Creekmore Award to
culminate spring events

Beth Kurylo is communications coordinator for the Office of International Affairs.

A tempting array of international activities is taking place across campus this spring, culminating in an award presentation to a professor or staff member who excels in the advancement of the University’s commitment to internationalization.

The Creekmore Award for Internationalization, established by a generous gift from Claus Halle, honors the work of Ambassador Marion Creekmore, Emory’s former vice provost for international affairs and director of the Halle Institute. The award carries a prize of $10,000. Creekmore, who retired last June, received the first award last year.

Nominations for this year’s recipient will be accepted until April 2. Forms are available at the Office of International Affairs and online at www.emory.edu/OIA/.

The award will be presented at an April 25 dinner in Winship Ballroom. The ceremony is one of the last international events of the academic year.

The Office of International Affairs (OIA), with support from the Ethos Committee of the Council of International Affairs, has compiled a sampling of more than four dozen other internationally focused spring events. The calendar is on the back of a poster called “Spring at Emory: A Global Affair” that will appear on bulletin boards and be distributed to departments across campus. Copies are available at the post office, the OIA and on the OIA website.

The events represent a diverse array of lectures, symposia, concerts, films and activities open not only to Emory faculty, staff and students, but also to the public.

“When we started looking at what international activities were planned this semester, we were struck by how many there are,” said Thomas Arthur, interim vice provost for international affairs. “These kinds of activities go on at Emory all the time, but we wanted to focus attention on them in one place. We wanted to provide a menu for this feast.

“A University can’t be truly international unless everyone on campus feels it in the air as a part of the ethos,” Arthur continued. “When you look at the international events planned over just a two-month period, you can see that we are hosting many world-class concerts and speakers. But we also have substantial representation from Emory faculty involved in international activities. There are many opportunities for people to participate and learn.”

Highlights include:

• Gunter Blobel, who received the 1999 Nobel Prize for Medicine, will speak at 4 p.m. March 22 in the Cell Biology/Physiology Building. The following day, he will speak at a Halle Institute luncheon about his work to restore the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) in Dresden, Germany.

• As part of the Year of Reconciliation, the World Issues Workshop will be held Thursday, April 5, from 5:30–9:30 p.m. in the Cox Hall Ballroom (click here for full story). This fast-paced global simulation is played on a large map of the world, and players represent everyone from U.N. leaders to international journalists. Participants can gain a global perspective and utilize leadership, team-building, problem-solving and negotiation skills to address important global issues.

• The 25th annual International Cultural Festival will be held Saturday, April 7, from noon to 5 p.m. on the Quadrangle. This year’s festival, called “Cultures and Colors Converge,” will feature international food, booths, song, dance and cultural presentations. The festival is free and open to the public.

• Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration, will give a public lecture at 8 p.m. on April 5 in WHSCAB Auditorium. His visit is sponsored by the Halle Institute.

• Rockefeller Foundation Fellow Patricia Hayes will give a seminar on “Vision and Violence: War Photographies from Angola and Namibia,” April 10 at 4 p.m. in S423 Callaway Center.

• William Ransom and Sadao Harada will perform with the Tokyo String Quartet in the Oxford Day Chapel on Monday, April 23, at 8 p.m.

• A series of banned Soviet films from the 1960s and 1970s will be shown every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. through April 25 in 205 White Hall. The films are sponsored by the Emory College Cinematheque in collaboration with the Russian and Eastern European Studies Program, the OIA and the Ethos Committee.