Leonel Fernandez, president of the Dominican Republic, will present a Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on International Affairs at 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26, 2008, in the Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 101 (the De Ciccio Family Auditorium). His address is titled “Transformation of the Dominican Republic.”
Following the lecture, Fernandez will be joined by Ricardo Lagos Escobar, former president of Chile and currently a University professor-at-large, based at the Watson Institute for International Studies. James Green, associate professor of history and director of Brown’s Center for Latin American Studies, will moderate a conversation between Fernandez and Lagos and take questions from the audience.
The lecture will be open to the public without charge. Doors will open at 1 p.m. As a standard security measure for visiting heads of state, no purses, backpacks or bags will be allowed in the auditorium.
Editors: Seats will be reserved for press. Please e-mail or call Deborah Baum at (401) 863-2478 to reserve a place.
A graduate of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (Juris Doctor, 1978, with honors), Fernandez has taught at his alma mater in the social sciences and has written extensively on freedom of the press, history, sociology, communication, and foreign relations. His book include Los Estados Unidos en el Caribe: De la Guerra Fría al Plan Reagan (United States in the Caribbean: From the Cold War to the Reagan Plan), Raíces de un Poder Usurpado (Roots of an Usurped Power), and Nuevo Paradigma (New Paradigm).
Fernandez is founder and honorary president of the Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo, a private, non-partisan, non-profit, international research-based think tank with headquarters in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic,and offices in New York, Washington, and Madrid. He is president of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).
Last May, Fernandez was elected to his third four-year term (1996-2000, 2004-2008, 2008-2012) as president of the Dominican Republic.
Stephen A. Ogden Jr. '60 Memorial Lecture
Since 1965, the Ogden Lectureship has presented the University and its neighboring communities with authoritative and timely addresses about international affairs. The lectureship was established in memory of Stephen A. Ogden Jr., a member of the Brown Class of 1960, who died in 1963 from injuries he suffered in a car accident during his junior year. His family created the series as a tribute to Ogden's interest in advancing international peace and understanding.
Dozens of heads of state, diplomats, and observers of the international scene have participated in the series, including Queen Noor of Jordan, former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, President of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, media mogul Ted Turner, astronaut Sen. John Glenn, economist Paul Volcker, and Bolivian President Evo Morales.
For more information, contact the Office of University Events at (401) 863-2474.