Global Issues Lecture to Focus on Professors' Trip to Iraq

Two Baylor University professors will speak on their recent trip to the Kurdish part of Iraq as part of Baylor's Global Issues Lecture Series. Dr. Brad Owens, assistant professor of journalism, and Dr. Bill Hair, associate dean and director of Central Libraries, will lecture on "From Habur Gate: Kurdistan, Iraq and the World" at 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, in room 120 at Morrison Constitution Hall.
Owens said the lecture will focus on Kurdistan's stability and what it can teach the international community in terms of creating a similar climate in Iraq. The Habur Gate refers to the border gate between Turkey and Iraq.
Four Baylor professors - Owens, Hair, Dr. William Mitchell and Dr. Larry Lehr - traveled to Iraq in December to help their colleagues at Dohuk University in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq establish and dedicate Dohuk's Center for Democracy and Diplomacy. It was the group's second trip to Iraq.
In December 2003, Mitchell, who serves as the Jo Murphy Chair of International Education, led a multidisciplinary team of 23 Baylor professors - at the time the largest academic group from a U.S. university to travel to Iraq - to present seminars at Dohuk. Baylor's most recent journey to Iraq included presenting seminars and workshops for Dohuk faculty and other higher education leaders on curriculum development, the role of higher education in civil society, web-based and distance learning, teaching and research in comparative politics, and the role of the news media in civil society, among other topics.
The lecture, which is sponsored by the Center for International Education, is free and open to the public.
For more information, call 710-2657.