Distributed March 17, 2003
For Immediate Release

News Service Contact: Ricardo Howell



A Time of Great Consequence: America and the World

Andrea Mitchell to open 23rd Brown/Providence Journal conference

Acclaimed foreign affairs reporter Andrea Mitchell will deliver the Michael P. Metcalf-Howard R. Swearer Memorial Lecture to open the 23rd annual Brown University/Providence Journal Public Affairs Conference. The conference, A Time of Great Consequence: America and the World, runs March 30 through April 4, 2003. Mitchell will give her address, titled “Pax Americana,” on Sunday, March 30, at 4 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching, located on The College Green.


PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Analysts, policy-makers and cultural experts will discuss America’s role and responsibility as the world’s last superpower at the 23rd Brown University/Providence Journal Public Affairs Conference, March 30 through April 4, 2003. Seven conference sessions will examine the theme A Time of Great Consequence: America and the World.

Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News since 1994, will open the week-long conference, delivering the keynote lecture, titled “Pax Americana,” on Sunday, March 30, at 4 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching on The College Green. Her address will be the 2003 Michael P. Metcalf–Howard R. Swearer Memorial Lecture, honoring the memory of public affairs conference founders Michael P. Metcalf, former chairman and publisher of The Providence Journal, and Howard R. Swearer, Brown’s 15th president. Prior to her address, Mitchell will receive Brown’s Welles Hangen Award for Distinguished Journalism.

In addition to Mitchell, presenters include World Wildlife Fund CEO Kathryn Fuller, composer Philip Glass, national security and defense expert Richard Perle, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, actor and director Tim Robbins, and many other scholars and writers.

A Time of Great Consequence: America and the World will examine the international impact of the American republic in the 21st century by drawing together the analysts, leaders and thinkers who forge, evaluate and defend U.S. foreign policy. Together they will attempt to answer such questions as will the United States take steps to expand its sovereignty because of threats to its national security? Will globalization and other rising economies, such as the European Union, help balance the U.S. economy in the world market? Will pressure for a globally consistent environmental policy affect America’s stability and its energy needs? And how will America’s much-discussed and -emulated values – liberty, justice and free enterprise – be transformed in the days ahead?

The conference, free and open to the public, will continue through Friday, April 4, according to the schedule below. All sessions will be held in the Salomon Center for Teaching, located on The College Green. Doors will open one hour before each event.

Editors: Several guest speakers will be available for telephone interview before the conference opens. Please contact the News Service for details.


A Time of Great Consequence: America and the World

All sessions will be held in the Salomon Center for Teaching, located on The College Green.

Sunday, March 30 – 4 p.m.

Andrea Mitchell: “Pax Americana”
The Michael P. Metcalf and Howard R. Swearer Memorial Lecture
Awarding of the Welles Hangen Award for Distinguished Journalism

Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News, will discuss recent developments in U.S. international affairs, including the confrontation with Saddam Hussein and the campaign against terrorist operatives. The annual keynote address is named in honor of the conference founders.

The Welles Hangen Award honors Brown alumnus Welles Hangen, Class of 1949, an NBC reporter who was executed by Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge guerillas in Cambodia while he was reporting on the Vietnam War.

Monday, March 31 – 6:30 p.m.

Anne-Marie Slaughter: “Human Rights and Human Security”

Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, will examine the complex relationship between national security, international relations and human rights in the 21st century.

Tuesday, April 1 – 5:30 p.m.

Panel: Paul Kennedy, Joseph Nye, Richard Perle
“The Reluctant Empire: In A Time of Great Consequence”

Kennedy, director of international security studies at Yale University; Nye, dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; and Perle, chair of the Defense Policy Board, examine how American power can be used to foster democratic government and create global stability and international peace.

Wednesday, April 2 – 6:30 p.m.

Kathryn S. Fuller: “State of the Natural World: America and the Global Environment”

Fuller, president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund, will discuss the relationship between America’s energy priorities and the world’s changing environment.

Thursday, April 3 – 6:30 p.m.

Robert Reich: “America Inc.: The Future of American Globalization”

Reich, former secretary of labor, is now a professor at Brandeis University. He examines American business, the world economic climate and the transforming global economy.

Friday, April 4 – 4 p.m.

Panel: William Gass, Philip Glass, Tim Robbins
“Drawing the Line: America’s Artistic Influence on the World”

Gass, an award-winning writer; Glass, an acclaimed composer; and Robbins, an actor, screenwriter and director, examine the far-reaching impact of American art and popular culture and how the world’s regionally and nationally distinct forms of art and pop culture will endure in the transnational economy. This session is presented in cooperation with the Ivy League Film Festival.

Friday, April 4 – 6 p.m.

Michael Ignatieff : “Republic or Empire?”

Ignatieff, noted author and Harvard professor of human rights, discusses how American goals and interests have given rise to a paradoxical new form of imperialism.

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