08/29/2010- IRAN: Understanding Ahmadinejad and His Politics by Dr. Bahman Baktiari, Director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah. He received his Ph.D. from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia. Before coming to University of Utah in 2009, he was the Director of the School of Policy and International Affairs at University of Maine. Prior to this, he served as Director of Research for William S. Cohen Center for International Policy and Commerce. He is the author of numerous works on Iran and the Middle East. His book-length study, "Iranian Society 30 Years after the Revolution: A Surprising Picture," was published as a special issue of The Middle East Journal in the spring of 2009. Dr. Baktiari is a highly respected commentator on events in Iran. His opinion pieces have appeared in leading national publications and he has been interviewed on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, CNN International, The Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. During the 1999-2001 academic year, Dr. Baktiari was a Visiting Professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo.
08/19/2010- Drug Wars on the New Mexico Border - For Whom the Bell Tolls? by Secretary John Wheeler, Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, New Mexico.
5/14/2010- "Nonproliferation" by Ambassador Bohlen, who served for 25 years as a career Foreign Service officer with the US Department of State, and was the Assistant Secretary for Arms Control (1999-2002) and Ambassador to Bulgaria (1996-1999). She also held several positions within the State Department’s Bureau of European Affairs, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe in charge of Security Issues. Ambassador Avis Bohlen currently teaches at the Georgetown University. She will discuss, among other things, the unique role the diplomacy plays in working towards reducing the nuclear arsenals of the US and Russia, and what possible limits to diplomacy exist vis-à-vis Iran.
4/18/2010- “Russia: Rising Ambitions, Growing Challenges” by Dr. Allen Lynch, Professor at the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he teaches international relations and Russian studies. Between 1993-2008 he was Director of the University’s Center for Russian and East European Studies. He also served as Assistant Director of the Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1984 and his B.A. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1977. Dr. Lynch has just completed an interpretive biography of Vladimir Putin, which is forthcoming (2010) from Potomac Books: “Vladimir Putin and Russian Statecraft”. His other major works include: How Russia is—Not—Ruled (Cambridge University Press, 2005); Does Russia Have a Democratic Future? (Foreign Policy Association, 1997); Europe from the Balkans to the Urals (Oxford University Press, 1996)—co-authored with Reneo Lukic; The Cold War Is Over—Again (Westview Press, 1992); The Soviet Study of International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 1987), winner of the Marshall Shulman Award for Best Book by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. Dr. Lynch has been a Visiting Professor at the Free University of Berlin, East China Normal University in Shanghai, the Graduate School for Social Science in Paris, and the Radio Free Europe Research Institute in Munich.
3/21/2010- "INDIA: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” by Dr. Stanley Wolpert, Professor Emeritus of South Asian History, University of California, Los Angeles, is the author of Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India (UCPress, 1962); Nine Hours To Rama (Random House & Hamish Hamilton, 1962); Morley and India, 1906-1910 (UCPress,1967); An Error of Judgement (Little, Brown, 1970); Roots of Confrontation in South Asia (Oxford UP, 1982); A New History of India (Oxford UP, ist ed.,1977; 8th edition, OUP, 2009); Jinnah of Pakistan (Oxford UP, 1984); Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh (Penguin, 1988); India (UCP, 1st ed. 1991; 4th ed, 2009); Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan (Oxford UP,1993); Nehru: A Tryst With Destiny (Oxford, 1996); Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi (OUP,2001); Shameful Flight (OUP, 2006); and Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of India , 4 vols. (Thomson/Gale, 2005). His next book is now in production "India and Pakistan: Continued Conflict or Cooperation?" (UCP, 2010).
3/3/2010 - “Yemen and Terrorism” by Dr. Emile Nakhleh, Former Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at the Central Intelligence Agency. Understanding the challenges facing Yemen and the region will help our policymakers undermine al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, and Islamic radicalism. Dr. Nakhleh will outline the key challenges that often contribute to radicalism and terrorism (the same outline he gave to the US Senate in January 2010) – which include an authoritarian, corrupt regime, deep poverty, high unemployment, poor education, and active radical recruiters.
2/19/2010- “China: Menacing Monolith or Fragile Superpower?” by Dr. Charles Bergman. Dr. Bergman has taught Chinese to high-school students and adults for more than 15 years. He began his study of Chinese at Tunghai University in Taichung,Taiwan, while on a Henry Luce Foundation fellowship. He earned an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University. Currently a faculty member at Albuquerque Academy, Charles began teaching Chinese at Cate School in California, where he served for seven years as Asian Studies director.
1/22/2010 -Brazil: the “Good BRIC”? by Dr. Kathryn Hochstetler, CIGI Chair of Governance in the Americas in the Balsillie School of International Affairs, in Canada. She has co-authored a prize-winning book on Brazilian environmental politics, Greening Brazil, and written a number of articles on topics like the Mercosur free trade area and Brazilian civil society. She has spent several years living and researching in Brazil and its South American neighbors. She has also traveled in the other BRIC countries and is beginning new research on development strategies within the BRICs.
11/14/09- "Athens Today: Can an Ancient City Move with the Times?" by Dr. Eleni Bastéa, who teaches architectural history at UNM. She was born and grew up in Thessaloniki, Greece, and spent most of a year and several summers in Athens. She studied art history at Bryn Mawr College, and architecture and history of architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. Eleni is the author of The Creation of Modern Athens: Planning the Myth (Cambridge University Press, 2000), co-winner of the international John D. Criticos Prize. She also published Memory and Architecture (UNM Press, 2004) and her own translation of her book on Athens in Greek (Athens: Libro Publishers, 2008).
10/30/09-"Political Islam: What Is It and Does It Matter?" by Dr. Emile Nakhleh, born in the Middle East and educated in the United States, he holds a Ph.D. from American University. After teaching for twenty-six years, Dr. Nakhleh embarked upon a government career. He became a senior intelligence service officer and Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program in the Directorate of Intelligence at the CIA. Now retired, he is the author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World (Princeton University Press, 2009).
10/02/09- "Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Terrorism: An Insider’s Look" by Nicholas Schmidle. A New York Times Book Review named his book To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan “Editor’s Choice.” Nicholas Schmidle takes readers to Pakistan’s rioting streets, to Taliban camps in the North-West Frontier Province, and on many surprising adventures as he provides a contemporary history of a country long riven by internal conflict. With intimacy and good humor, Schmidle narrates what was arguably the most turbulent period of Pakistan’s recent history, a time when President Pervez Musharraf lost his power and the Taliban found theirs, and when Americans began to realize that Pakistan’s fate is inextricably linked with our own.
Nicholas Schmidle is a fellow at the New America Foundation. Schmidle writes for the New York Times Magazine, Slate, The New Republic, Smithsonian, and the Virginia Quarterly Review. In 2008, he received the Kurt Schork Award for freelance journalism based on his reporting in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He speaks Urdu and Persian. Schmidle is a graduate of James Madison University and American University.
8/12/09-"Middle Eastern Women Today: Odalisques, Terrorists or Just Like Us?" by Dr. Evelyn A. Early, a diplomat with the Department of State, is currently Senior State Department Advisor at the Air University in Montgomery, Alabama. She has served as Counselor for Press and Cultural Affairs at embassies in Rabat, Prague, Damascus, and Khartoum. She has researched in Lebanon, Egypt and Syria and taught anthropology at the University of New Mexico, Notre Dame University, and the University of Houston. Her B.A. is from Macalester College, her M.A. from the American University of Beirut, and her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
8/23/09-"ST. PETERSBURG: The City that Should Not Be and Would Not Die" by Dr. Marina Oborotova, AIA founder and president. Many of the AIA members remember her talk “Moscow: Building a New Third Rome?” and the Russian dinner that followed “ as one of the best we had” … She was born in Russia and visited St. Petersburg so many times that she lost count. She loves St. Pete and will go there in a heart beat again. Professionally Dr. Oborotova is the author of multiple articles and books on foreign affairs. She worked for IMEMO, Russia’s leading think tank, also for the United States Industry Coalition, TCInternational and taught at UNM’s History and Political Science Departments and the Anderson School of Management. She is the President of the Center for International Studies.
6/7/09-"Dangerous Curves on the Road to Wealth and Power. How China is Managing the Current Crisis: the Economic, Social, and Political Picture" by Dr. Stephen MacKinnon, Trained in Chinese Studies at Yale and University of California, Davis, Dr. MacKinnon is a professor of History and former Director of Center for Asian Studies at Arizona State University. Besides dozens of academic articles and book chapters, he is the author of Power and Politics in Late Imperial China (1981); China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s(1987); Agnes Smedley: Life and Times of an American Radical (1988); Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and Making of Modern China (2008) – all published by U. of Calif. Press . Just published in 2008, War, Refugees and the Making of Modern China has already been translated and published in Chinese. Between 1979 and 1981 and again in 1985, MacKinnon worked as an expert for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. After Chinese language study in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1960s, he first visited the PRC in 1972. Thereafter he visited China regularly for work and teaching purposes. He is China now and will return shortly before his lecture in Albuquerque in June 2009.
5/28/09- “Hotels: American Origins and Global Competition” by Dr. Andrew Sandoval-Strausz, Associate Professor of History at the University of New Mexico. He received his B.A. from Columbia in 1994 and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2002. His work has been featured in the New York Times, The Economist, and Business Week and on National Public Radio and Slate.com. His first book, Hotel: An American History (Yale University Press, 2007) was named one of the Best Books of the Year by Library Journal and won the American Historical Association's 2008 Pacific Coast Branch Book Award.
5/8/09-"The Legacy of New Mexico: Twenty-first Century Immigration and the Descendants of Seventeenth Century Indo-Hispanos" by Dr. L.M. García y Griego. García y Griego is a native of New Mexico, descendant of founders of the Cañón de Carnué Land Grant, established in 1819. He received his B.A. from Princeton University, M.A. in Demography from El Colegio de México, and Ph.D. in history from UCLA. He held faculty appointments at U.T. Arlington, El Colegio de México, and the University of California, Irvine, before joining the UNM faculty in 2006. He is the founder of the New Mexico Land Grant Studies Program at UNM. He has published widely on Mexican migration to the United States, U.S. immigration policy, U.S.-Mexican relations, and on New Mexico land grant issues. His most recent publications include “Beating Around the Bush: Symbolism and Substance in Contemporary Immigration Policy,” in Latino Immigration Policy: Context, Issues, Alternatives, edited by José E. Cruz, 2007; “Dos tesis sobre seis décadas: la emigración hacia Estados Unidos y la política exterior Mexicana,” in En busca de una nación soberana: relaciones internacionales de México, siglos XIX y XX (Mexico City: CIDE and Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 2006); and Researching Migration: Stories from the Field, co-edited with Sherrie Kossoudji and Louis desipio (New York: SSRC Books, 2007). Dr. García y Griego has served as an expert witness on a number of cases, including In re Children Litigation, later consolidated with Plyler v. Doe 457 U.S. 202 and In re Mexico Money Transfer Litigation (2000). He has served as panelist in the U.S.-Mexico Bi-national Study (1996-97) and on the Social Science Research Council International Migration Postdoctoral Fellowship Review Committee (1996-2002). More recently he organized a workshop on U.S.-Mexico border security at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Tijuana, B.C.) and presented at a forum on Mexican immigrant and Latino leadership networks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, D.C.).
5/1/09- "New Cold War? Selective engagement? Strategic Partnership?" by Ambassador Tom Pickering. Ambassador Pickering is one of the brightest and most distinguished US diplomats. He held the personal rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the U.S. Foreign Service. In a diplomatic career spanning five decades, he has served as a U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, as U.S. Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations in New York, Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Israel, India, El Salvador, Nigeria, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He also served on assignments in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Ambassador Pickering was Executive Secretary of the Department of State and Special Assistant to Secretaries William P. Rogers and Henry A. Kissinger. He worked as the Senior Vice President for International Relations and a member of the Boeing Executive Council from January 2001 until July 2006. In 1983 and in 1986, Pickering won the Distinguished Presidential Award and, in 1996, the Department of State's highest award - the Distinguished Service Award. He is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations. He speaks French, Spanish, Swahili, Arabic and Hebrew.
4/24/09- "Shanghai: City of the Future" by Charles Bergman. Charles is currently a member of Albuquerque Academy’s history faculty. For the past twenty years he has been educating students and adult professionals to prepare them to meet successfully the challenges of globalization. Prior to joining the Academy faculty, Charlie served as Director, Asia-Pacific, for Meridian Eaton, a San Francisco-based consulting firm focused on developing global skills for business leaders of multinational organizations. The geographic focus of Charlie’s own consulting work is China and East Asia. Charlie began his international career with a teaching appointment at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan, in 1978. He then worked for several years in Beijing as a member of the IBM China start-up team, sent by IBM’s New York headquarters to build a China subsidiary there. On his return to the U.S., Charlie resumed teaching and consulting. Charlie has a B.A. in mathematics from Amherst College, an M.S. in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University.
4/11/09- "From UNM to the White House and Coca-Cola: Reflections on a New Mexican’s Success Story" by Rudy M. Beserra, VP, Coca-Cola. Rudy's family has for many generations been very active in New Mexico politics; Rudy began his career as Director of the LULAC Family Learning Center in New Mexico. He was recruited in 1982 to work for the Campaign Committee to coordinate Hispanic Outreach as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) for Small Business Issues. During President Reagan's second term, Rudy served in the White House as Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison. In a feature article of LATINO LEADERS, the National Magazine of the Successful Hispanic American, Rudy was described as, "He's the Real Thing."
3/27/09-“Europe’s Southern Underbelly: Corruption, Gangsters, and War Criminals” by Dr. Melissa Bokovoy, Associate Professor History at UNM and former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International for Scholars and award winning author for her study of the establishment of communist rule in Yugoslavia. She is presently working on a study of war and memory in interwar Yugoslavia as well as on a general history of twentieth century Yugoslavia (Wily-Blackwell, under contract for 2011.) Dr. Bokovoy received her B.A. from Pomona College, and her MA and Ph.D. from Indiana University.
3/13/09-Latino Arts and Culture: Mapping a Social Movement by Dr. Maribel Alvarez. Maribel holds a dual appointment as Assistant Research Professor in the English Department and as Research Social Scientist at the Southwest Center, University of Arizona. She teaches courses on methods of cultural analysis with particular emphasis on objects, oral narratives, and visual cultures of the US-Mexico border. She holds a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Arizona. Alvarez is the Animator of BorderLore, a cultural documentation initiative that includes an e-newsletter, a Blog, and several community-based partnerships to record and interpret vernacular knowledge in the borderlands. She has written about poetry and food, intangible heritage, nonprofits and cultural policy, artisans and patrimony in Mexico, and popular culture and stereotypes. From 1996 to 2002 she served as the Executive Director of MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, a multidisciplinary urban arts space in San Jose that she also co-founded. Under her leadership, MACLA became nationally recognized for its smart innovations in community arts. In 2001, the Andy Warhol Foundation for
the Visual Arts recognized MACLA as one of the 25 most effective "alternative art spaces" in the country. Maribel was born in Cuba, grew up in Puerto Rico, and has worked closely in the field of Chicano arts since the 1980s. Maribel currently serves on the Board of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture and edits their national magazine, El Aviso.
2/27/09-The State of the American and European Unions:
Prospects and Challenges across the Atlantic in our Rapidly, Changing World by Anthony Smallwood, First Counselor, Spokesman and Head of Press and Public Diplomacy, Delegation of the European Commission, Washington, DC. The Commission is the executive arm of the EU, and Mr. Smallwood has worked for its Directorate General for External Relations (RELEX) since 1995. He previously acted as Head of Delegation (effectively ambassador) of the EU in Trinidad and Tobago and in Brussels before that, monitored EU relations with Egypt. Before joining RELEX he was co-director of the ‘bureau’ that managed the ERASMUS educational exchange Program, and also served extensively overseas with the British Council.
2/13/09- Latinos in Presidential Politics by Valerie Martinez-Ebers is professor of political science at the University of North Texas and 2008 vice-president of the American Political Science Association. The first Latina to be president of the Western Political Science Association, her teaching interests and research areas of expertise include: race, ethnicity and politics; public policy; political tolerance; and the politics of Rock-n-Roll music. She is one of the principal investigators for the Latino National Survey (LNS) funded by Ford, Carnegie, Russell Sage, Hewlett, Joyce, Rhode Island and National Science Foundations. Completed in December 2007, the LNS is a state-stratified survey of over 9,800 Latinos/as in the U.S. Many of Dr. Martinez’ publications are on the consequences of education policies for minority students, but she also has publications on Latino/a politics, women in politics, aging policy and methods of survey research. Two of her more recent publications include Politicas: Latina Public Officials in Texas and “Su Casa Es Nuestra Casa: Latino Politics Research and the Development of American Political Science,” published in the American Political Science Review. She also is co-editor of Perspectives on Race, Ethnicity and Religion: Identity Politics in the United States and a co-author of the forthcoming book, Making it Home: Latino Lives in America.
1/23/09- From US Financial Crisis to Global Economic Crisis by Matías Fontenla, PhD in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on Macroeconomics, Financial Crises, Economic Growth and Development. He has been invited to talk on his area of expertise at many conferences and to upper management at many countries’ central banks around the world. He has appeared in print and on electronic media on many occasions. His research on Financial Crises has appeared in leading Macroeconomic journals. Dr Fontenla is currently working on issues of Microfinance and banking for the poor by studying replicas of the famous and hugely successful Grameen Bank and its programs for making micro-loans without collateral to the very poor in Latin America so that they can purchase equipment and supplies to become more productive and self-sufficient.
1/09/09- Foreign Loyalties? Hispanic and American National Unity by David R. Ayon, political analyst, writer and lecturer specializing in U.S.-Latin American relations and the politics and foreign policy of the United States and Mexico. Ayón has worked as analyst, consultant, and special producer for Spanish language television news during each electoral cycle in the U.S. and in Mexico since 1992. He is a contributing editor to the Spanish-language edition of the journal Foreign Affairs; a contributor to México en el Mundo, an annual review of Mexico’s foreign relations; and has contributed numerous essays to the op-ed and Sunday Opinion pages of the Los Angeles Times since 1983, when he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies of UC San Diego. Educated at Princeton, Stanford and the Colegio de Mexico, Ayón has taught courses on politics and U.S.-Latin American relations at six colleges and universities, including two campuses of the University of California, Stanford and USC, and was Associate Director of the California-Mexico Project of the USC School of International Relations. Currently he is Senior Research Associate and U.S. Director of the ‘Focus Mexico’ project at the Leavy Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.
11/20/08-SCHOTT Solar on the Rio Grande: From German Glass to Global Energy by Rolf Nitsche, born in Sindelfingen, Germany. After military service he studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Hannover and received his Diploma in 1993. He started his professional career 1994 in Mainz at SCHOTT in the Melting Technology Department where he was planning, simulating and optimizing special glass melting furnaces. After two years in the Glass Ceramic Melting department he returned to the Melting Technology Department as a Department Manager for Job and Order Control. With his experience as a Project Manager for building the Hot End of a Display Glass Melting plant in Jena he moved 2007 to SCHOTT Solar and joined the site selection team for the new production site in the United States. He is now responsible, as the Senior Project Manager, for making the new SCHOTT Solar production plant in Albuquerque a reality.
11/8/08- A Portrait of the Latino Immigrant Population in the United States at the Turn of the 21st Century by Dr. Nadia Y. Flores, born in Mexico City, Nadia Y. Flores migrated with her family to the United States at the age of 15. After being a teenage mother and while pregnant with her third child in 1993, she returned to school. She became a U.S. Citizen in 1997. She received her B.A. degree in Social Science from the University of California – Irvine in 1999 and her M.A. degree in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) in 2001. In 2004 she became a visiting student fellow at Princeton University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology in May 2005 from UPENN. While at UPENN, she worked as a Research Assistant for the bi-national The Mexican Migration Project co-directed by Dr. Douglas Massey (now at Princeton University) and Dr. Jorge Duran (University of Guadalajara). Supported by a pilot grant from the Mellon Foundation and the Mexican Migration Project, Flores did the fieldwork for her dissertation in four communities in the State of Guanajuato, Mexico and in the U.S. Her doctoral dissertation was entitled: “The Interrelation between Social Context, Social Structure and Social Capital in International Migration Flows from Mexico to the United States: The Case of Guanajuato, Mexico.”
10/21/08- The Presidential Elections and the War in iraq by Dr. Mark Peceny, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. He teaches courses in the fields of international relations and American foreign policy and studies the relationship between democracy, dictatorship, and the international system. His book, Democracy at the Point of Bayonets (Penn State Press 1999) examines the promotion of democracy during U.S. military interventions. His articles, which examine how political regimes shape the behavior of states in the world and how the international system shapes democracy within states, have appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Journal of Peace Research, and the Latin American Research Review.
10/11/08-View from Across the Border by Dr. Rafael Fernandez de Castro. Dr. Rafael Fernandez de Castro, foreign policy advisor to Mexican president Felipe Calderón, will give a Mexican, and, in a broader sense, a Latin American perception of changes in US Latino communities, as well as the current state of US relations with Mexico and Latin America. He will pay special attention to Mexico’s reaction and adjustment to the new US immigration environment.
Rafael Fernández de Castro is the Founder, Chair and Professor of the Department of International Studies at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (currently on leave). He earned a BA in Political Science at ITAM, a Master’s in Public Policy at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of the University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD in Political Science from Georgetown University.
Dr. Fernández de Castro is an expert on the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States, as well as on Mexican foreign policy. He has published numerous articles and several books, including United States and Mexico: Between Partnership and Conflict with Jorge Domínguez , The Controversial Pivot: The U.S. Congress and North America with Robert Pastor and Anuario México en el Mundo: Los desafíos para México en 2001; Cambio y continuidad en la política exterior de México (2002), En la frontera del Imperio (2003) and La agenda internacional de México 2006-2012 (2006). He is also co-coordinator of the Routledge Press Series on Contemporary Inter-American Relations since 2000. Furthermore, he has taken part in important forums such as the Binational Panel on Migration, which published the U.S.-Mexico Binational Study on Migration, and the World Economic Forum (Davos-2007) as both panelist and moderator. Rafael Fernández de Castro is active in the printed media. Not only is he the editor of Foreign Affairs en Español, the sister magazine of Foreign Affairs, but he also has a column in the weekly magazine Proceso and in the newspaper Excélsior, two of the most important printed media in Mexico.
9/12/08-Immigration: A Perfect Storm by Dr. Michael Olivas. Michael A. Olivas is the William B. Bates Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of Houston Law Center and Director of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance at UH. In 1989-90, he was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin, and Special Counsel to then-Chancellor Donna Shalala. In 1997, he held the Mason Ladd Distinguished Visiting Chair at the University of Iowa College Of Law. He holds a B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) from the Pontifical College Josephinum, an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Ohio State University, and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. He is the author or co-author of twelve books on immigration. In 2010, Harvard University Press will publish his 13th book, on the subject of undocumented immigrant children. He has been elected to membership in the American Law Institute and the National Academy of Education, the only person to have been selected to both honor academies. He was elected to the American Bar Foundation (ABF). He served as General Counsel to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) from 1994-98. He has chaired the AALS Section on Education Law three times, and has twice chaired the Section on Immigration Law. In 1993, he was chosen as Division J’s Distinguished Scholar by the American Educational Research Association, and in 1994, he was awarded the Research Achievement Award by the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). ASHE also gave him its 2000 Special Merit Award. He has been designated as a NACUA Fellow by the National Association of College and University Attorneys.
9/4/08-Pandemic: Are you ready? by Dr. Olmstead. Dr. Olmstead received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of New Mexico and her medical degree from the UNM School of Medicine. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.
Since 2006, Dr. Olmstead has been the Medical Director of NM Travel Health, and Olmstead Health Care Services where she specializes in international travel health, vaccinations, and pandemic planning. Dr. Olmstead previously served as National Medical Director for Concentra Medical Centers Travel Medicine Program and developed their pandemic manual. Dr Olmstead is certified as a travel medicine specialist by the International Society of Travel Medicine and is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine. She has served as a sub-investigator in numerous clinical trials. In addition, she has written and lectured extensively on subjects relating to travel medicine and health, occupational medicine and pandemic planning.
5/21/08- Intel: 40 Years of Changing the World by Jami Grindatto. Jami Grindatto is the New Mexico Corporate Affairs Director for Intel’s New Mexico site in Rio Rancho, NM, directing government affairs, media & communications, education and community relations. Jami joined Intel in 1994. He led the Factory Automation Architecture design used in Intel’s newest 300mm silicon wafer fabrication processes, directed the Itanium® Independent Software Vendor enablement effort, and was Director of the Americas for Intel® Solution Services. Jami is the recipient of the 1999 Intel Achievement Award. He’s active in the community and a member of several boards, including the Governor’s Business Executives for Education, New Mexico First, and he is the 2007 Chairman of the Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce.
5/3/08- Modern and Contemporary Photography in Russia: the Early 20th and 21st Centuries by Steve Yates. Yates returns from a rare third Fulbright Scholars Award over the last academic year in Russia. As a museum curator, international lecturer, essayist, researcher, photographer and Adjunct Professor, he was invited to teach in universities, museums and libraries in Moscow to cities throughout the country. His unprecedented collaborations over the past two decades with Russian artists, photographers, curators, historians and educators as well as museums, national centers, galleries, archives and libraries, helps lay the groundwork for new history.
4/17/08- Reform in the Russian Courts after Perestroika: The Rule of Law or Rule of Putin? by Norman Meyer. Norman Meyer has been providing technical assistance to the Russian courts since 1999. A series of pilot courts were established to introduce administrative reforms (in such areas as facilities, records, human resources, security, automation, case management, and public access), and those reforms are now being spread across the country. Overhauls of national rules for case processing and training programs for court administrators and staff have also been accomplished. He has made fourteen trips to Russia, primarily working with the Russian Judicial Department to improve the general jurisdiction trial courts. His court work in Russia has brought him to the cities of Angarsk, Irkutsk, Kaluga, Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Moscow, Nizhni Novgorod, Novgorod Veliki, Pushkin, Sochi, St. Petersburg, and Zhukov.
4/5/08- The New Face of Russia by Dr. Marina Oborotova, President of the Center for International Studies, sponsoring organization for the Albuquerque International Association. She was born in Moscow, graduated from Moscow State University for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Foreign Office and worked as a senior researcher for the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russia’s leading think-tank. Her career includes experience in many parts of the world in foreign policy, international business, academic research, and university level teaching. She has also organized and administrated projects in Russia, the United States, Latin America and Asia. She has written two books and over 40 articles on foreign relations and has presented numerous papers at international conferences. In the U.S. she has taught at the University of New Mexico (the Departments of Political Science, Anderson School of Management and Honors Program), worked as Director of International Programs at Technology Commercialization, and as a program manager for the United States Industry Coalition.
2/13/08-Global Economic Challenges for the New Administration by Kimberly Ann Elliot, Senior Fellow, has been associated with the Peterson Institute for International Economics since 1982 and has authored numerous works on a variety of trade policy and globalization issues. Building on her expertise as a trade strategist, including the use of economic sanctions and trade threats in the pursuit of national and commercial goals, Ms. Elliot has turned to broader globalization issues. Her expertise in this area will help us prepare, as an individual and as a nation, for our international economic future.
2/1/08- Global Security Challenges for the New Administration by Dr. Thomas Mahnken, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Planning, US Department of Defense. There is no shortage of security threats facing the President. In addition to the presence of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the next President and Commander is Chief will quickly need to set the course for the nation in dealing with domestic terrorism and how to balance freedom and security, radical Islam; the rise of China; the Middle East; nuclear proliferation, and emerging tensions rising from competition for energy, climate change, and pandemic disease. Tom Mahnken’s full time job is to assess these challenges and recommend strategically constructive responses.
1/25/08- US Foreign Policy System: If It Is Broke, Fix It by Dr. Adam Garfinkle. Dr. Adam Garfinkle was a member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff. He is Editor of the American Interest, the first international affairs journal to be launched in the last two decades. He has held an appointment as adjunct Professorial Lecturer in American Foreign Policy at the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the Johns Hopkins University. He has also taught U.S. foreign policy and Middle East politics at the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford College, and Tel Aviv University. Dr. Garfinkle has also served as a member of the National Security Study Group of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (the Hart-Rudman Commission).
12/01/07 - North Korea, Iran and Nuclear Proliferation by Dr. Siegfried Hecker, Co-director, Center for International Security and Cooperation Stanford University, Director Emeritus, Los Alamos National Laboratory.
A year ago, North Korea defied the international community by detonating a nuclear bomb and declaring itself a nuclear power. A few months later, it turned to dialogue and today it is taking the first steps toward eliminating its nuclear bomb production complex. Dr. Hecker’s visits to North Korea convinced him that it is prepared to complete this process, but it is not so clear if it will get rid of the bombs it has in its arsenal. Iran, on the other hand, appears intent on developing the nuclear weapons option under the guise of its right to develop peaceful nuclear power. How close is it to the bomb and what are the options to stop it? Both cases stress the nonproliferation regime and neither offers easy solutions.
11/12/07
The Ideal Protective Package: From Proliferation to Reciprocal Reduction
by Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr.
Chair Cypress Fund for Peace and Security, Special Representative of the President for Arms Control, Non-Proliferation, and Disarmament from 1994-1997.
A you-are-there account of discussions and negotiations to date. Outline of progress toward rewriting the nuclear weapons rules to fit today’s needs.
October 19, 2007
Clouds
on the Horizon: Eroding Constraints and the Seductive Attraction
of Nuclear
Weapons
by Dan
E. Caldwell
Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Pepperdine University, co-author of Seeking Security in an Insecure World. What are the nuclear threats we face today? Is the existing framework of treaties, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), effective? What are the risks from NPT non-signatories – India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea? How do the five original nuclear powers and their policies with respect to their own arsenals impact proliferation risks?
September 7, 2007
Where Have All the Secrets Gone? A Layman’s Guide to Nukes
by
Richard Rhodes
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, journalist, and historian. Author of three volumes on nuclear history, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Dark Sun, and the soon to be released Arsenals of Folly. Book signing. How has the availability of information about the making of atomic weapons changed dramatically in recent years and what does it mean for us? Outline of the science and technology of nuclear weapons production and use to set up the stage for better understanding of policy alternatives in the era of nuclear proliferation.
March 20th, 2008
Albuquerque: Cities and Modern Change
Mayor Martin Chavez
Mayor Chavez with his vision and understanding of Albuquerque today and tomorrow, modern change, new trends in urbanism around the world, climate change and future challenges of modernization.
November 3rd, 2007
Moscow: Building a New
Third Rome?
Dr. Marina Oborotova
Holy Moscow, New Rome, Center of Russia – these names reflect some of the different facets of the City’s ever changing identity throughout centuries. Since its founding nearly 900 years ago, Moskva grew from a small settlement on the banks of the river Moscow to the capital of centralized Russia and later to the site of the Third International. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow, under the leadership of its current mayor, Yurii Luzhkov, has entered a new phase as dynamic, capitalist megalopolis. Over the past 16 years, the city’s face has been transformed by massive restoration, renovation and a vast program of new construction. Moscow has seen the emergence of a new, energetic middle class and has lived through both boom and bust. Recently her uneven, breakneck growth and glittering prosperity has earned Moscow the dubious distinction as the world’s most expensive city, choking in traffic jams spawned by economic success. But for all the changes, much of old Moscow remains and she can still take pride in her splendid traditional architecture, fascinating museums like the Tretiakov Gallery, and cultural wonders like the Bolshoi Theater ballet.
Dr. Marina Oborotova is President of the Center for International Studies, sponsoring organization for the Albuquerque International Association. She lived and worked in Moscow for 33 years and visits the city every year. She graduated from Moscow State University for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Foreign Office and worked as a senior researcher for the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russia’s leading think-tank. Her career includes experience in many parts of the world in foreign policy, international business, academic research, and university level teaching. She has also organized and administrated projects in Russia, the United States, Latin America and Asia. She has written two books and over 40 articles on foreign relations and has presented numerous papers at international conferences. In the U.S. she has taught at the University of New Mexico (the Departments of Political Science, Anderson School of Management and Honors Program), worked as Director of International Programs at Technology Commercialization, and as a program manager for the United States Industry Coalition.
September 15, 2007
Berlin: the New York of Europe
Dr. Dr. Charles McClelland
Berlin has been called a garrison town in a sandbox, the New York of Europe, the capital of the world’s most evil empire, and the frontline city of the Cold War. Once again the capital of a united Germany, it is the most populous European municipality between London and Moscow and St. Petersburg. Although German officials and even the public like to play down the fact, Berlin is in many ways also becoming the center of the European Union. Its cultural and scientific life is the envy of most other world cities, and yet the city is almost bankrupt with a vanished tax base. Elegant and homely, exciting and laid back at the same time, Berlin continues to attract visitors, attention and, among some, suspicion. What is the reality today?
Charles McClelland has been Fulbright and Humboldt visiting professor at the renowned
(Humboldt) University of Berlin, the bicentennial history of which he is co-authoring, since 1999. He taught at Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and UNM before early retirement to pursue his research interests and numerous publications in modern German and European history.
June 3, 2007
Persian Culture and History
Dr. John Woods
It is difficult to understand Iran without knowing
its history. Persia has one of the richest and oldest cultures
in the world. For more
than three thousand years Persia was a melting pot of civilizations and
the focus of demographic movements between Asia and Europe. Under
Cyrus the Great it became the center of the world’s first empire. Successive
invasions by Greeks, Arabs, Mongols and Turks developed the nation’s
culture through diverse artistic, philosophical, scientific and religious
influences. This cultural growth was accompanied by important developments
in all forms of art, poetry, architecture, ceramics, mosaics,
sculpture and of, course, Persian carpets.
Dr. John Woods is professor of Iranian and Central Asian History at the University of Chicago. He is a specialist in Iranian and Islamic history and was Director of the University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Dr. Woods is recognized as an outstanding presenter employing imagery for visual discussions of art and history.
June 5, 2007
U.S.-Iranian Estrangement: The Showdown
over the Nuclear Issue
Dr. Mansour Farhang
The dispute between the United States and Iran
over Iran's nuclear enrichment program threatens to ignite
another armed conflict in the Persian Gulf region. International economic sanctions, if possible at all, will
cause hardship for ordinary Iranians but are unlikely to change
Iran's insistence on its right to enrich uranium. The United Nations or
the International Atomic Energy Agency can provide the mechanism to resolve the
conflict, but the emergence of such a possibility requires
direct talks between Iran and the United States.
Dr. Mansour Farhang is currently professor of Middle Eastern politics and international relations at Bennington College. After Iran's 1979 revolution, he served as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations. Resigned when his efforts to negotiate the release of the American hostages in Tehran failed. After working with peace mediators during Iran-Iraq war and speaking out about religious extremism, he was forced to leave Iran in 1981, following the violent suppression of political dissidents. He is a member of the Middle Eastern Seminar at Columbia, an author of several books, articles and Op Ed pieces and is a frequent guest on radio and television.
April 19, 2007
When Everybody is Thinking Asia, Does Mexico Still Matter?
By Jerry Pacheco, Executive Director, International Business Accelerator
Luncheon discussion, Los Equipales restaurant
A follow up to Mathew Woodlee’s presentation “New Mexico, Asia and the Rest of the World…” Mr. Pacheco will focus on the opportunities for New Mexico in Mexico. He will compare these opportunities to those in Asia. Jerry will share his perspective on Mexico under President Calderon and the change in power repercussions on different economic sectors. At the request of AIA members, he will pay attention to buying real estate in Mexico.
Mr. Pacheco is Executive Director of the International Business Accelerator, an import/export international trade counseling center program of the New Mexico Small Business Development Network. The IBA has offices in Santa Teresa and Silver City, New Mexico and in Chihuahua City, Chihuahua. Since its establishment in November of 2003, the IBA has assisted more than 300 clients from Mexico and the U.S. Mr. Pacheco past professional experience includes: Director of the State of New Mexico’s Trade and Tourism Office in Mexico City; President of Global Perspectives Integrated; Director of Marketing, Santa Teresa Real Estate Development Corporation, VP of Business Banking (commercial and international banking) of Norwest Bank, etc. Mr. Pacheco holds a Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Marketing, an M.B.A. in International Management and a Masters in Latin American studies.
March 30, 2007
Immigration and Immigrants in
American Life: Responses from the US Congress, the State of New
Mexico and the Mexican Government"
Lecture by Dr. Manuel Garcia y Griego, Director, Southwest Hispanic Research
Institute
Dr. Manuel Garcia y Griego is one of the leading experts on migration to the United States. He is currently Director of Southwest Hispanic Research Institute and Associate Professor, Department of History, UNM. Dr.Garcia y Griego received his BA from Princeton University, MA from Colegio de Mexico, Mexico City, and Ph.D. from UCLA. He worked in Mexico at El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City, and taught at the University of California, Irvine and University of Texas at Arlington. He wrote numerous books and articles on the topic of immigration and US – Mexican relations, for example “Mexican – U.S. Relations: Conflict and Convergence”, “Immigration and Immigrant Integration in California: Seeking a New Consensus”, “Migration between Mexico and the United States: Binational Study” and others.
March 25, 2007
Book Club
WHAT TERRORISTS WANT by Louise Richardson,
executive dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study,
lecturer in government at Harvard and in law at the Harvard Law
School, will be the book for discussion at the next meeting of
the International
Book Club to be held at Marina
Oborotova's house on March 25, 2007 at 7 PM.
After defining what terrorism is, Richardson explores its origins, its goals, what's to come, and what is to be done about it. She explains terrorist movements throughout history and around the globe. Having grown up in rural Ireland and watched her friends join the Irish Republican Army, Richardson knows from first hand experience how terrorism can both unite and destroy a community. University Professor Stanley Hoffman of Harvard says "If a reader has the time to read only one book on terrorism, this is that book."
For more information please contact Alan Levine allnlevine@aol.com, 345-5670
February 16, 2007
"Who's a Leftist, Who's a Populist, and What's the Difference?
Presidential
Elections in Latin America since 1998" by Dr. Javier Corrales, Chair,
Political Science Department, Amherst College, 3:30 - 5:00
PM, at the Petroleum Club.
"Hugo Boss" and "Cuba after Fidel". These are the titles of two recent articles on Venezuela and Cuba by Javier Corrales in Foreign Policy and Current History. Political labels sometimes hide more than they reveal. By analyzing election results, Dr. Corrales will help us understand the changes currently sweeping through Latin America. Identity politics, the cult of personality and the role of ideology and policy will be examined as candidates struggle for power and support. Do all these changes point to a new course for Latin America in the 21st century?
Dr. Corrales is Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science at Amherst College. He obtained his PhD in political science in 1996 from Harvard University, where he specialized in comparative and international politics of Latin America. His areas of interest include the politics of economic policy reform in developing countries. He is the author of Presidents without Parties: The Politics of Economic Reform in Argentina and Venezuela in the 1990s (Penn State University Press, University Park, 2002). Javier's research has been published in several book chapters and academic journals such as Comparative Politics, World Development, Political Science Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly, World Policy Journal, Latin American Politics and Society, Latin American Research Review , Studies in Comparative International Studies, and Current History.
February 2,
2007 –
Mathew
Woodley, Director, International Trade Division, "New Mexico
and Trade Opportunities in Asia.", luncheon discussion
New Mexico, Asia and the Rest of the World...
Why Asia? New Mexico's products and services, particularly in the high technology area, are finding a lucrative market throughout Asia. With a steady increase in purchasing and investment power, Asian investors are also poised to reach into the Southwest USA as the rest of the country battles with high costs of doing business, natural disasters and congestion. Mr. Mathew Woodlee, Director of the New Mexico Office of International Trade (OIT), will discuss the opportunities for New Mexico in the global economy, as well as what needs to take place in the non-profit, public and private sectors in order to use these opportunities for New Mexico's benefit.
After a successful mission to the Asia-Pacific region in December 2006, OIT is expanding its trade promotion services throughout Asia, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and Southeast Asia.
Mathew Woodlee leads the efforts of the New Mexico Economic Development Department's services that assist New Mexican companies expand into international markets. Prior to his current position, Mr. Woodlee served in the U.S. Department of Commerce/U.S. Commercial Service in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland.
January 19,
2007 -
Ambassador
Davidow "U.S. Policy in Latin America
and Mexico" Ambassador Jeffrey Davidow gave his perspective
on the challenges to U.S. relations with Latin America. Although
crisis in the Middle East and terrorism have distracted Americans,
the days when President Nixon complained “… people don’t
give one damn about Latin America” are definitely over. China
and Europe are greatly expanding trade and investment while the region
is growing economically. The
U.S. is wary of emerging populist and often anti-American leaders. Immigration
from Mexico remains a festering problem. With the Castro era apparently
ending, what happens next in Cuba is potentially destabilizing. How
should the US react? What should be our policy?
Ambassador Davidow is currently President of the Institute of the Americas. During his 34 year-long Foreign Service career, he served in increasingly senior positions in the U.S. embassies in Guatemala, Chile and Venezuela, and in 1993-1996 returned to Venezuela as ambassador. From 1996 to 1998, he was the State Department’s chief policy maker for the hemisphere, serving in the position of Assistant Secretary of State. He then served as an Ambassador to Mexico from 1998 to 2002 under presidents Clinton and Bush. He retired as America’s highest ranking diplomat, one of only three people to hold the personal rank of Career Ambassador. In 2002-03 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard University and wrote a book “The U.S. and Mexico: The Bear and the Porcupine.”