Educating for Peace: Shaping a Future Free of Nuclear Weapons (Askwith Hall)
Are you a dedicated educator passionate about shaping a peaceful future? Join us for a timely conversation with educators and nuclear disarmament experts on the critical role of education in fostering civic responsibility in students and creating a world free of nuclear weapons.
WHO: Educators, students, and anyone interested in the role of education in fostering peace
WHAT: A panel discussion with educators and nuclear disarmament experts on the critical role of education in fostering critical thinking and civic responsibility in students and creating a world free of nuclear weapons. Organized by the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue, the Soka Institute for Global Solutions, the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and EdEthics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
WHERE: Askwith Hall at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (Longfellow Hall at 13 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138)
WHEN: 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM on Friday, May 9th (reception at 5:00 PM with food and refreshments)
WITH: Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Columbia University, Dr. Ira Helfand from the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Emma Pike of Lex International, and Masako Toki of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute. Dr. Meira Levinson of Harvard Graduate School of Education will serve as the panel moderator. Please refer below for full bios.
Download event flyer here.
Program
- Welcome by Organizers
- Panel Discussion
- Q&A
- Closing Reflections
Panelists
Ivana Nikolić Hughes is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Chemistry at Columbia University. She holds a BS with Honors from Caltech, where she studied chemical engineering and completed her Senior Thesis with Prof. Frances Arnold, the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Dr. Hughes obtained her PhD from Stanford University, where she was an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellow. She has been a faculty member at Columbia University since 2008 and was awarded the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award for 2020. Her work on ascertaining the radiological conditions in the Marshall Islands has been covered widely. Dr. Hughes currently serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Group to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a committee consisting of 15 experts from around the world who advise the states parties on scientific issues as they pertain to the treaty. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Hill, Scientific American, Truthout, Common Dreams, Transcend Media Service, The Diplomat, and elsewhere.
Ira Helfand, MD, is a member of the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. He is also immediate past president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the founding partner of ICAN and itself the recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. He is also co-founder and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s US affiliate. He has published studies on the medical consequences of nuclear war in the world’s leading medical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, the Lancet, and the World Medical Journal, and has lectured widely in the United States, and in India, China, Japan, Korea, Russia, South Africa, Israel, Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, and throughout Europe on the health effects of nuclear weapons.
Emma Pike is program manager at Lex International. As an undergraduate studying International Relations, Emma was deeply moved by Daisaku Ikeda’s philosophy of peace as a pursuit that begins within each individual, eventually writing her thesis on Ikeda’s philosophy as a model for peace in the nuclear age. As a peace educator and specialist in global citizenship education, Emma is a firm believer in the central role that education plays in building a more peaceful and equitable world for all. Emma holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from the University of St Andrews, a Master of Arts in Development Education and Global Learning from the UCL Institute of Education, and a Master of Education in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Columbia University. In her current role at Lex International, she focuses on strengthening the role of international law, particularly in nuclear disarmament and regulation of autonomous weapons systems. She also engages in public education on these topics, highlighting the power that each individual person holds to effect positive change.
Masako Toki is a Senior Project Manager and Research Associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute in Monterey, CA. She is passionate about disarmament and nonproliferation education for young generations. She coordinates the Critical Issues Forum (CIF) to promote disarmament and nonproliferation education to high school students and teachers in the US, Japan, Russia and other countries, and the Summer Undergraduate Nonproliferation Fellowship Program. Her research interests include Japan’s nuclear disarmament policy, nonproliferation and disarmament education, humanitarian initiative, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. She is also a member of the Japan Association of Disarmament Studies and the US-Japan Leadership Program (US-Japan Foundation).
Moderator
Meira Levinson is a normative political philosopher who works at the intersection of civic education, youth empowerment, racial justice, and educational ethics. In doing so, she draws upon scholarship from multiple disciplines as well as her eight years of experience teaching in the Atlanta and Boston Public Schools. She is currently working to start a global field of educational ethics, modeled in some ways after bioethics, that is philosophically rigorous, disciplinarily and experientially inclusive, and both relevant to and informed by educational policy and practice. Levinson’s work in this area has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center of Ethics, and the Spencer Foundation. Since the onslaught of the global novel coronavirus pandemic, Levinson has been focused on expanding educational ethics to address the multitude of ethical challenges posed by school closures, remote schooling, and uncertain reopenings. In collaboration with colleagues, she has co-authored The Path to Zero and Schools: Achieving Pandemic-Resilient Teaching and Learning Spaces policy guidance, a New England Journal of Medicine article on Reopening Primary Schools in a Pandemic, and two additional white papers. She has also been leading global teacher discussion groups on the ethical challenges they face.
This panel event will launch our weekend-long conference that seeks to bring together and empower middle and high school teachers to explore effective ways to teach students about the threats and historical legacies of nuclear weapons and instill in them a deep sense of shared responsibility and commitment to safeguarding the future of humanity’s peaceful existence. Click here for more details on the conference.