main reason for the country’s current compliance, since it can’t effectively fight domestic and international battles at the same time. If the movement continues to flourish, she says, there’s a good chance that the government will maintain its cooperative stance on the nuclear issue. Kamran Dadkhah, an associate professor of economics at Northeastern University, on the other hand, says that the movement has failed. The world can either accept that Iran has atomic bombs, he says, or go to war with the country. Since both options are “hard to swallow,” he says, America resorts to sanctions, which will never work because “Iranians are born negotiators.”

Representative Denise Provost (LAW’82), representative from Massachusetts 27th Middlesex District, discusses her opposition to the divestment bill passed by the U.S. House in October which she argues is designed to “marginalize” and “demonize” Iran, pushing the country towards further disengagement. The bill, she argues, is incompatible with President Obama’s intention for diplomatic relations with Iran. Ahmad Rafat, an Iranian journalist, however, says that Obama’s effort toward improved relations anger the previously pro-American Iranians, who have started to hate the United States for recognizing a government that the people do not support.

October 21, 2009, 1 p.m.

Barristers Hall

Video Length is 01:33:06.

About the speakers:

Kamran Dadkhah is an associate professor of economics at Northeastern University. His areas of interest include econometrics, macroeconomics, international economics, and Middle Eastern economies. He has published numerous articles and two books, Foundations of Mathematical and Computational Economics (2006) and The Evolution of Macroeconomics Theory and Policy (2009). He earned a bachelor’s degree from Tehran University, a master’s and a Ph.D. from Indiana University, and a master’s from Northeastern University.

Fatemeh Haghighatjoo is a visiting professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She previously taught at MIT, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and the University of Connecticut. She has lived in exile in the United States for five years after serving as one of the youngest members in the Iranian Parliament. Nicknamed the “Lion Woman” of Iran, she continues to push for democracy in Iran.

Denise Provost is the state representative from the 27th Middlesex District of Massachusetts. After serving as a Somerville assistant city solicitor, working as an attorney in private practice, and being a neighborhood activist, she was elected representative in January 2006. Her legislative work has focused on public health, transportation, and the environment.

Ahmad Rafat is an Iranian journalist. He was chief correspondent for Italy and the Middle East for over 21 years for the Spanish newspaper Tiempo. In 2008 he won the Iliaria Alpi award, presented by the Italian chapter of Reporters Without Borders.

Hengameh Saberi is a visiting assistant professor in the School of Law. She is an S.J.D candidate at Harvard Law School. She earned LL.M.s from Harvard Law School and McGill University, and a Bachelor of Law and a Master of International Law from Tehran University. She has given numerous presentations on law and foreign policy worldwide, including at Harvard Law School, the University of Ottawa, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Iran.

Especially for Women: How to Get Paid What You Are Worth

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:30:00 EDT

Evelyn Murphy, president of the WAGE Project and a former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, addresses a female audience on gender and wage parity. Noting that women earn 23 percent less on average than their male coworkers, Murphy argues that the only way for women to close the wage gap is to fight individually for fair treatment. Throughout the talk, she encourages audience engagement as she provides useful tactics for negotiating a higher salary.

Most women find it difficult to talk about money, Murphy says, but it is crucial to have a greater understanding of the context of one’s earnings. Bias and stereotypes still exist in the workplace, and the wage gap prevails because women fail to act to eliminate it. The key element women must remember, she says, is that salary negotiation is a discussion. Murphy suggests that when speaking with an employer, women should set a positive tone and be matter-of-fact and flexible. She advises listening carefully to determine what is in the employer’s best interests, so that female employees can properly determine how to cast their personal characteristics in a positive light, thus bettering their chances. She urges women to aim high but be realistic when negotiating salary, and concludes by emphasizing that effective wage negotiation is best learned through practice.

October 19, 2009, 3:30 p.m.

Sargent College

Video length is 01:09:37.

About the speaker:

Evelyn Murphy is president of the WAGE Project, an organization that strives to end wage discrimination against women. She began her political career in the late 1970s as Massachusetts’ secretary of environmental affairs and later served as the state’s secretary of economic affairs. In 1986, she became the first woman in the state’s history to hold a constitutional office when she was elected lieutenant governor. Now a resident scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, Murphy has published a book on women’s wages, Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men — and What To Do About It (2005). She is a corporate director of SBLI USA Mutual Life Insurance Company and Citizens Energy Corporation. She also serves as a founding director of the Commonwealth Institute, a trustee of Regis College, honorary chair of the Lost Coin Women’s Fund, Inc., and a director of the Polaris Project.

Why Care? A Conversation with Timberland President and CEO Jeffrey Swartz about Our Collective Responsibility

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EDT

Jeffrey Swartz, president and chief executive officer of Timberland, visits Boston University to discuss sustainability, carbon emissions, and corporate responsibility to provide ethical consumer choices. Throughout the lecture, Swartz draws on his own business experience and his company’s attempts to foster sustainability, highlighting Timberland’s efforts to discourage waste, encourage community action by its employees, and reduce its carbon footprint. Kristen McCormack, faculty director of the School of Management’s Public and Nonprofit Management Program, moderates the event.

As Timberland has grown, Swartz explains, it has begun to focus more intently on curbing its environmental impact. He discusses Timberland’s aims to reduce carbon emissions in the manufacturing of its leather, to safely eliminate toxins produced in its factories, and to make sure its working conditions are safe. He also emphasizes the need for business competitors to work together to create change in the area of sustainability. Swartz describes his own corporate philosophy, saying he runs his company on a belief in the notion of “justice in commerce.”

October 14, 2009, 4 p.m.

Morse Auditorium

Video Length is 01:12:03.

About the Speaker:

Jeffrey Swartz is the president and CEO of the outdoor apparel company Timberland, one of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For.” Since joining the family business in 1986, he has created a social enterprise department to encourage employees’ community service and has spoken frequently on corporate responsibility. In 1988, he helped launch Timberland’s public/private partnership with City Year, a national youth service organization, where he has served on the board of directors since 1989 and acted as the board’s chairman from 1994 to 2003. He served on President George W. Bush’s task force on national service, Business Strengthening America. Swartz is a member of the executive committee of Combined Jewish Philanthropies, chairman of the board of directors of the Maimonides School in Newton, Massachusetts, and a board member of Birthright Israel. He is a graduate of Brown University and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University.

Future Challenges: Global Development Beyond the Financial Crisis

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Moderated by Adil Najam, director of the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Global Development Beyond the Financial Crisis examines the long-term fallout of last year’s global financial collapse and the resulting stimulus spending. The panelists are William Grimes, a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of international relations, Shahrukh Rafi Khan, a visiting professor of economics at Mount Holyoke College, and Michael Walton, a lecturer in international development at the Harvard Kennedy School. They debate the role of the International Monetary Fund, the United States, East Asia, and other players in reconstructing the world economy.

Khan begins by discussing the role of international institutions in managing global recovery, particularly the newly strengthened International Monetary Fund and the Group of Twenty, which seems to have taken the place of the more exclusive Group of Eight. He notes that even wealthy countries will experience some upheaval: two-thirds of the world’s 80 high-income economies have “stable or declining” manufacturing, “so they have their work cut out for them.” Grimes follows with a brief talk on the East Asian economic bloc, which he says “is coming out of this crisis faster and stronger than anyone else.” He applauds Asian countries for opening their economies, but wonders if China in particular will be able to transition from buying U.S. debt to promoting demand-centric growth within its borders. Walton concludes by exploring policy avenues that would lead to successful moderate transformation for developing countries. While the recent financial crisis was a flaw, not a fundamental failure, of capitalism, he says, we should not expect that the transition out of debt and collapse will be easy for developing nations.

A question-and-answer period follows.

October 9, 2009, noon
Pardee House

Video length is 01:27:13.

About the speakers:
William W. Grimes is a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of international relations and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Asia at Boston University. He has published extensively on Japanese monetary policy and the impacts of financial regionalism and globalization in Japan and East Asia and is the author of Currency and Contest in East Asia: The Great Power Politics of Financial Regionalism (2008).

Shahrukh Rafi Khan is a visiting professor of economics at Mount Holyoke College. From 1996 to 2002, he was executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad, Pakistan. He is the author of several books on trade, labor, and education in the developing world, including Export Success and Industrial Linkages: The Case of Readymade Garments in South Asia (2009).

Michael Walton is a lecturer in international development at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In the past year, he has been the V.K.R.V. Rao Chair Professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Change in Bangalore, India, and a senior visiting fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi, India. From 1980 to 2004, he worked at the World Bank, where he spent extended periods in Zimbabwe and Indonesia and contributed to World Development Reports on poverty, labor, and equity and development.

Future Challenges: Science, Diplomacy and Development

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Zulfiqar Bhutta, professor and chair of the department of pediatrics and child health at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan, Harry Barnes, former U.S. ambassador to Romania, India, and Chile, and Patricia Wrightson, director of the Committee on Scientific Communication and National Security at the National Academies, speak about the challenges of public health science, science diplomacy, and the importance of international scientific cooperation in Central Asia, South Asia, and East Africa. Gerald Keusch, a School of Public Health professor of international health and associate dean for global health and Medical Campus associate provost for global health, moderates.

Speakers note the challenges coming from South Asia in terms of the lack of progress made in the awareness and importance of good health practices and their long-term gains to society. The lack of connection between advanced technology and science and fundamental issues of hygiene and public health has led to many infant and child deaths in Pakistan. They stress the need for perseverance, patience, and trust in areas of diplomacy and say that science plays a crucial role in diplomacy because it is a key to the world around us.

July 23, 2009, noon
Pardee House

Video length is 01:15:52.

About the speakers:
Harry Barnes is a former U.S. ambassador to Romania, India, and Chile. He also was the director general of the Foreign Service and director of personnel at the State Department. From 1994 to 2000, he was the director of the Carter Center’s Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Programs and on behalf of the center traveled to North Korea. He graduated from Amherst College and Columbia University and served in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1946.

Zulfiqar Bhutta is professor and chair of the department of pediatrics and child health at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan. He was a visiting professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health in summer 2009. He attended Khyber Medical College and began his training in Pakistan, finishing in the United Kingdom. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in London. He has been awarded the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz (Medal of Excellence) by the president of Pakistan, the President of Pakistan Gold Medal for his contributions to child health in Pakistan, the Outstanding Pediatrician of Asia award from the Asia Pacific Pediatric Association, and the Aga Khan University Distinguished Faculty Award for Research.

Gerald Keusch is the Boston University’ Medical Campus associate provost for global health and a professor and associate dean for global health at the School of Public Health. He was director of the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health and associate director for international research in the office of the NIH director before coming to Boston University. A graduate of Columbia College and Harvard Medical School, he is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases. His research ranges from the molecular pathogenesis of tropical infectious diseases to field research in nutrition, immunology, host susceptibility, and the treatment of tropical infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS. He has written more than 300 original publications, reviews, and book chapters, and he is the editor of 8 scientific books.

Patricia Wrightson is the director of the Committee on Scientific Communication and National Security at the National Academies in Washington, D.C. The committee promotes cooperation between the scientific and security communities.

Future Challenges: Governance and Sustainability

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Hans Hoogeveen of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Abid Suleri of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, and Mukul Sanwal of the United Nations speak on the difficulties of governing forests, food, and climate, respectively. Adil Najam, director of the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, moderates this seminar on how we can govern three complex problems — forest, food, and climate management — without compromising human well-being.

The linkages between global governments and issues of development can no longer be ignored, the speakers say. For example, Hoogeveen says, forests are integral to health, trade, resources, and climate change, yet they are governed by over forty regional and international agreements that fail to address those issues in a comprehensive manner. However, recognizing that complex problems require complex solutions, he says, a single global forest treaty will not solve the problem.

Suleri underscores the role of national and sub-national policies in episodes of food scarcity, adding that there is no such thing as a “non-political famine.” He points out the small role international institutions play, which is mainly limited to food assistance during a crisis. Sanwal concludes the discussion by arguing that states must adapt to and mitigate climate change. He highlights the imbalance in current mitigations discussions, which demand developing countries curtail infrastructure development while wealthier countries merely adjust their consumption practices. From a developing country’s perspective, he says, technology is more relevant than finance in combating climate change.

A question-and-answer period follows the lecture.

June 5, 2009, 12 p.m.

67 Bay State Road

Video length is 1:26:02

About the speakers:

Hans Hoogeveen is the director general for international affairs at the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature, and Food Quality. He served as chair of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and in the Seventeenth UN Commission on Sustainable Development, where the Netherlands held the chairmanship.

Mukul Sanwal has been the senior policy advisor at the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and a negotiator for the Indian government. His current research centers on strategies for institutional reform in the UN, innovative means to support international cooperation, and the development of partnerships among governments, the private sector, and local communities for environmentally sustainable economic growth.

Abid Suleri is the executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Pakistan, and the author of a recent Pardee Center Issues in Brief paper on food and governance, “The Role of National Governance.” He is currently analyzing the state of food security in Pakistan and leading an SDPI team that is formulating National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS) in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme.

Current State of Investigative Reporting

Tue, 19 May 2009 19:00:00 EDT

Newspapers across the nation are in serious trouble, pummeled by the recession, by declining revenue and readership, and by competition from round-the-clock online resources. Speaking at a reception marking the launch of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at BU, Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and an author, speaks about the current state of investigative reporting.

Hersh observes that our most important interpersonal relationships involve trust and respect, but what we tolerate in our public life is especially telling. We have made a bad bargain, he says, in failing to hold public officials to the highest possible standards. It has become easy to avoid our moral obligations both internationally and locally. In fact, he says, some of the most “profound and avaricious behavior” occurs at the local level. Yet the propensity of news organizations to cut back on investigative reporting reflects a concern more for the bottom line than for taking risks.

The international scene should not be avoided, either, he says, because of our nation’s current economic problems. Stories about local and regional corruption, he says, connect us to the larger world and point to the dire consequences of poor leadership.

Tom Fiedler, dean of the College of Communication, and Joe Bergantino, director of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, offer opening remarks.

Hersh’s observations are followed by a question-and-answer session.

May 19, 2009, 7 p.m.

BU Castle

Video Length is 01:16:31.

About the Speaker:

Seymour Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist and author. He is a regular contributor on military and security matters to The New Yorker magazine. Hersh first gained worldwide attention in 1969 by exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, in 1970. More recently, in 2004, he alerted the American public to the military’s mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The Future of Food: Closing Keynote Address

Sat, 09 May 2009 19:30:00 EDT

The Future of Food: Transatlantic Perspective
Session I: From Farm to Fork: The Global Food Chain
Session II: The End of Cheap Food: Food and Geopolitics
Session III: What’s in What You Eat? Food Safety in a New Ecology
Session IV: Eating Green: Food and Climate Change
Session V: What Is “Good” Food? The Ethics of Eating
Closing Keynote Address

Michael Ableman, a farmer, author, and sustainability advocate, delivers the closing keynote address of the conference The Future of Food: Transatlantic Perspectives. Ableman discusses his experience as a farmer in southern California — he founded one of the first organic farms in the region — and urges the need for all people, even city dwellers, to reconnect with nature and farming. Urban agriculture, he says, will be an essential component of feeding the world’s expanding population in the future. What we are experiencing today is much more than a food crisis, he argues — it is a crisis of awareness and participation. We forget, because we are so disconnected from our food, that farming should not be a “spectator sport,” he says. Structural changes to the world’s agricultural system will not happen, he concludes, until the impacts of our imperfect system become personal.

Ableman’s lecture ends a two-day conference of speakers, film screenings, and cooking demonstrations, held to examine the causes of the global food crisis while offering solutions for creating a sustainable food system. It was funded by the European Commission Delegation in Washington, D.C., with additional support from the Ford Foundation.

May 9, 2009 7:30 p.m.

765 Commonwealth Avenue

Video Length is 00:56:38.

About the Speaker:

Michael Ableman is the founder and executive director emeritus of the Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens, a non-profit organization headquartered at one of the oldest organic farms in southern California. A photographer and author, he has published several books, including From the Good Earth: A Celebration of Growing Food Around the World (1993), On Good Land: The Autobiography of an Urban Farm (1998), and Fields of Plenty: A Farmer’s Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It (2005). He received the Ecological Farming Association’s 2001 “Sustie” Award for his work in sustainable agriculture, the 1997 Environmental Leadership Award from the Governor of California, and Eating Well magazine’s 1995 Food Hero Award. At present, he farms on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia and is developing the Center for Art, Ecology & Agriculture.

The Future of Food: Transatlantic Perspectives

Sat, 09 May 2009 08:45:00 EDT

Satish Kumar, an international peace and sustainability activist and editor of Resurgence magazine, examines our crisis of food-related culture and spirit in the opening keynote address of the conference The Future of Food: Transatlantic Perspectives. Kumar, a former Jain monk, argues that gardening, farming, and cooking should be a spiritual practice. Factory farming has become a commodity, he says, and feeding people is now a mere byproduct of making money. Therefore, food goes to those who can afford it and those who cannot continue to go hungry, a system contrary to human and animal nature. For food to have a future, Kumar concludes, we must go back to considering food as sacred, and reconnect ourselves to nature and the land that provides our sustenance.

Kumar’s lecture kicks off the two-day conference of speakers, film screenings, and cooking demonstrations, held to examine the causes of the global food crisis while offering solutions for creating a sustainable food system. It was funded by the European Commission Delegation in Washington, D.C., with additional support from the Ford Foundation.

May 9, 2009, 8:45 a.m.

765 Commonwealth Avenue

Video Length is 00:30:06.

About the speaker:

Satish Kumar, a former Jain monk, is the editor and publisher of Resurgence, a magazine that promotes ecological sustainability, social justice, and spiritual values. A native of India, Kumar is also a nuclear disarmament advocate and peace activist, best known for his 8,000-mile peace walk to the capitals of nuclear-armed countries. He now resides in England, where he serves as the founder and program director of Schumacher College, a sustainability education center, and its counterpart secondary school, The Small School. He has written a number of books, including The Buddha and the Terrorist (2006), No Destination: An Autobiography (2004), and You Are, Therefore I Am: A Declaration of Dependence (2002).

Farm to Fork: The Global Food Chain

Sat, 09 May 2009 09:30:00 EDT

In the first session of the conference The Future of Food: Transatlantic Perspectives, three panelists — author Mark Winne, sustainability activist Helena Norberg-Hodge, and College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of international relations Henrik Selin — detail the industrialization of modern agriculture. Moderated by James McCann, a College of Arts & Sciences professor of history, the discussion explores the failings of government programs and the free market to support sustainable, healthful food policies.

The panel discusses how large-scale farmers receive the most government subsidies, leaving small-scale and organic farmers with little assistance. In addition, they say, the marketplace fails low-income Americans by setting the price of organic and nutritious foods at too high a cost. Americans need to support the localization of food systems by pushing for the deregulation of trade, they argue, which will slow the systematic distancing between people and their food sources.

The discussion is part of a two-day conference of speakers, film screenings, and cooking demonstrations, held to examine the causes of the global food crisis while offering solutions for creating a sustainable food system. It was funded by the European Commission Delegation in Washington, D.C., with additional support from the Ford Foundation.

May 9, 2009 9:30 a.m.

765 Commonwealth Avenue

Video Length is 01:26:42.

About the Speakers:

Helena Norberg-Hodge is founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC). Her environmental and cultural work with the people of Ladakh, a poor Indian Himalayan region, earned her the Right Livelihood Award, often called the “alternative Nobel Prize.” She is the author of several articles and books, including Ancient Futures: Lessons from Ladakh for a Globalizing World (1991; 2009).

Henrik Selin is a College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of international relations, a core faculty member of the Center for Energy and Environment Studies, and a fellow of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. He also conducts research at the Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research at Linköping University in Sweden. He is co-editor of Changing Climates in North American Politics: Institutions, Policymaking, and Multilevel Governance (2009) and Transatlantic Environment and Energy Politics: Comparative and International Perspectives (2009).

Mark Winne is the author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty (2009). Previously, he was the executive director of the Hartford Food System in Connecticut, where he organized community self-help food projects and developed a commercial hydroponic greenhouse, the Connecticut Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, and several farmers’ markets. He now spends his time writing and speaking about community food systems.

J ames McCann, College of Arts & Sciences professor of history and associate director of development at Boston University’s African Studies Center, is an expert in the agricultural and environmental history of Africa. His book Maize and Grace: Africa’s Encounter with a New World Crop (2005) won the 2006 George Perkins Marsh Prize for best book in environmental history. He has held fellowships at Harvard and Yale Universities and has served as a consultant for organizations such as Oxfam and the United Nations Environmental Program.