World Issues Forum
The World Issues Forum will return in April 2022
The World Issues Forum challenges students, faculty, staff, and community members to be active and engaged global citizens. Distinguished guest speakers address urgent global justice topics including planetary survival; decolonization and anti-racism; human rights; migrations; and the world economy. You can access older World Issues Forums 2009-2020 on WWU Cedar
Covid spacing will limit the in-person Forum to 50 WWU students and faculty/staff who meet Western’s COVID compliance requirements. All community and other campus members are very welcome via Zoom or Facebook Live.
Upcoming World Issues Forum
Fall Quarter 2021 Forum Lineup
Sept 29
“The Salmon People Project”
Darrell Hillaire
October 6
"The Taliban’s Return and Afghanistan’s Cycles of Exclusion"
Dr. Bashir Mobasher
Oct. 13 “Why They Didn’t Want You to Know about Residential and Boarding Schools” Brandi Morin
October 20
“Human Rights in Latin America: Accountability and History in Mexico and Uruguay”
Debbie Sharnak and Eben Levey
November 10
"Writing at the Border: Reflections on Groundswell”
Yanara Friedland
November 17
“Confronting Immigration Law: From Racist History to Current Activism ”
Enoka Herat, ACLU of Washington
World Issues Forum Fall 2021
Fairhaven College launched the World Issues Forum, Western Washington University’s global justice speaker series in September 2001. Fall 2021 marks the twentieth anniversary of World Issues since it was begun and nurtured by Shirley Osterhaus with support from Fairhaven College and dean Ron Riggins.
The WIF challenges students, faculty, staff, and community members to be active and engaged global citizens. Distinguished guest speakers address urgent global justice topics including planetary survival; decolonization and anti-racism; human rights; migrations; and the world economy.
For Fall 2021 we have a fantastic line up of speakers appropriate to the twentieth anniversary of World Issues, and al-Qaeda’s attacks on the United States, and the failures of the global war on terror. We have two speakers on Indigenous Nations and settler colonialism, one on art and Islamophobia, a speaker on Afghanistan’s transitions, and an ACLU lawyer on racism in our immigration policies. Fairhaven professor, Yanara Friedland, will read from her new book Groundswell on border landscapes, and two historians will compare accountability for human rights violations in Latin America.
We gratefully thank our colleagues Pedro Cameselle, Ceci Lopez, and Robert Snyderman for speaker nominations. Thanks also to our cohosts: Canadian American Studies; Education and Social Justice; the Western Gallery and Art 109; Department of History; Latin American Studies; Salish Sea Studies; WWU Tribal Relations Executive; the Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity; and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.