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Immigration Issues are Focus of Provost Forum Oct. 16-17

The two-day event is free and open to the public

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University’s annual Provost Forum will focus on immigration issues, including areas of tension within and between nations.

The forum, “Immigration in a Divided World,” is Oct. 16 and 17 at Penn Pavilion on Duke’s West Campus. It is free and open to the public. 

“Immigration combines enormous technical complexity with emotionally charged concerns about national identity,” said Duke Provost Sally Kornbluth. “This forum examines how underlying issues of sovereignty and humanitarianism intersect with cultural, ethnic and economic issues. It focuses on specific areas of tension within and among nations over questions of immigration and citizenship.”

Over the course of the two-day event, sessions will explore such topics as “Options for a Divided World:  Immigration Between Nationalism and Humanitarianism,” “Immigrants and Refugees in the U.S. and Europe” and “Immigration and The University.”

New York Times columnist and author Nicholas Kristof will deliver the keynote address titled, “Immigration as a Test of Our Values.” His talk, from noon-1 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, takes place in Duke’s Page Auditorium.

Panels representing different views, perspectives and disciplines, and organized in consultation with Duke students, will include the following speakers:

-- Charles Clotfelter, Duke professor of public policy, law and economics and author

-- Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review columnist and author

-- Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education columnist

-- Michael Hardt, Duke literature professor

-- Eric Kaufmann, University of London politics professor

-- Ana Raquel Minian, Stanford University history professor

-- Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and founder of Define American

-- Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Penn State Law clinical law professor

-- Peter Wehner, author and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Visitors are asked to register for the sessions they plan to attend. For up-to-date information, including the agenda and speakers, visit the forum webpage.  

The forum is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, and organized by a university-wide steering committee co-chaired by Associate Provost Noah Pickus and Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement Abbas Benmamoun.