Blog, Past Events
Join us for a conversation with Tim Phillips, Founder and CEO, Beyond Conflict and Scott Warren, CEO, Generation Citizen and a Visiting Fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. The evening’s moderator is Michal Ben-Joseph Hirsch, Assistant Professor, Political Science & Legal Studies Department, Suffolk University.
Thursday, September 24, 2020
Live at 7:00 pm
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Deepening toxic polarization in the United States is a profound threat to the American people and the very core of American democracy. After 30 years of working around the globe to bring peace and reconciliation to deeply divided societies, Beyond Conflict launched an unprecedented research project in 2018, the Beyond Conflict Polarization Index™, with leading brain and behavioral scientists to assess the psychological factors that fuel polarization. The study found a consistent pattern across measures: Americans incorrectly believe that members of the other party dehumanize, dislike, and disagree with them about twice as much as they actually do. These false perceptions about the other side are correlated with outcomes that are consequential for democracy and represent a new degree of toxic polarization in America.
Using the unique approach of shared experience, Phillips has helped catalyze the peace and reconciliation processes in several nations, including Northern Ireland, El Salvador, and South Africa. Now leading initiatives in the U.S., Phillips will present the key findings of Beyond Conflict’s study. Warren’s organization, Generation Citizen, is one of the preeminent civics education organizations in the country, promoting Action Civics across diverse geographies through best-in-class programming and concrete policy change.
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LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR PANELISTS
Timothy Phillips
Scott Warrren
READ THE FULL REPORT
https://beyondconflictint.org/americas-divided-mind/
Past Events
In Massachusetts, federal and state civil rights laws prohibit housing discrimination based on race and source of income, among other factors. Suffolk University’s study, however, demonstrates that high levels of discrimination based upon both of those classes are occurring. The fieldwork for this study was conducted at a time of keen focus on the lack of affordable housing in Greater Boston and the threat that crisis poses to our region’s continued prosperity. The analysis shows that just as important as supply is the issue of access to existing and new housing for all. Housing access is critical for health and safety and we are at a point where the impact of lack of access is on full display. The coronavirus pandemic and all of its fallout have underscored the ties between housing and health. The continued killing of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color by law enforcement and the nationwide protests that have been occurring since the brutal killing of George Floyd have intensified awareness of systemic racism and inequity in America. This study offers further evidence of the entrenchment of discrimination and the unequal application of rights, with its close examination of Boston’s rental housing practices.
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Live @ 7pm
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC AND FREE EVENT
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Past Events
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global event unlike any other experienced in the contemporary era. It’s size, scope, reach, and implications are enormous, ongoing, and unequal. Outcomes—from how people all over the world will live their daily lives to whether democracy will survive—are all in question. In this survey course, we will consider the challenges of governing, campaigning, and administering elections during a pandemic
This week, our panel of experts will explore what may come next as the pandemic progresses, including the future of climate, politics, economics, social justice, and popular mobilization. Further, we will examine who may emerge from this massive inflection point as winners or losers. Finally, we will tackle the concept of crisis as an opportunity to fundamentally re-imagine and address some of the massive issues we face as a community, a nation, and a global society. Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic about the future, we hope you will join us for the final program of our series as we attempt to look to the future.
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Live at 4:00 pm
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
PLEASE JOIN US FOR THE CONVERSATION
Past Events
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global event unlike any other experienced in the contemporary era. Its size, scope, reach, and implications are enormous, ongoing, and unequal. Outcomes – from how people all over the world will live their daily lives to whether democracy will survive – are all in question.
Come into our virtual classroom to delve deeper into the pandemic-related themes we will explore in this survey course for everyone.
The idea that a pandemic was a threat to National Security has not been in doubt for many years. The real questions were when, in what form, how bad and how do we prepare? As we cope with the ravages of COVID-19, new questions emerge: Will the world after COVID be more or less dangerous? Will the U.S. role in the world be more important, or less? How can we best protect the integrity and safety of our elections during this crisis and, by extension, the integrity of our democracy? How do we best protect the most vulnerable among us, retain readiness to deal with other crises, and prevent economic insecurity from fueling destabilization, desperation and disruption? Our discussion this week will examine how the pandemic is changing the landscape of National Security.
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Past Events, Uncategorized
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global event unlike any other experienced in the contemporary era. Its size, scope, reach, and implications are enormous, ongoing, and unequal. Outcomes – from how people all over the world will live their daily lives to whether democracy will survive – are all in question.
Come into our virtual classroom to delve deeper into the pandemic-related themes we will explore in this survey course for everyone.
The idea that a pandemic was a threat to National Security has not been in doubt for many years. The real questions were when, in what form, how bad and how do we prepare? As we cope with the ravages of COVID-19, new questions emerge: Will the world after COVID be more or less dangerous? Will the U.S. role in the world be more important, or less? How can we best protect the integrity and safety of our elections during this crisis and, by extension, the integrity of our democracy? How do we best protect the most vulnerable among us, retain readiness to deal with other crises, and prevent economic insecurity from fueling destabilization, desperation and disruption? Our discussion this week will examine how the pandemic is changing the landscape of National Security.
Blog, Past Events
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global event unlike any other experienced in the contemporary era. Its size, scope, reach, and implications are enormous, ongoing, and unequal. Outcomes-from how people all over the world will live their daily lives to whether democracy will survive-are all in question.
Come into our virtual classroom to delve deeper into the pandemic-related themes we will explore in this survey course for everyone.
The pandemic has raised anew issues in which policy makers must address several key tensions: privacy, individual rights and the public’s right to know; individual freedom versus quarantine; who is liable when coronavirus is contracted. At a time when we are discussing freedom and individual rights, the protests over the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and countless others have raised America’s “other pandemic” — the long history of racism, discrimination, and the denial of basic rights and freedoms to minorities living in the United States.m,
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Past Events
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
Live 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Past Events
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global event unlike any other experienced in the contemporary era. Its size, scope, reach, and implications are enormous, ongoing, and unequal. Outcomes-from how people all over the world will live their daily lives to whether democracy will survive-are all in question.
Come into our virtual classroom to delve deeper into the pandemic-related themes we will explore in this survey course for everyone.
Times of crisis require governments to cooperate and coordinate large-scale responses. Yet Congress and President Trump are inherently partisan actors in a federal system who must negotiate competing pressures of obtaining concrete results for constituents, while also not being seen as being too accommodating of political rivals. What have been the main takeaways from the politics of legislating in the era of COVID-19 pandemic? How have motives of major actors shifted or changed and how has this impacted the federal response? Does President Trump still dominate the GOP and what electoral outcomes might we see in November, given what current polling, favorability ratings, and climbing COVID cases and deaths tell us?
Wednesday, July 29th
LIVE 4 PM
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Past Events
The COVID -19 pandemic is a global event unlike any other experienced in the contemporary era. It’s size, scope, reach, and implications are enormous, ongoing, and unequal. Outcomes—from how people all over the world will live their daily lives to whether democracy will survive—are all in question.
Come into our virtual classroom to delve deeper into the pandemic-related themes we will explore in this survey course for everyone.
The COVID-19 pandemic is having devastating consequences for countries around the world. Refugees and migrants face challenges similar to, but even more dire than those of many of their host populations. Already impacted by a massive disruption in their lives, including greater levels of food insecurity, poverty, and woefully inadequate access to essential services that would help mitigate the health crisis, refugees and migrants face a grim future. Unfortunately, these fragile populations are often invisible in their suffering. Will COVID expose these issues? Will the crisis fuel greater conflict around the world as prices rise and incomes fall? Will the crisis transform into a call to action to increase health and social protections?
Wednesday, July 22nd
LIVE 4 PM
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Past Events
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global event unlike any other experienced in the contemporary era. Its size, scope, reach, and implications are enormous, ongoing, and unequal. Outcomes-from how people all over the world will live their daily lives to whether democracy will survive-are all in question.
Come into our virtual classroom to delve deeper into the pandemic-related themes we will explore in this survey course for everyone.
Many argue that the Trump Doctrine in foreign policy has been characterized by a retreat from global leadership in multilateral institutions, abandonment of traditional diplomacy, strained relationships with allies, and an enhanced projection of military strength. The response to coronavirus pandemic has been similar; an insistence on going solo. What have been the costs and consequences of an over-reliance of the militarization of US policy abroad and at home? What role should the military play in U.S. democracy and how has the pandemic impacted our ability to respond to national security threats, both traditional and new, such as COVID-19 and climate change?
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
LIVE 4 PM
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Past Events
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global event unlike any other experienced in the contemporary era. It’s size, scope, reach, and implications are enormous, ongoing, and unequal. Outcomes-from how people all over the world will live their daily lives to whether democracy will survive-are all in question.
Come into our virtual classroom to delve deeper into the pandemic-related themes we will explore in this survey course for everyone.
This week, McGovern will sit down with Fisk to examine the changing landscape of governing, serving constituents, and running for office in a time of the global pandemic. McGovern and Fisk will explore how has Congress adapted to manage its business during the major crises facing the nation: COVID-19, its economic impact, and the growing movement for social justice. They also will explore to what extent new rules have impacted this vital work, what challenges Congress faces in responding to unprecedented times, and what will be the most likely next steps. They also will discuss what a virtual campaign looks like and how all of this will impact voting in remaining primaries and November’s General Election.
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Past Events
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global event unlike any other experienced in the contemporary era. It’s size, scope, reach, and implications are enormous, ongoing, and unequal. Outcomes-from how people all over the world will live their daily lives to whether democracy will survive-are all in question.
Come into our virtual classroom to delve deeper into the pandemic-related themes we will explore in this survey course for everyone.
Distribution of information in this global crisis plays a powerful role in shaping public understanding and behavior. The novelty of the virus itself means that scientific knowledge rapidly evolves and shifts based on new data. Where, how, and from whom do people get their information and misinformation? What impact does such information have on behavior?
Join us as we consider the challenges of reporting on and conveying “good” information about the pandemic to the general public. A panel of experts – Jonas Kaiser, Jennifer Kavanagh, and Felice Fryer – will examine the rapid decline in trust in public institutions, public figures, and the media and discuss the resulting impact on the health of not only citizens but of their democracy.
FOR PDF FLYER {CLICK HERE}
TO REGISTER AND TO JOIN THE CONVERSATION
https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/3215929566140/WN_50EGqNAoSU2dbqmLZq5qtQ
Past Events
The Covid-19 pandemic is a global event unlike any other experienced in the contemporary era. It’s size, scope, reach, and implications are enormous, ongoing, and unequal. Outcomes-from how people all over the world will live their daily lives to whether democracy will survive-are all in question.
Come into our virtual classroom to delve deeper into the pandemic-related themes we will explore in this survey course for everyone.
Mahrukh Doctor, Vivien Schmidt, and Sebastián Royo, all experts with a global focus, will discuss the differential impact of the pandemic around the world, and the differential responses across nations, comparing countries, regions, and states in the context of democracy, populism, public trust, and compliance.
This Suffolk University lecture series presented with Ford Hall Forum and WGBH is designed to be a broad survey of themes most of interest to political scientists and public policy experts and is part of a novel online summer course for incoming Suffolk students.
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Blog, Past Events
In this moment of sorrow and rage, Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University mourns the death of George Floyd, a tragedy for his children, siblings, his friends, our nation, and the world. The Forum recognizes also the violent deaths of many others, among them Breonna Taylor,
Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Shaun Fuhr, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice. Insidious violence inflicted upon Black men, women, and children has continued for over 400 years.
Join us in September for the start of the new Ford Hall Forum program year, where we will engage in forums exploring social justice and human rights issues. Among the topics we seek to explore are the policing of Black men and women, the roots of American protest, the pandemic, the 2020 election, and economic, education, and health disparities among Black and Latinx Americans. The nation is on the precipice of a tipping point, and the only way to make it over the enormous hurdles that lie ahead is to have the difficult conversations to learn, to grow, and to advocate for change. That is what Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University does best.
Past Events
Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University, WGBH Forum Network, and WGBH News Present:
The New Normal: Coronavirus Polling & Policy Implications
Thursday, May 28, 2020
Live at 7:00 pm
With prominent pollster David Paleologos, Director, Suffolk University Political Research Center, Rachael Cobb, associate professor and chair, Suffolk University Legal Studies and Political Science Department, Bob Seay, WGBH News transportation reporter, and Saraya Wintersmith, reporter, WGBH News. The evening’s moderator is Joe Mathieu, anchor and executive editor, WGBH’s Morning Edition.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has changed everything, from how we work to how we view our elected officials. Pollster David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, takes a look at some of the most recent surveys conducted in Massachusetts and nationally to see how Bay Staters and Americans are handling the pandemic, what the new normal might look like, and the political implications of the pandemic’s fallout.
To register: https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZMjt5SEITw6_usI47BSnyA
Blog, Past Events
You’ve got questions, We’ve got experts
How will the pandemic impact elections in 2020?
Monday May 11th at 7pm
Click Here to Register
Past Events
Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum, Rosenberg Institute for East Asian Studies, and Communication, Journalism & Media Department present:
An afternoon with acclaimed filmmaker Kenneth Eng
Join us as we screen Eng’s award-winning documentary My Life in China. “Who am I?” Kenneth Eng once asked himself. He started finding answers by making this documentary about his father’s perilous flight from China during the Cultural Revolution to pursue the American Dream. This is a story of how migration is passed down from father to son, and ultimately asks the question, what does it mean to be both Chinese and American? The screening will be followed by a discussion with Eng and will be moderated by Micky Lee, PhD, associate professor, Communication, Journalism & Media Department, Suffolk University.
Thursday, February 6, 2020
3:05-4:20 pm
Samia Academic Center, Room 414
20 Somerset Street, Boston
Kenneth Eng is a director, editor, and executive producer. After graduating from Boston Latin School, Ken left for New York in 1994 to study film at the School of Visual Arts. His thesis Scratching Windows, a short documentary film about graffiti writers, was broadcast as part of the documentary series REEL NY on New York PBS. In 2001, Ken directed and edited Take Me to the River, a feature length documentary about the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Allahabad, India. Kokoyakyu: High School Baseball, his film about the famous Koshien Baseball Tournament in Japan was nationally broadcast on PBS and continues to play in Japan. In 2007, Ken was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship to launch My Life In China. Recently, he edited Tested for director Curtis Chin, and is currently collaborating with him on a film Our Chinatown about the challenges Chinatowns across America face. Ken is also involved in “The Great China Baseball Hunt,” a film about the rise of baseball in China.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Past Events
Join Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University and Cambridge Forum:
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
7:00 pm
First Parish Church
3 Church Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge
A free reception will be hosted by the University of Denver at 5:30 pm. All are welcome.
For much of America’s history, we simply did not lock people up for migrating here. Yet over the last thirty years, the federal and state governments have increasingly tapped their powers to incarcerate people accused of violating immigration laws. As a result, roughly 400,000 people a year now spend some time locked up pending civil or criminal immigration proceedings. César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández‘s new book takes a hard look at the immigration prison system’s origins and how it currently operates. It tackles the outsized presence of private prisons and how those on the political right continue, disingenuously, to link immigration imprisonment with national security risks and threats to the rule of law.
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández is a professor of law at the University of Denver and an immigration lawyer. He runs the blog Crimmigration.com and regularly speaks on immigration law and policy issues. He has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, and many other venues.
Praise for Migrating to Prison
“Migrating to Prison rips the veils off of the immigration detention system. García Hernández brings a sharp legal eye to showing how our immigration system has become so twisted that we take for granted the outrageous. If you want a crystal clear explanation of why we need to abolish immigration detention, this is the book for you.”
—Aviva Chomsky, author of Undocumented
Past Events
The Masterman Speaker Series on the First Amendment and the Fourth Estate and Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum welcome
Robert Mahoney,
Deputy Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists for a lecture on Threats to the Press Around the World
Around the world journalists face threats, false arrests, and violence. Here in the United States high-ranking government officials and politicians attack the press in increasingly strident terms. Join us as we welcome Robert Mahoney of the Committee to Protect Journalists to discuss the state of press freedom around the world and how rhetoric in the United States imperils journalists in other nations and emboldens their critics.
Tuesday, April 15, 2020 at 4:00 pm
First Floor Function Room
Sargent Hall
120 Tremont St., Boston, MA 02108
Reception to follow
About our speaker
Robert Mahoney is the Deputy Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. Mr. Mahoney joined CPJ in August 2005 as senior editor and became CPJ’s deputy director in January 2007. He has worked as a journalist in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. He reported on politics and economics for Reuters news agency from Brussels and Paris in the late 1970s, and from Southeast Asia in the early 1980s. Mahoney covered South Asia from Delhi for three years from 1985, reporting on the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, the civil war in Sri Lanka, and the fallout from the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. In 1988, he became Reuters bureau chief for West and Central Africa, based in the Ivory Coast and spending considerable time in Liberia covering the civil war. He served as Reuters Jerusalem bureau chief from 1990 to 1997, directing print and, later, television coverage of the Palestinian intifada, the Iraqi missile attacks on Israel, the Oslo peace process, and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Mahoney worked as chief correspondent in Germany from 1997 to 1999 before moving to London to become news editor of politics and general news for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. In 2004, he taught journalism for the Reuters Foundation in the Middle East, and worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch.
About the Masterman Speaker Series
Some of the most polarizing and provocative issues of our time involve matters rooted in the First Amendment. Edward I. Masterman, JD ’50, LLD ’90 and his wife Sydell, established the Masterman Speaker Series on the First Amendment and the Fourth Estate to provide a forum for robust debate and exchange of ideas on freedom of the press and its attendant responsibilities. The Speaker Series brings together representatives from government, the legal profession, and the press for the purposes of informing, educating, and engaging those who care deeply about these issues.
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THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Past Events
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
7:00 pm
First Congregational Church
1446 Massachusetts Avenue, Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA
This event is free and open to the public.
Andrew Bacevich, Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University, comes to the forum to discuss his new book about the post-Cold war follies and delusions that culminated in the age of Donald Trump. The forum will be moderated by journalist Christopher Lydon, host of Open Source on WBUR radio.
How, within a quarter of a century, did the United States end up with gaping inequality, permanent war, moral confusion, and an increasingly angry and alienated population, as well, of course, the strangest presidency in American history?
