Past JWAC events: 2016-2017 season 34

This is a partial archive of past JWAC events. In over a decade of service to the community, we've put on hundreds of events that have brought scores of speakers before the community.

'Vulnerable Vietnam: A Photo Story Focused on Climate Change in the Mekong Delta' with Lione Clare

Thursday | August 24th | 5:00 | KTOO Studios: @360

Sitkan Lione Clare studies Resource Conservation, Climate Change Studies, and Media Arts at the University of Montana. She began in photojournalism as a newspaper photographer at age 14, and in 2013 was recognized by the North American Nature Photography Association. In summers, she works with the Sitka Conservation Society and the Forest Service "to advocate for, and [help people] gain an understanding of, the importance of wilderness and public lands."

At the start of the year, she traveled Southern Vietnam, seeing firsthand what climate change is doing to communities halfway around the world. Her presentation focuses on four main themes: food security, coastal forests, renewable energy and migration.

360 North video: http://www.360north.org/video/vulnerable-vietnam/

'Melting the Ice Curtain - The Extraordinary Story of Citizen Diplomacy on the Russia-Alaska Frontier' with David Ramseur

Tuesday | July 18th | 5:00 | KTOO Studios: @360

David Ramseur is a visiting scholar in public policy at UAA's Institute of Social and Economic Research. He was foreign policy advisor and chief of staff to Senator Mark Begich, and served Governors Tony Knowles and Steve Cowper (''coo-per'') as chief of staff, foreign policy advisor, and press secretary.

Ramseur helped organize the 1988 'Friendship Flight' between Nome, Alaska and Provideniya, Russia, which reunited Native peoples of common languages and cultures for the first time in four decades. His book, Melting the Ice Curtain, is now available from University of Alaska Press. His presentation included slides from his new book and travels.

360 North video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsQ3X11fzfI

'Europe: America’s Partner or America’s Problem?' with Constanze Stelzenmüller

Thursday | May 4th | 5:00 | KTOO Studios: @360

Constanze Stelzenmüller is a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. She is an expert on German, European, and transatlantic foreign and security policy and strategy; NATO; the EU's foreign, security, and defense policy; international law; and human rights.

She is a former editor of the German weekly DIE ZEIT, and is a frequent commentator on American and European radio and television, including National Public Radio, and the BBC.

360 North video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iiYAKhW2x4

'Wisdom of the Steppes: Mongolia Today -Profile, Strengths, and Politics' with Tsogtbaatar Damdin & co.

Monday | March 27th | 5:00 | KTOO Studios: @360

Mongolian Parliamentarian Tsogtbaatar Damdin was elected to the State Great Hural (Parliament) in 2016 after serving as the cabinet minister for Construction & Urban Development and also Tourism & Environment. Mr. Tsogtbaatar's primary focus is the development of responsible, accountable, open and efficient government institutions at both the national and local levels. He gave us a primer on his nation, its government, and how his peaple see the world.

This talk is presented in partnership with Juneau's Rotary Clubs via the Open World Leadership Center, which operates Congress's only exchange program. It brings emerging leaders from mostly Eurasian countries to the United States in order to give them firsthand exposure to the American system of participatory democracy and free enterprise.

Rotary International was awarded a grant from the Open World Leadership Center to host and facilitate delegations from participating countries. Juneau's three Rotary Clubs hosted a Mongolian delegation in the capital city from March 26‐29, 2017.

360 North video: http://www.360north.org/video/juneau-world-affairs-mongolia-today-profile-strengths-and-politics/

'Going Undercover in North Korea' with Suki Kim

Wednesday | March 1st | 5:00 | KTOO Studios: @360

Suki Kim is a South Korean-born, American novelist and investigative journalist and the only writer ever to live undercover in North Korea. She is the author of the recent New York Times-bestselling novel Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea’s Elite. In her travels, she has witnessed the country during both Kim Jong-Il's 60th Birthday Celebration and his death at age 69 in 2011. Her six months in Pyongyang living undercover as a teacher to the sons of North Korea's elite gave her unprecedented insights into the psychology of the future leadership, and her work sheds a new light on a place that has been, for the past 70 years, almost completely shrouded from the eyes of the world.

WorldQuest 2017!

Friday, Feb 3rd | 6:00 | Centennial Hall

WorldQuest is JWAC's largest fundraiser, featuring an international buffet, no-host bar, silent auctions, and our delightfully amusing trivia contest. Click here to read more about 2017's event.

The winning team was i Pizzaioli Arrapati, who took both the Rotary trophy (second year in a row) AND the WorldQuest trophy - an event first! [Not shown: hugely important team member Ian Fisk, who was busy running the silent auction when the photo was taken.]

'Putin and Russia's Evolving Image in the United States' with Artem Zagorodnov

Friday | December 16th | 5:00 | KTOO Studios: @360

Artem Zagorodnov has spent the last 10 years working in various Russia-related media outlets and has commented on Russia affairs for a wide variety of publications like The Economist, BusinessWeek Russia and Petroleum Review. During his career, he's interviewed such leading figures as ex-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, billionaire entrepreneur Alexander Lebedev and ex-Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. During 2013-16, he was based in the Middle East and launched the first English-language corporate newspaper of Lukoil Overseas, the subsidiary of Russia's largest private oil company. Artem holds a degree in economics from Ohio State University and is currently an MSc student in International Relations at the London School of Economics.

360 North video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0Ojg9NGjbs&t=2s

'Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians Got it Right -and How We Can, Too' with George Lakey

Friday | November 4th | 5:00 | KTOO Studios: @360

Mr. Lakey recently retired from Swarthmore College where he was a professor of Issues in Social Change. While there, he wrote Viking Economics after interviewing economists and others in the Nordic countries. It is his ninth book, all of which have been about change and how to achieve it. He was married in Norway, and worked there for several years and also in Denmark and Sweden. On returning to the U.S., he alternated between academic positions and founding and leading organizations working for justice and peace. He has led over 1,500 social change workshops on five continents. He received the Martin Luther King, Jr., Peace Award and the National Giraffe Award for Sticking his Neck out for the Common Good.

360 North video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsStdNUpc-o

'World Affairs Forum: Human Migration and Refugees - Peril and Hope'

Thursday, Friday, Saturday | Oct. 20, 21, 22 | UAS

The Fall Forum looked at the ongoing refugee crisis and the history of mass migration. Click here for speaker information and schedules.

'Current Relations with Cuba' with Ambassador Charles Shapiro

Wednesday | Sept. 28th | 5:00 | KTOO Studios: @360

World Affairs Council of Atlanta president Charles Shapiro is a former Ambassador to Venezuela and former Director for Cuban Affairs at the State Department. He has worked with governments, businesses, and development agencies to increase access to credit for marginalized groups, foster entrepreneurship and small business growth, and encourage job creation to reduce poverty and strengthen stable democracies. He has visited Cuba a half dozen times, and had much to tell us.

360 North video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voGxkyUgI0g

'The Nazi Hunters: Bringing Holocaust Perpetrators to Justice' with Andrew Nagorski

Saturday | Sept. 17th | 3:00 (!) | KTOO Studios: @360

Andrew Nagorski is an award-winning journalist and author who spent more than three decades as a foreign correspondent and editor for Newsweek. He served as the magazine’s bureau chief in Hong Kong, Moscow, Rome, Bonn, Berlin and Warsaw. Born in Scotland to Polish parents before moving to the US as an infant, Nagorski now lives in St. Augustine, Florida. He travels extensively, writing for numerous publications and himself. He is the author of six books, most recently the well-reviewed The Nazi Hunters, which deals with the subject of his talk: Nazi war criminals and those who have chased them down for many decades since the end of World War II. For more information, see andrewnagorski.com.

360 North video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo9k53Yly2M