de Klerk to headline Jepson Leadership Forum

Nobel laureate F.W. de Klerk, former president of South Africa who freed political prisoner Nelson Mandela and ended apartheid, headlines this year’s Jepson Leadership Forum lecture series at the University of Richmond.

Speakers in the 2010–11 series will include leaders in history, politics, medicine and news who will address “Where in the World Are We Going? Global Leadership and International Challenges.”

Tickets to the five forum events are free, but required. Reservations can be made beginning two weeks before each event online at http://jepson.richmond.edu/forum/ticketinfo.html or by calling 804-287-6335. For group tickets, call 804-287-6522.

De Klerk’s talk takes place Feb. 22, but the first program is scheduled for Oct. 5. This year’s speakers are:

• Historian John Milton Cooper, Oct. 5, 7 p.m. Jepson Alumni Center. Cooper, author of the 2009 book “Woodrow Wilson,” will debunk myths and address Wilson’s political legacy. He will explain how Wilson’s leadership and his era shaped current international challenges. Cooper is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin and was recently a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

• David Walton, Nov. 4, 7 p.m., Jepson Alumni Center. Walton, a physician who works closely with Partners in Health founder Paul Farmer, will discuss long-range successes and challenges and the post-earthquake crisis in Haiti. He is an associate physician and hospitalist in the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He also serves as associate director of the Hôpital de Lascahobas in Haiti.

• F.W. de Klerk, Feb. 22, 7 p.m., Jepson Alumni Center. Former South African president, de Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela, will discuss the importance that negotiation, management of change and leadership contributed to the peaceful end of apartheid.

• Ali Velshi, March 30, 7:30 p.m., Modlin Center for the Arts. Velshi, CNN’s chief business correspondent, will bring a report on the subjects he covers the most: money and the economy. Based in New York, he has covered most of the big financial stories of our times: the U.S. government's bailout plan; the financial collapses of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and Lehman Brothers; the Enron story and Ford’s announcement of layoffs of 30,000 workers. His book, “Gimme My Money Back: Your Guide to Beating the Financial Crisis,” was composed in two weeks during 2008's financial meltdown.

• Chen Yi, April 4, 7:30 p.m., Modlin Center for the Arts. Chen, a Grammy Award-winning composer and teacher, will discuss her personal story as a change agent and ambassador for the arts. Born in China, she studied Western composers until the Cultural Revolution when she turned to Chinese culture and folkways. She emigrated to the United States and studied at Columbia University. Now a distinguished professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, she combines Chinese and Western traditions to transcend cultural and musical boundaries and create music that reaches a wide range of audiences with different cultural backgrounds.

For more information, visit http://jepson.richmond.edu or call 804-287-6522.