Phelps Stokes Chapel, February 16, 2017 at 3:00 p.m.
Berea College welcomes the public and campus community to a convocation featuring Jordan Ryan, J.D., Vice President for Peace Programs at the Carter Center in Atlanta. Ryan will speak about the Center’s work to help secure civil rights for the people that the Center serves. This convocation, sponsored by the Wills D. Weatherford, Jr. Campus Christian Center, is the annual Robbins Peace Lecture and will take place Thursday, February 16, at 3:00 p.m. in Phelps Stokes Chapel on the Berea College campus.
Ryan is a graduate of Yale University where he received a B.A. in Anthropology. He obtained a master’s in international affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs from Columbia University and his Juris Doctor from George Washington University. He served from 2001-2005 as United Nations resident coordinator and United Nations Development Programme resident coordinator. From 2006 until 2009, Ryan served as the deputy special representative of the secretary-general (Recovery and Governance) and as the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Liberia. In 2009, Ryan, accepted the position of assistant secretary-general for the United Nations, serving as assistant administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and the director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery.
The Campus Christian Center administers the Robbins Peace Emphasis and each year offers “The Earl G. and Sue D. Robbins Peace Lecture.” Mr. Earl G. Robbins, a former student of Berea College, established this lectureship on peace in 1988. In providing funding for this program, Mr. Robbins stated at the time that, at Berea College, he had learned “what is important in life,” the true humanity “of all of us.” He and his family instituted this lectureship in order to help students to discover precisely this. Mr. Robbins said, “[while] I was a student at Berea, the Chapel programs were the most stimulating, ideal-building facets of the entire educational program.”
The convocation events, which are provided to both the campus and public communities, are a significant part of a student’s educational experience at Berea College. See https://www.berea.edu/convocations/ for the schedule of all convocations this academic year. All convocations are free and open to the public.