Every spring, the International Education program, co-sponsored by IE alum Eric Luce, hosts a distinguished professional in the field to come speak with students.
2025
Unlocking Big Change: Realizing the Potential of the Next Generation Through Education
Justin van Fleet, President and Co-Founder of TheirWorld
Dr. van Fleet spoke about how the increase in crisis, conflict, climate-related emergencies, and budget cuts threaten to further undermine efforts to ensure the right to education. While global leaders committed to ensure all children and youth have a quality, inclusive and equitable education by 2030, more than half of all young people are not on track to have the most basic skills necessary to enter the workforce or participate fully in society by this deadline. However, he presented an optimistic picture of how people are making progress in delivering big results for children and youth around the world – often through new partnerships and engaging new stakeholders in addressing challenges. He spoke about his personal journey to education which led him to Theirworld, and highlighted how people in communities across the globe are making change in uncertain times.
2024
Peace, Conflict, and Education: Stories from East Africa
Abdi Latif Dahir, East Africa Correspondent for The New York Times
Educational institutions are among the first casualties of war. From Sudan to Somalia, Ethiopia to Uganda, and South Sudan, conflict and terrorism have uprooted students and educators, turned schools into giant displacement camps, and left entire generations without proper learning opportunities. In this lecture, Abdi Latif Dahir joined IE professor Dana Burde for a conversation on the impact of conflict on educational institutions in East Africa, delving into the hopeful stories of those rebuilding schools and colleges to educate the upcoming generations.
2023
Women and Public Diplomacy: How a Small Country had a Large Impact on an International Humanitarian Crisis
Odeta Barbullushi, Advisor to the Prime Minister of Albania and National Coordinator for Regional Cooperation
In August 2021, Albania took in over 3,000 Afghan evacuees, seeking safety from the new Taliban regime. This decision demonstrated that small countries can mitigate humanitarian crises and that they can build new solidarities and partnerships in the process.
In this Luce Lecture, Dr. Odeta Barbullushi explained the interplay between foreign policy decision-making, humanitarian crisis, and state identities. Drawing from her own experience, Dr. Barbullushi reflected on women's contributions to international mediation as well as the role of education in shaping decision making in foreign policy.
2022
Youth Radicalization and Global Far-Right Extremism
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University
Dr. Miller-Idriss's presentation explored how tomorrow’s far-right nationalists are recruited from surprising places, from college campuses and mixed martial arts gyms to clothing stores, online gaming chat rooms, and YouTube cooking channels.