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at Miami University
Grayson Kirk Distinguished Lecture Series
After graduating, Dr. Kirk went on to become one of the pioneers in developing international relations as a field of political science and served as president of Columbia University for many years. This lecture series brings in public figures and recognized scholars to address international issues. (Photo by Gjon Mili, ©Time, Inc.)
[Read more about Dr. Kirk's life 
in the Columbia University Record's December 5, 1997 obituary for Dr. Kirk.]
Most Recent Speaker
- Nicholas Kristof (September 2009)
Mr. Kristof, spoke about his most recent book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.
Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for the The New York Times since 2001, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who writes op-ed columns that appear twice per week. He has lived on four continents, reported on six, and traveled to more than 140 countries, plus all 50 states, every Chinese province and every main Japanese island. After joining The New York Times in 1984, initially covering economics, Mr. Kristof served as a Times correspondent in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo.
In 1990 Mr. Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, then also a Times journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China's Tiananmen Square democracy movement. They were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism. Mr. Kristof won a second Pulitzer in 2006, for commentary for what the judges called "his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur and that gave voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world." He has also won other prizes including the George Polk Award, the Overseas Press Club award, the Michael Kelly award, the Online News Association award and the American Society of Newspaper Editors award.
Past Speakers
- Raj Patel (February 2009)
- Raj Patel, controversial author, journalist and food policy expert, continuously challenges our presumptions about the global food economy with his work both as a policy analyst and activist. He has worked for some of the most prestigious international organizations and protested against them, and constantly works to find ways to improve the global food system. In his newest work, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, Patel discusses the growing worldwide food crisis and what needs to be done to solve it.
- Steven Kinzer (March 2008)
- An award-winning foreign correspondent, Kinzer spent more than 20 years with the New York Times and has reported from more than 50 countries on four continents. He is author of many books, including Crescent and Star: Turkey Between two Worlds, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, and his most recent, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.
- Andrew Bacevich (January 2007)
- Andrew Bacevich is Professor of International Relations at Boston University and author of The New American Militarism. Bacevich is a 1969 graduate of West Point and a Vietnam veteran. He has criticized American foreign policy in the post Cold War era and argues that the United States has relied too often, and often unsuccessfully, on military power rather than diplomacy to achieve its foreign policy aims.
- Shibley Telhami (October 2006)
- Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and author of The Stakes. Telhami is a non-resident senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, has served as adviser to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Trilateral U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian Anti-Incitement Committee.
- Mark Hertsgaard (November 2005)
- Hertsgaard is an American journalist, author and broadcaster. In The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, Hertsgaard explains to Americans what the world really thinks of their nation and why. To non-Americans he explains why America is the way that it is.