Former U.S. Senator Tom Harkin will speak at Drake University next week on the topic of human rights. This free lecture, titled “Making Human Rights a Part of Your Everyday,” will mark the longtime Senator’s first public speaking engagement since his retirement early this year.
The event will begin at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 16, in Parents Hall, upper Olmsted Center, on the Drake University campus. A limited number of tickets are available; details are online at www.drake.edu/harkininstitute/.
“I’m delighted to be speaking at Drake University next week on the subject of human rights,” Harkin said. “The protection of human rights does not happen through the invisible hand of the marketplace. It requires eternal vigilance by every citizen to ensure the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled are respected and honored in our homes, our workplaces, and our public spaces.”
The event is organized by the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement, a nonpartisan center founded at Drake University in spring 2013 to serve as a hub for public policy research and programming. The Institute is committed to fostering engagement and research that is guided by policy priorities that defined the Senator’s 40-year public service career, including priorities related to civil rights.
Harkin’s lecture launches the 2015 Herb and Karen Baum Symposium on Ethics and the Professions, a biennial symposium that focuses this year on the promotion of health and human rights through professions in health, management, public policy, the humanities and fine arts, and the non-profit sector.
The public is invited to register for a full day of events on Friday, April 17, including:
- Morning keynote address by Holly Atkinson, director of the human rights program at The Arnold Global Health Institute at Mount Sinai and past president of Physicians for Human Rights.
- Lunch keynote address by Adewale Troutman, professor and associate dean for health equity and community engagement at the University of Southern Florida.
- Professional panels by more than a dozen experts from the public, private, and higher education sectors, exploring how we can advance civil rights in fields ranging from health to journalism to business to education.
Registration is required for Friday’s activities. Admission is free for Drake students, faculty, staff and alumni, and $30 for non-Drake affiliated participants. Lunch and continental breakfast will be provided. More information is available at http://drakeethicsandtheprofessions.com/.
The symposium formally ends on Saturday, April 18, with an undergraduate research conference sponsored by the University of Iowa Center on Human Rights.