World Affairs Seminar 2006 - Emily Fisher Lecture Speaker Carole L. Brookins

This year's World Affairs Seminar (WAS) will be held on February 24th with the theme of "Technoglobalization: Are You Ready for the 'Flat World?'" Based on The New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist Thomas Friedman's bestselling book The World is Flat: A History of the 21st Century, the seminar will focus on how globalization is affecting world economy, environment, security, education, technology, and culture to essentially create a "flat" world.

The keynote speaker for this year's WAS will be Kingswood alumna Carole L. Brookins, whose presentation is part of the Emily Fisher Lecture series. This will be Ms. Brookins first time back to Cranbrook since her graduation and she will be speaking about issues regarding globalization using her vast array of experience in international affairs as the foundation. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, a member of the Council on Competitiveness’ Global Advisory Committee, and she serves on the World Agricultural Forum’s Advisory Board. From 2001 to 2005, she was the United States Executive Director to The World Bank Group in Washington, DC, which is an official development Bank owned by 184 countries that provided $20 billion in loans and grants in 2004, along with policy advice, technical assistance and knowledge sharing services to low and middle income countries with the mission to improve the investment climate, reduce poverty and raise the living standards of people in the developing world. To read more about Ms. Brookins' accomplishments, please click here.

Other speakers include Jun Ni, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan and Director, S.M. of Wu Manufacturing Research Center, Prasad Sunkara, CEO of Molecular Therapeutics, and Gerardo Lopez, President of Starbucks Global Consumer Products. Past and present Cranbrook students and faculty will also be speaking of their own experiences observing the spread of globalization.

To see a full listing of sessions and speakers for WAS 2006, please click here.