APU Speaker Series |
Politicians, legal scholars, political theorists, and others are invited to speak on Amherst’s campus. Past guests have included Charles Lindbergh, Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz, former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, Georgetown Law Professor David Cole, Congressman Tom Davis, and many more.
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Fall 2021 Speaker Series
Rep. Mindy Domb Sunday, October 24th at 2pm
Mindy Domb was first elected to the MA House of Representatives in 2018, to represent the 3rd Hampshire District that includes the towns of Amherst, Pelham, and half of Granby. She was re-elected to a second term in 2020 and serves as Vice Chair of ENRA, and member of the Joint committees on Higher Ed, Revenue, and COVID-19 oversight.
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Spring 2021 Virtual Speakers
Thursday, May 6th @ 8:00 p.m. EST
America: COVID-19, 2020 Election, and Racial Injustice with Kat Stafford
Kat Stafford is a national investigative writer, focused on race and inequality at the Associated Press. She previously covered the intersection of race and politics during the 2020 presidential election cycle. Prior to joining the AP, she was an investigative reporter at the Detroit Free Press, Michigan's largest daily newspaper. Her reporting there prompted city legislation, policy changes, congressional reviews and federal and state investigations. Stafford has won several awards for her work, and serves as a board member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization. As the deputy chair of the National Association of Black Journalists' Print Task Force, she advocates for increasing newsroom representation of Black journalists of color.
America: COVID-19, 2020 Election, and Racial Injustice with Kat Stafford
Kat Stafford is a national investigative writer, focused on race and inequality at the Associated Press. She previously covered the intersection of race and politics during the 2020 presidential election cycle. Prior to joining the AP, she was an investigative reporter at the Detroit Free Press, Michigan's largest daily newspaper. Her reporting there prompted city legislation, policy changes, congressional reviews and federal and state investigations. Stafford has won several awards for her work, and serves as a board member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization. As the deputy chair of the National Association of Black Journalists' Print Task Force, she advocates for increasing newsroom representation of Black journalists of color.
Thursday, February 25th @ 8:00 p.m.
S. Paul Kapur '90: U.S.-India Relations Indo-Pacific Strategy in the Era of Great Power Competition
Paul Kapur is a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and a visiting fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. From 2020-2021, Kapur served on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, working on issues related to South and Central Asia, Indo-Pacific strategy, and U.S.-India relations. Previously, he was on the faculties of the U.S. Naval War College and Claremont McKenna College, and he was a visiting professor at Stanford University.
Keep an eye out in the Daily Mammoth for the zoom link.
S. Paul Kapur '90: U.S.-India Relations Indo-Pacific Strategy in the Era of Great Power Competition
Paul Kapur is a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and a visiting fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. From 2020-2021, Kapur served on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, working on issues related to South and Central Asia, Indo-Pacific strategy, and U.S.-India relations. Previously, he was on the faculties of the U.S. Naval War College and Claremont McKenna College, and he was a visiting professor at Stanford University.
Keep an eye out in the Daily Mammoth for the zoom link.
Fall 2020 Virtual Speakers
Friday, November 13th @ 8:00 p.m.
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October 22nd @ 8:00 p.m.
Professor Abbe Smith: "How Can You Represent Those People?"
Professor Smith will be reading from her 2020 book, Guilty People. She is Director of the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic, Co‑Director of the E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship Program, and Professor of Law at Georgetown University. Prior to coming to Georgetown, Professor Smith was Deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Institute, Clinical Instructor, and Lecturer at Law at Harvard Law School. She has also taught at the City University New York School of Law, Temple University School of Law, American University Washington College of Law, and the University of Melbourne Law School (Australia), where she was a Senior Fulbright Scholar. Professor Smith teaches and writes on criminal defense, juvenile justice, legal ethics, and clinical legal education. In addition to numerous law journal articles, she is the author of Guilty People (2020) and Case of a Lifetime: A Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Story (2008), co‑author with Monroe Freedman of Understanding Lawyers’ Ethics (5th ed., 2016); co-editor with Monroe Freedman of How Can You Represent Those People? (2013), and co-editor with Alice Woolley and Monroe Freedman of Lawyers’ Ethics (2017).
Professor Smith began her legal career at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, where she was an Assistant Defender, member of the Special Defense Unit, and Senior Trial Attorney from 1982 to 1990. She continues to be actively engaged in indigent criminal defense as both a clinical supervisor and member of the Criminal Justice Act panel for the DC Superior Court, and frequently presents at public defender, capital defender, and other lawyer training programs in the United States and abroad. Professor Smith is a member of the Board of Directors of The Bronx Defenders and Second Look Project, a member of the National Advisory Board of the Monroe H. Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics and Still She Rises: Tulsa, a member of the Faculty Advisory Board of the Georgetown Prisons and Justice Initiative, an Adviser to the American Law Institute’s Project to Reform the Model Penal Code’s Provisions on Sexual Assault and Related Offenses, and a longtime member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, American Civil Liberties Union, and National Lawyers Guild. In 2010, she was elected to the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. In 2016, Professor Smith received Georgetown’s Frank F. Flegal Excellence in Teaching Award (Georgetown’s “best teacher award”). Professor Smith is also a published cartoonist. A collection of her cartoons, Carried Away: The Chronicles of a Feminist Cartoonist, was published by Sanguinaria Publishing in1984. |
Monday, September 28th @ 8:00 p.m.
Judge Willie Epps: "My Life of Service in the Courtroom"
Judge Willie J. Epps, Jr. was born in Mississippi and raised in Missouri. He is a graduate of St. Louis Country Day School, Amherst College, and Harvard Law School. He began his legal career in service to our country as a U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Assistant Special Counsel for The Waco Investigation. Later, he was named chief compliance officer for a Fortune 500 company, partner at two law firms, and head of litigation for a financial services company.
Judge Epps is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He serves on the Executive Committee of the National Conference of Federal Trial Judges. He teaches annually at Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop. Prior to being appointed a federal judge, Judge Epps was listed in The Best Lawyers in America and Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers. |
Speakers of the Past
Lucrecia Hernández Mack spoke at Amherst in the fall of 2019. A Guatemalan Surgeon and Politican, Dr. Hernádez- Mack was the first woman to lead the Ministry of Health in 2016. She was recently elected to the Guatemalan Congress with the anti-corruption party Semilla. Her talk was titled "The Politics of Implementing Health Policies in Guatemala."
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Erol Yayboke spoke in April of 2019. He is the Deputy director and senior fellow with the Project on U.S. Leadership in Development (USLD) and Project on Prosperity and Development (PPD) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). His specific research interests include U.S. foreign assistance, the role of the private sector in the developing world, good governance, migration, forced displacement, development economics, and innovation-led economic growth. His talk was titled "Confronting the Global Forced Migration Crisis."
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Eleanor Roosevelt came to speak to Amherst Political Union in 1941. At the time, Mrs. Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States, and a notable surrogate for her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She would later go on to become the first U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and in that capacity she drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
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