Now
CHAPMAN A S P E C I A L P U B L I C AT I O N F R O M C H A P M A N M A G A Z I N E
BEYONDCopenhagen
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel last visited Chapman in 2005, when his bust was unveiled.
A MILESTONE MOMENT FOR HOLOCAUST PROGRAM gala titled “An Evening of Humanity
A and Hope” will honor the 10th anniversary of Chapman’s acclaimed Holocaust education programs on April 25. The guest of honor will be Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, who also spoke at the 2005 opening of the Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library on campus. The April event will salute the first decade of Chapman’s Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education and will recognize Marilyn Harran, Ph.D., Stern Chair in Holocaust Education. Her indefatigable efforts have built a program in which students learn directly from Holocaust survivors as well as through rigorous academic courses and from outstanding visiting professors. The program also engages and inspires middle and high school teachers and students as well as the larger community. Professor Wiesel, who will speak at the gala, is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and the author of more than 50 books, including Night, which describes his experiences in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his work in furthering human rights and peace throughout the world. Individual tickets for the gala are sold out, but tables and sponsorships are still available. More information: 714-997-6589 or e-mail events@chapman.edu.
WINTER 2010
UN Experience Will Help Shape Chapman’s Climate Change Conference
SD
espite the chaos that dominated the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, Denmark, a group of Chapman scholars gained practical insights they will apply to the university’s own climate change event, to be held April 21–23. The Chapman conference — called Beyond Copenhagen — will explore not just the challenges but the opportunities available to those who seek to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The event will feature national and international experts in the fields of science, public policy, business and law. In Copenhagen, the Chapman team saw firsthand the difficulties in reaching consensus on how to meet the challenges of climate change. The UN conference was contentious, and there were problems from the start. About 45,000 people were credentialed for a venue that held 15,000. The Chapman team waited for more than two hours each morning in the sub-freezing cold just to get in. During one session, Menas Kafatos, Ph.D., dean of Chapman’s Schmid College of Science and a noted computational science and climate researcher, gave
a presentation as part of the Korea Green Foundation/ Asia Responds to Climate Change event, co-hosted by Korea University and Chapman. Other members of the Chapman group — Schmid College professors Christopher Kim and Susan Yang, law professor Deepa Badrinarayana, social science professor David Shafie, Schmid College staffer Emmanuel Smith, and Mary Platt, Chapman director of communications and media relations — attended as many events as they could. They took in panels by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Irish President and UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Mary Robinson, President Obama’s science adviser John Holdren and Sen. John Kerry. Members also attended a concurrent shadow conference called Klimaforum ’09, which was staged mainly by activist/advocate groups and NGOs. Through it all, there was the beautiful, snow-covered city of Copenhagen. “People in the city were thrilled to be hosting the world for a couple of weeks, and they were unfailingly gracious and helpful,” Platt said. Chapman team members blogged daily about their scholarly reflections, personal viewpoints and adventures. The blog will be kept active as the Beyond Copenhagen Conference at Chapman approaches.
LINKS: Chapman at COP15 and Beyond Copenhagen Blog: www.chapmanclimate.wordpress.com Beyond Copenhagen Conference at Chapman, April 21-23: www.chapman.edu/beyondcopenhagen
20 YEARS AFTER the
Fall of the Wall
“ W hen you think about it, it’s just a big piece of
C
concrete,” said Chapman language professor Karen Gallagher, whose office in DeMille Hall is steps from Liberty Plaza and its centerpiece — a relocated chunk of the Berlin Wall. “And yet here the wall is, an enduring symbol, inspiring people to share their wonderfully important stories.” Those stories were at the heart of Freedom Without Walls, a collaborative event that in November brought to the Chapman campus scholars and students, those who lived the history and those who study it, all
gathered to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dr. Gallagher led the effort as Chapman became one of 30 U.S. colleges and universities selected by the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. to host educational and commemorative events. The mission: “to support a new generation of future leaders in their effort to discover and to share what the fall of the wall means to them.” For more on the Freedom Without Walls event, please turn to the back cover.
A section of the Berlin Wall is at the center of Chapman’s Liberty Plaza.