NEWS
NORMAN, Okla. – The University of Oklahoma hosted Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, journalist and commentator Anne Applebaum for its spring Presidential Speaker Series dinner on Wednesday, March 25, at the Oklahoma Memorial Union. Applebaum, a Senior Fellow of International Affairs and Agora Fellow in Residence at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., engaged in a moderated conversation titled “Geopolitical Risk: Regionally and Globally.”
OU President Joseph Harroz Jr. began the evening with a keynote address, highlighting the recent historic growth at OU and the responsibilities of a great public research university.
“We have to teach individuals to become citizens and citizen leaders. It’s the reason we’re here tonight,” Harroz said. “All that we have that is based on democracy rests on a foundation that is not ever firm, not ever to be taken for granted and something that we have to work at.”
Applebaum was joined on stage for the conversation by Nicole and Evan H. Katz Endowed Professor of Journalism Mike Boettcher from the Gaylord College of Journalism.
She shared her perspectives on, and the implications of, many volatile current and historical world events. Among other topics, the talk detailed the impacts of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Applebaum’s experience witnessing the collapse of communism while living in Poland, the importance of citizen involvement in a democratic government and how authoritarian governments may utilize manipulation and exploitation to influence global affairs.
Applebaum’s book, Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World (2023) was a New York Times bestseller and recognized as a “Best Book of the Year” by multiple publications.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. For more information about the university, visit www.ou.edu.
The Native Nations Center for Tribal Policy Research at the University of Oklahoma will launch its first Sovereign Policy Intensive in September, a new program designed for elected tribal officials that focuses on understanding broadly relevant federal systems grounded in departmental structures, legislation and appropriations, and legal frameworks.
For 46 years and counting, G. Frans Currier, D.D.S., M.S.D., M.Ed., has been a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry. This year, the American Association of Orthodontists recognized his service with a conference named in his honor and the opportunity to give a lecture to his fellow orthodontists from around the nation.
The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of its current building’s public opening, as well as its impact on the university, state and beyond.
