DID YOU KNOW?

Events Bring Great Thinkers to Campus

A Nobel Peace Prize winner and a two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient were among the distinguished guests offering diverse perspectives to William Jewell College students and faculty over the course of the fall and spring semesters.

	Jody Williams, the internationally recognized crusader against land mines who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, offered the Women and Society lecture as part of the "Perspectives on the Common Good" series. The founding coordinator and campaign ambassador of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), Williams addressed the topic "An Individual's Impact on Social and Political Change." A tireless crusader against war and the lingering effects that armed conflict has wrought around the world, Williams was the driving force in building an unprecedented open partnership between governments, international agencies and the ICBL that she helped create. Her efforts were rewarded in 1997 when a sweeping international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines was negotiated in Oslo, in September of that year. In December, 122 nations signed the treaty. One week after that historic event, Williams became the tenth woman (and only the third American woman) in history to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
	Dr. E.O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Research Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and expert on biodiversity, presented "The Future of Life" as the 2005 Cope Lecture on Science, Technology and the Human Experience. Dr. Wilson is one of the most highly respected scientists in the world today. Hailed as "the new Darwin" by Thomas Wolfe, and as one of "America's 25 Most Influential People" by TIME Magazine, he has twice received the Pulitzer Prize, (once for The Ants and a second for On Human Nature). His The Diversity of Life (1992), which brought together knowledge of the magnitude of biodiversity and the threats to it, had a major public impact. Today he continues entomological and environmental research at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. His book, The Future of Life (2002), offers a plan for saving Earth's biological heritage.
	Embryos and Ethics: The Debate Over Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Cloning" was the topic of discussion during a lecture by Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. Dr. George is the author of Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (1993) and In Defense of Natural Law (1999), and editor of Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays (1992); The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism (1996); and Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality (1996), all published by Oxford University Press. His most recent book is The Clash of Orthodoxies, published by ISI Books. Dr. George's articles and review essays have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Review of Politics, the Review of Metaphysics and the American Journal of Jurisprudence. He has also written for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Review and the Times Literary Supplement.
	Dr. Molly T. Marshall, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary, discussed issues relating to Christian theology's understanding of what it means to be human as the featured speaker for the 2006 Walter Pope Binns Lectures on the Sacred and Secular. Dr. Marshall presented two lectures, "The Dignity of Humanity" and "The Pursuits of Humanity." Dr. Marshall was named the 10th president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kan., in November of 2004, becoming the first woman to hold this position at any Baptist-affiliated seminary accredited by the Association of Theological Schools. Dr. Marshall has served in theological education for the past 22 years. Her writings include three monographs: No Salvation Outside the Church; What It Means to be Human; and Joining the Dance: a Theology of the Spirit, as well as numerous chapters in books, dictionary articles and journal articles. Recently, she served as president of the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion and as editor of the NABPR Dissertation Series. She is on the Editorial Board of the American Baptist Quarterly.