Fall 2008 Events

NEXUS | The IGL Newsletter | Fall 2008

Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Marti Ahtisaari Kicks Off Fall Semester Events

The Institute for Global Leadership has held a number of events throughout the fall semester to date, including honoring the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Marti Ahtisaari with a Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award. The Honorable President Ahtisaari is the former President of Finland and the Founder and Chairman of the Board of the Crisis Management Initiative, which was very instrumental in the Iraq: Moving Forward initiative of the Institute for Global Leadership and the McCormack School at UMASS/Boston.

His post-presidential activities have included: Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the future status process for Kosovo; facilitating the peace process between the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement; inspection of the IRA’s arms’ dumps with fellow inspector Cyril Ramaphosa; appointments as Personal Envoy of the OSCE CiO for Central Asia and UN Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa; drafting of a report on the human rights and political situation in Austria as a member of a group of “three wise men”; chairing an independent panel on the security and safety of UN personnel in Iraq; member of the Independent Commission on Turkey that examines the challenges and opportunities presented by Turkey’s possible membership in the European Union; and member of an independent Consultative Group on the Past seeking a consensus in Northern Ireland on how to best deal with the legacy of the past.

President Ahtisaari gave a public lecture on “The Leadership Challenges of Public and Private Diplomacy,” which was the inaugural presentation in an occasional lecture series on "Transformational Leadership", sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the IGL.

The IGL also sponsored the Boston Launch of dispatches, a new quarterly journal which reaches beyond what and who to the more crucial why and what can be done? Writers and photographers go to the heart of reality to reflect what they see without editorial pressures or commercial constraints. Reliable reporting and analysis are set within human contexts and a historical continuum. dispatches is closely affiliated with the IGL and is co-edited by long time IGL friends Mort Rosenblum and Gary Knight.

The launch featured a panel discussion on “Reporting a Dangerous World,” with seasoned journalists look at ways to reinvent coverage of an imperiled planet in a digital age. The journalists who participated were James H. Henry, Journalist and Author of The Blood Bankers: Tales from the Global Underground Economy; Sebastian Junger, Journalist, Correspondent for Vanity Fair, and Author of The Perfect Storm; Gary Knight, Photojournalist and Founding Director, VII Photo Agency, Co-editor and Art Director, dispatches; Yuri Kozyrev, Photojournalist and Contract Photographer, TIME Magazine; Mort Rosenblum, Journalist, Former Chief Correspondent, Associated Press, and former Editor in Chief, International Herald Tribune; and Charles Sennott, Co-founder, Vice President and Executive Editor, Global Post, and Former Middle East Bureau Chief and Correspondent, The Boston Globe.

The evening was also cosponsored by dispatches, Global Post, the Edward R. Murrow Center at The Fletcher School, and Communications and Media Studies.

Just before the election, the IGL brought alumnus and New York Times Magazine National Correspondent Matt Bai back to campus to speak on “What We’ll Know on Election Day.” Bai writes on national politics for the New York Times Magazine, where he is covering the 2008 presidential campaign. Bai’s most recent work has included cover stories on John McCain’s philosophy about war and Barack Obama’s strategy to win over white men, as well as a much-discussed cover essay titled, “Is Obama the End of Black Politics?” During the 2008 primaries, Bai wrote a popular online blog, “The Primary Argument,” on the New York Times website. He is the author of The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics. The book, which chronicles the rise of the first Internet-age political movement and the people who built it, was honored as a New York Times Notable Book for 2007.

The talk was cosponsored by the Tufts Democrats and the Tufts Republicans.

In September, the IGL also hosted a small, high-level workshop: Consultation on Sustainability and Transparency in the United States (COST-US). Organized through the IGL’s Boryana Damyanova Corporate Social Responsibility and EMPOWER programs, and with the support of the Boston College Institute for Responsible Investment, this conversation gathered more than 20 leaders to discuss two key questions:

What is the relationship between measurable progress on sustainability and corporate disclosure in the United States over the next five to ten years?

What role should US organizations, particularly investors, play in advancing the quality and acceptance of the Global Reporting Initiative, which is currently seen as the de facto standard and whose adoption has proceeded at a blistering rate around the world but has lagged, in relative terms, in the United States?

The discussions were chaired by Dr. Robert Kinloch Massie, the former executive director of Ceres, co-founder of the Global Reporting Initiative, and originator of the Investor Network on Climate Risk. He is also the recipient of the inaugural Boryana Damyanova Corporate Social Responsibility Award in 2008.

In framing the conversation, the workshop drew on the thoughtful analysis and long-standing leadership of many parties including recent work done by the Global Compact, RiskMetrics, GEMI, the Tellus Institute, Ceres, EAI and others.

The participants included Rob Berridge, Program Manager, Investor Programs, CERES; Mark Cohen, Justin Potter Professor of American Competitive Enterprise, Vanderbilt University and Vice President of Research, Resources for the Future; Stu Dalheim, Director Shareholder Advocacy, Calvert Investments; Peter Desimone, Head of Labor and Human Rights Research, RiskMetrics; Robert G. Eccles, Senior Lecturer in Business Administration, Harvard Business School; Paul Freundlich, Chair, Organization Stakeholder Council, Global Reporting Initiative; Anne Kelly, Director of Governance Programs, CERES; Michael Krzus, Partner, Grant Thornton, LLP; Leslie Lowe, Director, Program on Energy and the Environment, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility; Steve Lydenberg, Chief Investment Officer, Domini Social Investments; Robert A. G. Monks, Founder and Deputy Chairman, Hermes Lens Asset Management LLC; Marcy Murninghan, INSPIRE Fellow, Institute for Global Leadership, and Senior Advisor, COST-US; Daniel Nielsen, Director Socially Responsible Investing, Christian Brothers Investment Service; Leontine Plugge, SME and Supply Chain Program Manager, Global Reporting Initiative; Gavin Power, Senior Advisor, United Nations – Principles of Responsible Investing; Cheryl Smith, Chair, Social Investment Forum, Trillium Asset Management; Timothy Smith, Director Socially Responsible Investing, Walden Asset Management, Immediate Past Chair, Social Investment Forum; Sherman Teichman, Director, Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University; Joe Uehlein, Former Director Strategic Campaigns, AFL–CIO; Judith Weiss, Senior Advisor, COST-US; Allen White, Vice President and Director of Corporate Redesign Program, The Tellus Institute, and Co-founder and Interim Executive Director, Global Reporting Initiative; David Wood, Director, Institute for Responsible Investment, Boston College