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.
A decade-long partnership between the University of Oklahoma and Southcentral Foundation, an Alaska Native-owned, nonprofit health care organization based in Anchorage, Alaska, has been awarded a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to grow and strengthen a research workforce serving American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities.
Soami Ellis, a recent OU graduate, has become the university’s first professional helicopter major to earn a CFI rating. This milestone is made possible through a recently established School of Aviation program made in partnership with Semper Fly Helicopters in Norman.
The University of Oklahoma is experiencing a period of transformation few institutions in higher education can match – but OU President Joseph Harroz Jr. says the university’s progress is less a finish line than a foundation for what comes next.
