"Jobs Announcements" has been a busy section of this newsletter for well over a year now. Mobility increased during the pandemic for many reasons, including the Great Resignation, a global phenomenon. Certainly, World Affairs Councils are experiencing the still-tight U.S. labor market in one way or another - staff promotions, departures, new hiring, and rising costs, to name a few.
WACA is no stranger to employee transitions either. It is news of the bittersweet kind to share that Kathleen "KC" Euler will leave WACA to pursue a new career opportunity with the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. As our Communications and Marketing Manager, KC provided the backbone to our e-newsletters (her last will be Wednesday's Weekly World News Update), much-improved social media engagement, and event support for the WACA Conference and Academic WorldQuest. She also shepherded our soon-to-be-launched CRM database, and mentored junior staff and interns.
We will miss KC in the National Office and wish her great success in her new role. WACA last week posted online our Communications and Marketing job opening (also below), and I am encouraged by the dozens of applications so far that we will fill this position soon.
Meanwhile, I am very excited to share that Kaela Rider officially joined WACA last Thursday as Global Education Coordinator. This newly created role has been made possible with funding from our Academic WorldQuest endowment, and Kaela attended the AWQ National Competition in April as an observer and judge. Previously, she was a middle school social sciences teacher in Jacksonville, Florida, and I know she looks forward to serving as our AWQ lead and getting to know Council colleagues and your educational programs.
In attending to these transitions, I was not able to offer my take as I'd intended in this space on Putin's unconscionable war in Ukraine, having just passed its 100th day. This devastating crime of the century will unfortunately persist for some time. Councils are to be commended for their convening of all sorts of experts for their perspectives on what's happening on the ground in Ukraine and the war's reverberations in Europe and globally,
I look forward to discussing world happenings and Council happenings at our meetings later this week in Colorado Springs with many of you. Again, we will be in touch very soon with new staffing news, as well as announcements about the WACA 2022 National Conference in Washington, DC on November 16-18.
Thank you for all that you do,
Bill Clifford
President and CEO
The U.S. Agency for International Development contacted WACA to share the following opportunity with the Council network: On Tuesday, June 7 at 9:00 AM ET, USAID Administrator Samantha Power will deliver a landmark policy address to discuss how despite years of democratic decline and the rise of authoritarianism across the world, the current moment presents a pivotal opportunity to reverse these trends and create a more democratic, peaceful, and prosperous future.
With autocracies currently on their back heel, now is the time for the world’s free nations, multilateral institutions, private sector partners, and civil societies to demonstrate that democracies can deliver in a way that autocracies never will, and meet the challenges we face from food insecurity to COVID-19 to climate change.
WACA is pleased to announce Global Santa Fe as its June 2022 Council of the Month! Each month, WACA features one of its 90 Councils, highlighting their accomplishments and top-quality programming.
Global Santa Fe, formerly Santa Fe Council on Foreign Relations, recently rebranded its Council and redesigned its website. The name change, led by its Board of Directors, has been in the works for over a year. Together with the tagline, it’s a call to action for people in New Mexico to be globally informed citizens.
The organization celebrated its new brand at its annual Gala last month with a full house, a riveting guest speaker, and the celebration of local awardees. Global Santa Fe will be posting a video featuring Gala speaker, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, on their new website, globalsantafe.org, later this week. Read more about Global Santa Fe’s esteemed awardees, including Dialogue and Diplomacy Award winner and long-time WACA member, Jim Falk, who served as the organization’s Interim Executive Director, in this press release. Global Santa Fe’s current Executive Director Lisa Ellis assumed her new role in February of this year (read more here).
For more information, follow Global Santa Fe on their recently updated social media handles: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
The World Affairs Councils of America's National Office is delighted to invite Member Council executives, staff, and board members to this year's Spring Leadership Meeting. Special thanks to Tracey Johnson, Executive Director of the Colorado Springs World Affairs Council, and Karen Burghart, Emeritus Director, we are bringing the Spring Council Leadership & WACA Board of Directors meetings to beautiful Colorado Springs on June 9-11, 2022.
This year's Leadership Meeting will open Thursday, June 9 at 5:00 PM MT.The WACA Board of Directors meets Saturday, June 11 at 8:00 AM - 10:30 AM MT (10:00 AM - 12:30 PM ET).
On Thursday, June 16, WACA President and CEO Bill Clifford will speak at the International Affairs Forum in Traverse City, Michigan. In this Foreign Policy Mashup, Bill will consider the state of the Russian war in Ukraine, inflation, Taiwan, and authoritarianism around the world.
Bill will also meet with IAF Board members, the winners of Traverse City's Academic WorldQuest competition, and the community.
The event will also feature Stan Otto, career diplomat and IAF Board member; Karen Puschel Segal, Emeritus Member of the IAF Board; and Amb. Greta Holtz, Senior Advisor at the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs. Jim Bensley, Director of International Service and Service Learning at Northwestern Michigan College, will moderate the discussion.
The event begins with a 5:30 PM ET reception at the Dennos Museum Sculpture Court. The program is hybrid and available for virtual registration.
TheWorld Affairs Council of Western Michiganwill honor Ambassador (Ret.) Marie Yovanovitch with the2022 Vandenberg Prize for Global Diplomacy on Friday, June 24 at 12:00 PM. The Vandenberg Prize is named after Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, who was the inspiration for founding WAC Western Michigan 1949. Senator Vandenberg became an advocate for international ties in the wake of World War II and built support for the Marshall Plan and NATO.
The 2022 recipient of the Vandenberg Prize is Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. Amb. Yovanovitch served 33 years in the American Foreign Service, most recently in Ukraine (2016-2019). She has held senior positions in U.S. Embassies in Moscow, London, Kyiv, and Mogadishu. For her outstnading service, she has received two Presidential Distinguished Service Awards.
In addition, the Hillman-Orr Award for a local leader with a global perspective will be given to Eastern Floral CEO Bing Goei.
In The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future,Sebastian Mallaby shares the stories of venture capitalists at high profile firms. He explores the history of tech incubation in the Valley and ultimately worldwide. In his conversation with Jim Falk of Global Santa Fe, Mallaby considered the most iconic triumphs and infamous disasters in venture capital, including players like Theranos, weWork, Facebook, and Elon Musk.
World Affairs Council of Charlotte hosts Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, for "2022 World Citizen Award" (In person)
International Relations Council Kansas City hosts Emily Schultheis, Fellow at the Institute of Current World Affairs, for "What's Happening in Germany?"
World Affairs Council of Connecticut presents "The Diplomat" (In person)
Wednesday 6/8
World Affairs Council of Orange County hosts Brigadier General Peter Zwack, former U.S. Senior Defense official and attaché to the Russian Federation, for "Assessing Russia's Military Invasion of Ukraine"
World Affairs Council of Houston hosts Ana Maria Galvis, Executive Director of Baylor College of Medicine Children's Foundation Colombia, for "Combatting Venezuela's Refugee Crisis in 2022" (In person)
World Affairs Council of San Antonio hosts Arslan Hidayet, Uyghur activist, Providence Umugwaneza, Founder of the Kabeho Neza Initiative, and Varda Ratner, docent at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, for "A History of Genocide" (In person)
World Affairs Council of Seattle hosts Anna Kaplan, Professor at American University, Anthony Pahigian, career U.S. diplomat, and Gavin Sundwall, Managing Director for Policy and Planning for the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, for "On Expos: The 60th Anniversary of the Seattle World's Fair"
San Diego World Affairs Council hosts Robert Ying, Vice President of Science and Business Development at King Lee Technologies, for "Carbon Dioxide and Water: Power System of the Green Earth"
