Information, Disinformation, and the 2024 Election
Nina Jankowicz is the former Executive Director of the Disinformation Governance Board of the United States Department of Homeland Security . She took office on April 27, 2022 and held the position until the ultimate shutdown of the board on May 18, 2022. Before her time in politics, Jankowicz graduated as a double-major in Russian and political science from Bryn Mawr College, having also spent a semester at Herzen State Pedagogical University in Russia. Following this, she became a Fulbright fellow in Kyiv and later a disinformation fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Jankowicz also spent time as the supervisor of the Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute. During her career, Jankowicz has written two books; How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News and the Future of Conflict in 2020 and How to be a Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment, and How to Fight Back in 2022.
Tuesday, January 30, 2024, at 7:30p.m.,Gault Recital Hall, Scheide Music Center, 525 E. University Street, Wooster, Ohio
Global Security Threats and U.S. Foreign Policy
Kirk Lippold is a former U.S. Navy commander, having served from 1981 to 2007. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1981 and then went on to earn a Masters of Science in Systems Engineering from U.S. Naval Post Graduate School in 1989. He would later go on to graduate from the United States Army Command and General Staff College in 1994 and the Joint Forces Staff College in 2001. Lippold acted as the executive officer of the USS Shiloh, the operations officer of the USS Arleigh Burke, and the division officer of the USS Yorktown and USS Fairfax County. Most notably, Lippold acted as commanding officer of the USS Cole from 1999 to 2001. He was present on October 12, 2000, when the ship was attacked by al-Qaeda terrorists in Yemen. Following his retirement from the military, Lippold has acted as the Motivation Speaker for the Keppler Speakers Bureau, Vice President for Military Policy and Strategic Development of Phillip Stutts & Company, Inc., President of Lippold Strategies, LLC, and as an Adjunct Professor in the United States Naval Academy.
Tuesday, February 6, 2024, at 7:30p.m., Gault Recital Hall, Scheide Music Center, 525 E. University Street, Wooster, Ohio
Can the U.S. Support Political Stability Abroad? Reflections on the State and Civil Society in East & West Africa
Alex de Waal is the Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. He graduated with a BA in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Oxford in 1984, later going on to earn a PhD in Social Anthropology from Oxford in 1988. From 1993 to 1998, de Waal acted as the chairman of the Mines Advisory Group, which was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 due to their contribution as a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). He set up two human rights organizations, African Rights and Justice Africa in 1993 and 1999 respectively. De Waal is also notable for his work in attempting to find a peaceful solution to the Second Sudanese Civil War and pointing out the intersections between HIV/AIDS, poverty, & drought. Since 1989 he has worked to publish 19 books, most of which focus on the fight for human rights.
Tuesday, February 13, 2024, at 7:30 p.m., Gault Recital Hall, Scheide Music Center, 525 E. University Street, Wooster, Ohio
Can the U.S. Support Political Stability Abroad? Reflections on the State and Civil Society in East & West Africa
Ibra Sene is an Associate Professor of History and Global & International Studies Department Chair at the College of Wooster. From 1996 to 2000, Dr. Sene earned four degrees at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal. He also earned his Graduate Certificate from the University of Amsterdam in 2006 and his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2008. He is also a co-founding member of the The Dakar Institute of African Studies. Sene’s research primarily focuses on crime & punishment, education, and youth organization. He has contributed to An A-Z of African Studies on the Internet, a widely-cited online guide to African Studies. Sene’s most recent publication, “The Prison of Saint-Louis: French Expansion, Social Control, and Early Development of the Penitentiary Institution in Senegal, 1834-1895” was a contribution to the 2019 book, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Saint-Louis, Senegal: Mirror Cities in the Atlantic World.
Tuesday, February 13, 2024, at 7:30 p.m., Gault Recital Hall, Scheide Music Center, 525 E. University Street, Wooster, Ohio
Sound the Alarm, Film Screening & Discussion with Director
John Trainor is the director of the 2022 film, Sound the Alarm, which focuses on the 1995 launching of a rocket from Norway that would falsely alert Russian forces of an incoming nuclear attack, leaving then president, Boris Yeltsin, with few minutes to decide how to react. Trainor is an alumni of the College of Wooster, having graduated in 2016 with a BA in History and Film Studies. From 2018 to 2019, Trainor worked as a marketing coordinator for Polkadot. He is currently a consultant for his own John Trainor Consulting company in New York.
Wednesday, March 6, 2024, at 7:30 p.m., Gault Recital Hall, Scheide Music Center, 525 E. University Street, Wooster, Ohio
