This Tuesday, Georgetown hosted the President of the World Bank Group, Dr. Jim Yong Kim. In a talk titled “Within Our Grasp: A World Free of Poverty,” Dr. Kim addressed the audience in Gaston Hall on issues ranging from climate change to the global state of the financial crisis.

The main focus of the speech, however, was that the international community is at an “auspicious moment in history … to give developing countries a chance … to end extreme poverty within a generation.” He cited experiences in various countries, including China and Afghanistan, to illustrate the programs the World Bank Group believes will help eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. He also emphasized the importance of “boost[ing] the incomes of the poorest 40 percent of the population in each country.”

Focusing on the bottom 40 percent, he said, “demands that we … look directly at whether the welfare of the poorest segment of society is improving.”

Dr. Kim described a broader perspective on economic development, stressing the necessity of delivery of resources as well as content. “Countries … tell us plans for new sanitation plants, or new roads … have been approved, but years later, they still are not completed. These are delivery failures, and … they’re the greatest obstacle to development progress.”

Several prominent leaders in the development community were present, including Rajiv Shah, the Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Dr. Kim has a long history of work in the development sector. After graduating from Harvard with an M.D. and a PhD in anthropology, he helped found the public health organization Partners in Health in 1987, which provides health services to remote areas of Haiti, and researched multi-drug resistant tuberculosis treatment across four continents.

He moved to the World Health Organization as an adviser before taking on the position of Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. In 2009 he became the President of Dartmouth College, and three years later, President Barack Obama nominated Dr. Kim for the President of the World Bank Group.

Photo:Julia Tanaka/Georgetown Voice

Yesterday, Georgetown University in conjunction with the GU Library Associates and the GU Lecture Fund hosted journalist Chris Matthews, former presidential speechwriter and host of Hardball on MSNBC and The Chris Matthews Show on NBC.

Matthews gave the Tanous Family Endowed Lecture entitled: Making Politics Work, which provided a nostalgic look back on his days working on Capitol Hill during the Reagan administration, which he remembers fondly as a time when politics in America were at their best. “I think I saw the American government run the way it was supposed to run back then,” Matthews said. “Things got done for the American people back then.”

Matthews went on to examine the paradoxical relationship between President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill as a paradigm of the American democratic tradition. “Ronald Reagan couldn’t have been more different than Tip O’Neill, Tip O’Neill couldn’t have been more different than Reagan, except they both loved the country, and in their own ways they wanted it to work,” Matthews said.

Matthews attributed the success to of the Reagan years to the give-and-take dynamic between O’Neill and Reagan. Despite their rivalry in the political arena, Reagan and O’Neill shared a common devotion to the good of America and the good of the American people that allowed them to offset each other’s excesses and keep America afloat throughout their time in office.

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Yesterday, the GU Art Aficionados, the Lecture Fund, and the Department of Art and Art History hosted a panel discussion on Ai Weiwei, a controversial Chinese artist who often uses his art to criticize the Chinese government. This panel discussion comes at an opportune moment, as the opening of Weiwei’s first North American exhibit, “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” will occur on Sunday, October 7th at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.

The panel consisted of curators Kerry Brougher and Mika Yoshitake of the Hirshhorn Museum and Chief Curator of the Tokyo Mori Art Museum Mami Kataoka. Carol Huh, a curator at The Freer and Sackler Galleries and Carma Hinton, a George Mason University professor of Visual Culture and Chinese Studies were also panelists. Georgetown University professor of Asian Art Michelle Wang moderated the event.

Just a few years ago, Weiwei was one of three designers chosen by the government to assist in the construction of the Bird’s Nest for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Since then, he has grown increasingly critical of the Communist Party. These negative feelings reached their peak after the Sichuan earthquake in China in 2008, during which school buildings collapsed on children while surrounding office buildings remained standing. Many people claim that corruption in the government allowed building code violations to slip through the cracks. Much of Weiwei’s recent artwork has been directed towards exposing the injustice of this event and of other offences of the Chinese government.

In April of last year, Weiwei was arrested by the government and jailed for 81 days in a secret location under allegations of economic crimes. Today, he remains under 24-hour surveillance by the Chinese government. They have revoked the license for his company and have taken his passport, leaving him unable to travel to North America for the opening of his exhibit’s tour. When asked how the Chinese government felt about the new exhibit, Chief Curator Kerry Brougher explained that the Hirshhorn has not had any contact with the Chinese embassy, and that the relationship between the Smithsonian and the Chinese government has thus far been “complicated but quiet.”

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Rosario Dawson charmed Gaston Hall last Friday afternoon in a talk hosted by the Lecture Fund. Dawson conversed with students about her life as a political activist as well as her experiences growing up in an abandoned building on the Lower East Side. A prominent Hollywood actress, recognized for her roles in “Men in Black”, “Seven Pounds”, “Sin City”, “Rent”, and several more, Dawson is known as one of the most politically active actresses in the Hollywood industry. During the lecture, she shared her beliefs with Georgetown students through a series of stories and favorite quotations.

“I really truly feel that the journey really is the destination. I am an artist and I am all about the journey,” Dawson said.

Dawson’s own journey has taken her through many stages, which she credits for her involvement in issues ranging from preventing domestic violence to encouraging Latinos to vote. For Rosario Dawson, her experiences were the stem of several inspirations.

“I was born to a teenage mother, she was 16 when she got pregnant with me. She raised me to have as many opportunities and things and values that I could possibly have.”

Dawson began her career in activism before she started her career in acting.

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On Tuesday night, The Lecture Fund welcomed renowned radio and television personality Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West, a philosopher and writer described by Smiley as “our country’s leading public intellectual,” to Lohrfink Auditorium to speak about the growing issue of income inequality in the United States.

Smiley set the tone for his segment of the talk by declaring poverty “the moral and spiritual issue of our time,” and “a threat to our democracy.”

Referencing the historical reputation of privilege at elite universities, Smiley said, “Some might find it ludicrous or laughable that we’re talking about poverty at a place like Georgetown.” However, he continued, poverty is an issue impacting a growing number of people who had once been solidly in the middle class.

Smiley and West embarked on a “poverty tour” this summer with the aim of seeing the effects of the current recession on Americans. Visiting 18 cities in nine states over the course of a week, Smiley and West discovered that poverty can no longer be “color-coded,” for Americans of all races struggle to make ends meet.

Smiley declared that 150 million Americans can now be classified as poor or near-poor—almost half of the population of the United States. Nevertheless, the nation has been reluctant to start a conversation on the topic; in the three debates leading up to the 2008 presidential election, the words “poor” or “poverty” were never even used.

“The time is now for this conversation,” Smiley said. “Poverty is an issue of national security.”

A Princeton professor whose popular writings focus on poverty and race theory, West began his portion of the talk with kind words about departing Georgetown professor Patrick Deneen. Of Professor Michael Eric Dyson, West said, “I may not always agree with that brother, but he’s a genius.”

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Social activist and co-founder of Invisible Children Bobby Bailey spoke to students last night in a speech sponsored by the Lecture Fund and Invisible Children Georgetown, highlighting the development of the organization in the past ten years as well as sharing his plans for the future after leaving Invisible Children.

Bailey, who became involved in social activism in his early twenties, first urged the audience to think of what defines the contemporary youth generation. “As far as pressing in and doing something remarkable, what if it comes down to us?” he suggested. “What if we are the best of a generation?”

Bailey briefly mentioned co-founder Jason Russell’s recent arrest for public nudity and inebriation following the release and publicity of the short documentary Kony 2012. “The psychological break of our leader and one of my best friends is a tough pill to swallow,” he said.

While Bailey left the Invisible Children organization officially in 2009 in order to take on other causes in Africa, his presentation still focused on his personal story, the history of Invisible Children, and why this specific issue had captivated his team so much. “I remember thinking that if this night commute, child abduction thing happened even one night in America, would it not be on the cover of TIME magazine? This bothered me in my core and psyche,” Bailey said.

Bailey also detailed Invisible Children’s emphasis flipping the way that these issues were addressed. Using films, tours, and social media to spread awareness, Bobby and his team hoped that they could rally support for those affected by a cause thousands of miles away from donors and supporters.

He ended his speech with his favorite mantra: “They say I’m extreme, I say I’m a realist… They say we need a new initiative, I saw we need a new dream. They say, ‘Sure, we need change.’ I say we need revolution now. Live your insane fantasy.”

Former Speaker of the House, Republican presidential contender, and defender of American civilization Newt Gingrich will address the University community in Gaston Hall tomorrow at 5 p.m. on the topic of “Giving Young Americans the Right to Choose a Personal Social Security Account.” It’s unclear if he will also have an Etch-a-Sketch handy.

The event is sponsored by the Lecture Fund and GU College Republicans. Doors open at 4 p.m. and seats will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. Gingrich is coming to the Hilltop in advance of the D.C. Republican primary, which will take place Tuesday. The winner of the primary, expected to be Mitt Romney, will win 16 convention delegates.

Although privatizing Social Security may be an unpopular notion on a liberal college campus, Kevin Preskenis (COL ’12), National Coalitions Coordinator for the Gingrich campaign and one of the organizers of the event, wasn’t concerned about the speech’s reception in an email to Vox:

Once he outlines his plan, I’m confident many students will be fully on board. Social security is close to a broken system. Our generation will be faced with a choice: watch the system wither away or pay massive taxes to keep it alive. Newt’s social security program, based on the Chilean model, gives Americans more freedom in their retirement and creates dramatically more wealth in the long run. As a barometer of support among youth, over 230 college campuses have setup chapters in support of the plan.

The afternoon does not promise to be a completely quiet afternoon of pontification on the merits of privatization however, as Georgetown Occupy has called for a protest on Copley Lawn at the same time as the speech. Occupy member Cole Stangler (SFS ’13) explained the point of the protest in an email to Vox:

It’s important for Newt Gingrich to know that his bigoted politics in service of the 1% are rejected by the vast majority of young people in this country, and that he can’t come to a college campus and tell us why he wants to privatize our social security without expecting some sort of negative outcry.

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If you love mouth-watering burgers and delicious milkshakes, then it’s pretty likely that you love Shake Shack as well. This popular eatery, with a new location a short GUTS bus ride away in Dupont Circle, is one of eleven eateries started by renowned restaurateur Danny Meyer.

On Tuesday evening, the Lecture Fund hosted Meyer in a packed Riggs Library to talk about how he got into the restaurant business, what he’s learned in the process, and how hospitality guides his current success as the CEO of the Union Square Hospitality Group.

Meyer started by telling the story of his own college life as a Political Science major at Trinity College, where he believed that the only career path that he could consider was to become a lawyer. “I will never forget how blind I was,” Meyer said. “I was thinking about what I could do versus what I should do.”

He emphasized the importance of following your passions: “To be doing something with your short life that you don’t want to do is absolutely ludicrous. Your passions are there. Your gifts are there.” Meyer explained that after entering the restaurant business, he realized that work must be something you love: “I have a very highly developed love for doing things that make other people happy.” For Meyer, making other people happy came in the form of great food, service, and hospitality.

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Last night, the Lecture Fund and the International Relations Club hosted a spirited discussion entitled “Striking the Balance: How Should American Universities Engage the Chinese Government?” Provoked by a recent Voice feature (Full Disclosure: Perry is the author of this feature) that detailed the University’s growing relationships with Chinese government institutions, the event became an evaluation of the history of modern Chinese human rights and a debate over the ethics of the University’s efforts in China.

In a discussion moderated by Father Stephen Fields of the Theology Department, the panelists were Wei Jingsheng, a prominent Chinese dissident who was exiled for his pro-democracy activism, Ciping Huang, the Secretary General of the Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition who also served as Jingsheng’s translator, T. Kumar, the Director of International advocacy for Amnesty International USA, and Professor Thomas Banchoff, the Director of the Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.

The most contentious part of the dialogue concerned Georgetown’s response to China’s denial in 2008 and 2009 of University professor James Millward‘s visa requests. Kumar and Wei disagreed with Banchoff over the University’s position on academic freedom and China.

Kumar criticized Georgetown for strengthening ties with China after Millward was denied a visa, advocating a “red lines” ethical stance.

“Georgetown maintaining it’s relationship with China after they deny the visa of a professor here,” Kumar said, “It’s an insult to Georgetown itself.”

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During his lecture on Friday afternoon, filmmaker and author Michael Moore demonstrated an acute sense of his audience and location. Not only did he acknowledge that Georgetown has been or will be host to such conservative figureheads as Karl Rove and Ann Coulter, but he drew a political parallel that would make Hoyas from any corner of the political spectrum crack a smile. When discussing the voting patterns of young people, he explained why so few 18- to 25-year-olds bothered to vote in the 2010 midterm elections.

“[Obama]’s been playing it like Georgetown football,” he said. The crowd erupted with laughter, whoops, and applause.

That kind of situational awareness was a big part of what made Moore’s presentation, entitled “Here Comes Trouble: An Evening with Michael Moore,” so engaging. During the lecture, which was sponsored with its share of public chagrin by the Georgetown Lecture Fund, Georgetown Program Board, and the Student Activities Commission, Moore was equal parts cynically joking and unsettling serious as he discussed public policy, Christian values, and America’s financial and social woes. He structured the entire evening with such a smooth narrative arc and call to action for young people to repair the nation that it reminded the crowd why he has an Oscar lying around somewhere in his house.

Since he is, of course, the maker of such politically-minded, left-bent films as Farenheit 9/11 and Sicko, Moore spent a good deal of the speech addressing the what he believed to be the flaws and hypocrisies inherent in America’s version of “21^st Century capitalism.” He launched into this by bringing up the recent Occupy Wall Street campaign, and expanded into the mortgage crisis, job crisis, and other financial woes by summing up the problem with a single, unifying source.

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