Location: The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence

Schedule: 5:00pm – 6:00pm, preceding regular dinner-speaker program

Call now to make your reservation at (401) 228–8657, or email our Executive Director, Yvonne Shilling at ygshill@yahoo.com.

Tuesday, June 22, 6:00 p.m.

Countries across Europe are struggling to find ways to cope with their growing debt. From the nationalization of domestic banks to multi-billion cash injections into the capital markets, Europe’s politicians, regulators, and market players are trying different approaches to deal with the mounting problems … problems that have an impact on our U.S. economy.

Keynote Speaker Ambassador Thomas M.T. Niles, Vice Chair, United States Council for International Business (USCIB) and former U.S. Ambassador to Greece, the European Union, and Canada.

Location: The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence

Call now to make your reservation at (401) 228–8657, or email our Executive Director, Yvonne Shilling at ygshill@yahoo.com.

*The Great Decisions Program will take place at 5:00 PM.

For dinner schedule and information, please see Dinner-Speakers in the navigation bar at the top of this page.

Issue No. 347  l  June 3, 2010  l  Providence, Rhode Island

Mayor David N. Cicilline was recognized by the World Affairs Council of Rhode Island (WACRI) for his environmental stewardship and for launching several initiatives aimed at creating new green-collar jobs and reducing the City’s carbon footprint.  The Mayor was also honored for helping to pave the way for Providence’s emerging Green Corridor, a section along the Woonasquatucket River comprised of several new businesses that are growing green jobs for the 21st -century workforce.

“It is truly an honor to be recognized by the World Affairs Council of Rhode Island for our work in the City of Providence to grow green jobs, build the foundation for the green economy and protect our environment,” said Mayor Cicilline. “The World Affairs Council recognizes the importance of growing green businesses, promoting green design and sustainable development and encouraging our young people to become strong environmental stewards.”

“We felt it was important to recognize the Mayor for his strong environmental leadership and for helping to develop the growth of the green economy in Providence,” said Greg Chafee, President, World Affairs Council of Rhode Island.  “From spearheading the important work in Greenprint Providence to working to establish a comprehensive public transit system, he is positioning Providence as a showcase for the rest of the country.”

The WACRI also honored several other individuals and businesses in Rhode Island for their environmental leadership, including Providence-based Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living.

About the WACRI
The World Affairs Councils are non-profit, non-partisan organizations devoted to empowering citizens to participate in the national debate on world affairs, build citizen support for American engagement in the world, stimulate communities to interact effectively in the global economy, help people relate their local concerns to global issues, improve international education locally, nationally and internationally, foster international interests in America’s young people, build alliances with counterpart organizations locally, nationally and internationally and increase council professionalism by disseminating best practices.

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Dr. F. Gregory Gause III, Middle East expert, scholar and author will join the World Affairs Council of RI on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 6:00 pm for Middle East Politics: Cradle of Unrest. Dr. Gause will report on his recent trip to the Persian Gulf and detail highlights from his newly published book International Relations of the Persian Gulf.

Location: The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence

Schedule:
6:00 pm-7:00 pm: Book Signing and Cocktail Reception
7:00 pm-7:45 pm: Dinner
7:45 pm-8:30 pm: Speaker Program
8:30 pm-8:45 pm: Question and Answer

*Dr. Gause will lead the Great Decisions program at 5:00 pm.

Call now to make your reservation at (401) 228–8657, or email our Executive Director, Yvonne Shilling at ygshill@yahoo.com.

Click “more” for additional information on our speaker.

Dr. F. Gregory Gause, III is professor of political science at the University of Vermont and the Kuwait Foundation Visiting Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.   He was previously on the faculty of Columbia University and was Fellow for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

His research interests focus on the international politics of the Middle East, with a particular interest in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian/Arabian Gulf. He has published three books: The International Relations of the Persian Gulf; Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States; and Saudi-Yemeni Relations: Domestic Structures and Foreign Influence.

His scholarly articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Security Studies, Middle East Journal, Washington Quarterly, Journal of International Affairs, Review of International Studies and in other journals and edited volumes. He has testified on Gulf issues before Congressional committees and has made numerous appearances on television and radio commenting on Middle East issues.

Before completing his Ph. D., he held research positions at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California and at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. In the spring of 2009 he held a Fulbright Fellowship at the American University of Kuwait.

He received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University in 1987 and his B.A. (summa cum laude) from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia in 1980. He studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo and Middlebury College.

Mexico is growing more dangerous daily, with escalating kidnappings, murders and other drug-related violence.  Recently, a failed kidnapping attempt left seven gunmen and a federal police officer dead. In Ciudad Juarez, 15 teens were killed when a gunman stormed a party at a private home.

The situation has intensified since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels in 2007, deploying 45,000 troops to 18 states where trafficking groups are battling for access to the U.S. market.

Eric L. Olson, Senior Advisor at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., will address these headline issues and more on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 6:00 P.M. (Great Decisions at 5:00P.M.)

Location: The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence

Call now to make your reservation at (401) 228–8657, or email our Executive Director, Yvonne Shilling at ygshill@yahoo.com.

For dinner schedule and information, please see the Dinner-Speakers tab in the black navigation bar at the top of this page.

Click “Read More” for additional information about our speaker.

Eric L. Olson specializes in U.S. – Latin American relations, Mexico and Central America, democracy promotion, human rights and justice reform.  He oversees the Mexico Institute’s research and publications related to security cooperation between the U.S., Mexico and Central America and efforts to combat organized crime in the Americas.  His research focuses on efforts to reduce the demand for illegal drugs in the U.S., combating money laundering and trafficking in weapons.  He was formerly Advocacy Director for the Americas at Amnesty International and Senior Associate for Mexico and Economic Policy and the Washington Office on Latin America.

January 27, 2010: “Ukraine Needs the West’s Support“

One of the largest countries in Europe and a critical transportation point for natural gas from Russia, Ukraine has long been a centerpiece in the struggle for influence in the post-Soviet region.

Now, fractured politics and a disintegrating economy have strained relations with Russia and alarmed its European partners. Ukraine’s future largely hangs on a February runoff when two rivals will go head to head for the Ukrainian Presidency.

Will a disillusioned public and a diminished economy force-out leaders of the Orange Revolution and allow Russia to regain its traditional leadership role in the region?

Join WACRI and DR. MARK KRAMER, Director of the Harvard Cold War Studies program and a Senior Fellow of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University on Thursday, February 4, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. for a timely program on politics and conflict in a post-Soviet world.

Location: The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence

Call now to make your reservation at (401) 228–8657, or email our Executive Director, Yvonne Shilling at ygshill@yahoo.com.

*The Great Decisions Program will take place at 5:00 PM.

For dinner schedule and information, please see Dinner-Speakers in the black navigation bar at the top of this page.

Click “Read More” for additional information about our speaker.

Professor Kramer has taught at Harvard, Yale, and Brown Universities and was formerly an Academy Scholar in Harvard’s Academy of International and Area Studies and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He has worked extensively in newly opened archives in Russia, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and also in the archives of several Western countries.

Professor Kramer’s publications include, The Crisis in Czechoslovakia, 1968: The Prague Spring and the Soviet Invasion and the August Invasion and Soldier and State in Poland: Civil-Military Relations and Institutional Change After Communism, The Collapse of the Soviet Union, and Crisis in the Communist World, 1956: The Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, and Upheavals in Poland and Hungary (forthcoming, 2008). He is completing another book—From Dominance to Hegemony to Collapse: Soviet Policy in East-Central Europe, 1945–1991 (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)—which draw heavily on new archival sources. His books highlight the theoretical as well as historical implications of the new archival evidence. Professor Kramer has also edited three books — The Black Book of Communism (Harvard University Press, 1999), The Collapse of the Soviet Union (MIT Press, forthcoming), and Great-Power Rivalries, Tibetan Guerrilla Resistance, and the Cold War in South Asia (Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming).

In addition, he has written nearly 200 articles on a variety of topics, including the demise of the Soviet Union, Sino-Soviet relations, the Soviet and post-Soviet armed forces, the Russian-Chechen war, the structures of Soviet and post-Soviet foreign policy making, nuclear proliferation, NATO and East European security, post-Communist economic reform in East-Central Europe, social policy in East-Central Europe, civil-military relations in East-Central Europe, and the global arms trade.

Evan I. Schwartz, producer and writer of the acclaimed PBS NOVA documentary Saved by the Sun, has a solution: Cool down the planet using the hottest thing in the solar system. Read more.

Join the World Affairs Council of RI on Thursday, January 7^th at 6:00 p.m. for an evening with award-winning author and producer Evan I. Schwartz.

Location: The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence

Call now to make your reservation at (401) 228–8657, or email our Executive Director, Yvonne Shilling at ygshill@yahoo.com.

*The Great Decisions Program will take place at 5:00 PM.

Click here for more information on the PBS documentary “Saved by the Sun”.

For dinner schedule and information, please see Dinner-Speakers in the black navigation bar at the top of this page.

Scandals, Boycotts, and Boardrooms

James Post, the John F. Smith, Jr. Professor in Management at  Boston University’s School of Management, will speak about corporate ethics and social responsibility in a global economy.

WHEN:    Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 6:00 P.M.  (Note change in November from our usual Thursday date.)

WHERE:  The Hope Club, Providence

RESERVATIONS:
Call now to make your reservation: 401–228–8657
Email our Executive Director, Yvonne Shilling at ygshill@yahoo.com
The Great Decisions Program will take place at 5:00 PM

Dr. Post is a dynamic speaker who is also:

• A contributor to CNN, CNBC, Fox News and Bloomberg
• Consultant to World Health Organization, AID, Rockefeller Foundation and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• Member The Baby Formula Boycott – Nestle Infant Formula Audit Commission
• Author of over 150 publications including two award winning books
• Featured expert in New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post

Dr. Post holds degrees in law (J.D.) and management (M.B.A., Ph.D.) and teaches courses in strategic management, corporate governance, and professional ethics to university and executive audiences.

From 1996-98, Dr. Post served as Research Director of Business and Society Studies at The Conference Board (New York).  He was subsequently named a Senior Research Fellow at the Conference Board, a professional research organization well-known for its studies of global economic and management trends.  His current work on best practices in global corporate citizenship is done in collaboration with colleagues through a global research network that has been developed over the past twenty years.

Dr. Post is the author of more than 150 publications on business, public policy, and public affairs management.  He is author, co-author, or editor of 20 books, including two award-winning books, Managing Environmental Issues: A Casebook (Prentice-Hall) and Private Management and Public Policy (with Lee Preston).  The Academy of Management commended the latter book for “its lasting contribution to the study of business and society.”    He is also co-author of a leading textbook, Business & Society: Corporate Strategy, Public Policy, Ethics (with Anne Lawrence and James Weber). The Chinese-language edition of Business and Society was published by McGraw-Hill in 2006.   His newest book, entitled Redefining the Corporation, analyzes how global companies manage complex stakeholder relationships and is published by Stanford University Press.

Professor Post’s recent work has focused on corporate governance, ethics, and business responsibility.  He has been a commentator on television (CNN, CNBC, Fox, Bloomberg) and is often quoted in print media, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle.

Throughout his career, Dr. Post has consulted with public and nonprofit agencies, including the Rockefeller Foundation, World Health Organization, U.S. Agency for International Development, National Wildlife Federation, President’s Commission on Sustainable Development, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.   He has also worked with companies in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific and spoken at numerous business conferences.  In the United States, he has testified as an expert before committees of the United States Senate and House of Representatives and other regulatory and legislative bodies. Internationally, he has consulted with United Nations agencies on global business practices.  From 1984-1991, he was a member of the Nestle Infant Formula Audit Commission (NIFAC), an independent body established to monitor that company’s compliance with the World Health Organization international code of conduct.

October 2009

Actress Julie Martin is Alva Vanderbilt who take you back in time to tour her mansion ending with an elegant silver service tea in the English library where she shares intimate details of her life as the power behind the woman’s Suffrage movement and mother of the Duchess of Marlborough.

A $25 per person fee includes tour and high tea at Belcourt.

Round trip transportation will be provided from the Lincoln School in Providence. The bus will leave promptly at 12:00 pm on Saturday, October 17th and return by 4:00 pm.

For reservations, please email IVC Director Susan Willis at cfiartconsult@msn.com.  Please also copy your email to WACRI Executive Director Yvonne Shilling at yshill@yahoo.com.

Location: The Squantum Club, 947 Veterans Memorial Pkwy, East Providence

Schedule: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. / Reservations deadline:  Thursday, October 15

*Dinner and Program is $40 per person

For Reservations:  Please send your reservation via email to PCFR at pcfr@stonetrade.com or call (401) 885-6608

We look forward to seeing you there!

On Feb. 6, 2009, Brown University appointed Dr. Romano Prodi, former prime minister of Italy, to a five-year term as professor-at-large, based at the Watson Institute for International Studies.  Prodi twice served as prime minister of Italy and also served as president of the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, from 1999 to 2004.  In September 2008, the United Nations selected Dr. Prodi as President of the African Union-UN Peacekeeping Institute.

Dr. Prodi entered politics in 1978 as the Italian Minister of Industry.  In 1995 he founded Ulivo (The Olive Tree), a center left coalition that won the 1996 elections, when he became Prime Minister, serving until 1998.  During his presidency of the European Commission, 11 member states adopted the Euro, and the EU was enlarged by the admission of 10 more countries.  In 2006, Dr. Prodi again became Prime Minister of Italy, serving until his resignation in early 2008.  During his second tenure, Italian politics were roiled by foreign policy crises involving Italy’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr. Stanley Aronson
“The Challenges and the Realities of Influenza”

A weekly contributing columnist for the Providence Journal, Dr. Aronson is Dean of Medicine Emeritis, Brown University. He was our first dinner speaker of the WACRI season.

An accomplished neurologist, esteemed educator and distinguished author, Aronson is one of the original architects of Brown’s medical school and its founding dean. In addition to his 11 years as dean of medicine, from 1970 to 1981, Dr. Aronson also served as chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine from 1970 to 1975. In 1981,  Dr. Aronson was named a University Professor at Brown.

Dr. Aronson’s numerous community contributions include working with fellow physicians and local clergy to establish the first hospice program in Rhode Island – Hospice Care Rhode Island – and serving as its inaugural president from 1989 to 1991. Dr. Aronson has also served as president of the Interfaith Care Ministries and has worked to incorporate hospice and palliative care into the medical curriculum.

In addition to authoring approximately 400 scientific articles and chapters in medical and biological journals and texts, Dr. Aronson’s compelling essays on medicine and history can be read in the Providence Journal, Brown Medicine, and the Medicine and Health of Rhode Island Journal, of which he is also editor.  (Biography from Brown  University)

For reservations, you may leave a message at our office at The Hope Club  for Yvonne Shilling, our executive director,   401 – 228 – 8657 or email her:  ygshill@yahoo.com.

For dinner schedule and information, please see Dinner-Speakers in the black navigation bar at the top of this page.

DINNER SPEAKER Information CLICK HERE

Marty Pottle, outgoing president, Providence Mayor David Cicilline, Greg Chafee, incoming president, and Pat Gasbarro, chairman

Marvin Kalb, speaker, Marty Pottle, host of the Gala and Pat Gasbarro, chairman

The event was held at  The Hope Club amidst their gracious hospitality.

Watch for the Gala Celebration brochure on this page, printed in easy-to-read online text as our Thank you to those who supported us, friends of WACRI.

Mayor Cicilline presents Key to the City to Yvonne

And after he presented her with the key, in Yvonne’s  warm and witty way,  she said,  “One more thing.   He is the Mayor of our great city because I taught him in school.”

Text of article about Yvonne as adpated from the East Side Monthly follows:

World Affairs Council to hold 75th Anniversary Gala:  Executive Director Yvonne Shilling to be honored

This month marks the 75th anniversary of one of the most interesting, but least known, organizations on the East Side. The World Affairs Council of R.I. (WACRI) has quietly been conducting its once a month dinner meetings at the Hope Club for over seven decades, bringing in international speakers from Eleanor Roosevelt to Senator Jack Reed to help inform and educate Rhode Islanders who have an interest in learning more about our increasingly complex world.

Honoring Yvonne: To celebrate its birthday on Wednesday, June 17, the group is holding a gala dinner event at the Hope Club that will honor the woman who has been the backbone of the organization for almost three decades herself, its executive director and a well known East Sider, Yvonne Shilling.

Television news legend Marvin Kalb, the featured speaker, will be talking about War & Peace: From Tolstoy to Obama. He is the current host of the Kalb Report on Public Television and his talk will begin immediately following the tribute to Yvonne. Under her leadership, the WACRI has been able to attract foreign policy international giants to speak in Providence.

A woman of integrity and grace: Whether you know her as the Executive Director of the World Affairs Council of Rhode Island, as the “Biking Viking” of the East Side, from her work at the International Institute of Rhode Island or as a good neighbor and friend, Yvonne G. Shilling is respected as a woman of integrity and grace, who speaks seven languages, plays a variety of musical instruments, and has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to education and diplomacy. She and the World Affairs Council are perfectly matched.

Biking Viking: Yvonne is a world traveler and brings to the organization a sense of her knowledge of history, understanding of people, and a sense of humor which she incorporates wherever possible. Take, for example, her recent comments regarding a bicycling controversy that erupted on the pages of The East Side Monthly several months ago. Eager to weigh in on the new Blackstone Boulevard Bike Path, she reached back to her unusual but extensive well of life’s experiences to offer her take on the issue.

“I have ridden my trusty three-speed Raleigh up and down the Boulevard every day for the past 40 years! In fact over the last 70 years, I have ridden in many major U.S. cities that include Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Seattle, Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver, Charleston and Miami-to say nothing of Paris, London , Stockholm, Bergen, Copenhagen, all of Ireland, Scotland and Holland. In all those years, I have never been hit by a car and have suffered only two relatively minor accidents when I made unexpected contact with some local Providence macadam.”

She went on to argue that the East Side would probably be better served by allowing motorists and cyclists the opportunity to work things out themselves.

Words from Ingrid Wild Kleckner: Yvonne has brought this same humor and perspective with her to the WACRI and it is often peppered with smiling thoughts from one of her friends, Ingrid Wild Kleckner, Riverside, also a WACRI board member who led the nominating committee in 2006.

Ingrid said, “Yvonne and I have been friends since I joined the WACRI, years ago. She is a deeply cultured and intellectual cosmopolite. We shared good and sad times and a lot of laughter over the years, as when Yvonne asked then President Bush at our WAC convention in Washington: ‘George, is it true that I look like your mother?’
“ Head tilted, he looked up at her. ‘You have the same hairdresser.’
“ Yvonne shook her head: ‘I do my own hair.’
“ To which Mr. Bush replied: ‘So does my mother.’
“To my/our irrepressible, irreverent, irreplaceable Yvonne – continue the tradition!” says Ingrid.”

Ingrid added: “In 2006, Yvonne was my right hand and counsel when I led the nominating committee because she knows God and the world.”

Words from Hans Kuster: Hans Kuster, former president, Chair of the Nominating Committee and a member since 1991, has said of Yvonne, “She does everything and she does it quietly behind the scenes – from chairing the program committee that helps us find these wonderful speakers to writing our monthly newsletters to taking phone reservations for meetings, making up name tags for members and guests to attending the National Conferences in Washington. Yvonne is the true backbone of this organization.”

Yvonne with her daughter Monica

Accomplishments: Yvonne joined WACRI after serving as the Executive Director of the International House of RI in 1980. “Twenty-nine years later, I have missed only a handful of meetings, served as Vice President, Program Chair, director of the International Visitors Program and attended all their National conferences, been President for five years, Executive Director for twenty, was on the National Board for seven years, two as Secretary, was Editor of the National Newsletter five years, and the local one forever.”

WAC delegate: As a WAC national delegate, she has been on ten foreign missions around the world at the invitation of World Governments, meeting with their leaders and discussing mutual concerns.

The World Affair Council of Rhode Island is open to anyone with an interest in foreign affairs, an interest in “learning more about how the world really works.”

Wisdom of Yvonne: The volunteer leadership of the group changes each year, though Yvonne remains a constant. The new year will bring with it new faces: incoming president is Greg Chafee, attorney at Adler, Pollock, and Sheehan with Catherine Hanni serving as vice president while continuing her work at Brown University in the office of the provost and directing the International Visitors Program. There will be new board members, new committees, new challenges, but Yvonne will be there to share her ideas, her suggestions for speakers, and most of all, her wisdom.

By Rita Watson with thanks to Barry Fain, publisher,  ESM

G. Chafee, R. Watson, Y. Shilling, B.Fain

Ingrid Wild Kleckner with Yvonne after delivering Tribute. Ingrid brings us the sunshine.

Hans presenting Yvonne with a crystal box from Tiffany's saying, "Yvonne, you have been a gift to us. Here is our gift to you."

Photos by Amy Nachbar