The Young Initiative invites foreign policy experts and guest speakers to campus to engage in discussions on international relations and the global political economy with students and faculty.
Past Young Initiative Speaker Events
Young Initiative speakers give students and faculty an opportunity to expand their understanding of global issues. The Young Initiative sponsors several speakers each academic year highlighting particular aspects of global affairs and the global political economy. The Young Speakers program is devoted to highlighting the work and success of eminent international affairs experts and Oxy alumni in public service and academia.
Professor Igor Logvinenko of Occidental College’s Diplomacy & World Affairs Department moderated this engaging talk by Professor Julia Morse, based on her book The Bankers’ Blacklist: Unofficial Market Enforcement and the Global Fight Against Illicit Financing.
A panel discussion on Uyghur Muslim persecution featuring Critical Theory and Social Justice, the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, Diplomacy and World Affairs, and the Young Initiative
Fania Davis is a leading national voice on restorative justice. She is a civil rights lawyer, social justice advocate, restorative justice practitioner, writer and scholar with a PhD in Indigenous Knowledge. The Los Angeles Times named her a New Civil Rights Leader of the 21st Century.
Jennifer Llewellyn is a Professor of Law for the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University and the Director...
Michelle Jurkovich is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a Visiting Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Her research interests include international food security, ethics, economic and social rights, and human security.
For nearly three years the Young Initiative has partnered with the City of Los Angeles to adopt the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals on a local level. Multiple cohorts of Oxy students have participitated in SDG task forces, and this past summer was no different. 17 Oxy students were split up across 6 different city projects to advance the SDGs.
Kelebogile Zvobgo is incoming Assistant Professor of Government at William & Mary and Founder and Director of its International Justice Lab. Zvobgo’s research focuses on quasi-judicial bodies that have proliferated across the globe to fill the gaps left by domestic and international law and courts. Her work on such accountability mechanisms has extended to truth commissions and international...
Luis Moreno Ocampo is the former first Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and Ted Braun is a noted documentarian and the Joseph Campbell Endowed Chair of Cinematic Ethics at USC.
The Young Initiative hosted and organized a series of incredibly enlightening workshops with an interdisciplinary cohort of leading human rights practitioners and scholars from three continents.
Perrin Shyne and Amirah Al-Sagr of The Occidental cover the student organizing efforts for UN Week 2020