FIU Geopolitical Summit looks at U.S. role in changing world

Experts to analyze, discuss foreign policy under Obama and beyond

MIAMI (Feb. 11, 2009) Florida International University is hosting a Geopolitical Summit that will bring together four of the world’s foremost foreign policy and international relations experts to discuss America’s role in the world in the next several decades.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity to analyze and discuss America’s foreign policy with the leading thinkers in this area,” said FIU President Modesto Maidique. “This summit comes at a propitious time, as President Barack Obama takes office and sets a new course for U.S. foreign policy. It also comes as FIU establishes its School of International and Public Affairs, a school that fulfills the promise of Florida International University’s name – a global university committed to making ‘international’ a part of every student’s experience.”

The one-day summit, titled “America and the Rising Powers” will take place on Feb. 24 at FIU’s Graham Center Ballrooms, 11200 SW 8^th St., Miami.

The summit’s featured speakers are:

• Francis Fukuyama, Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, director of SAIS’ International Development program and chairman of the editorial board of the magazine The American Interest.Fukuyama has written widely on issues relating to questions concerning political and economic development.
• Robert Kagan, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund. Kagan writes a monthly column on world affairs for the Washington Post, and is a contributing editor at both the Weekly Standard and the New Republic. He is listed as one of the world’s “Top 100 Public Intellectuals” by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines.
• Parag Khanna, director of the Global Governance Initiative and Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, one of the nation’s most respected think tanks. During 2007 Khanna served as a senior geopolitical advisor to United States Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has coined or pioneered such terms as Geodiplomacy, Bollystan, Second World, and Multi-Americanism.
• Fareed Zakaria, is editor of Newsweek International, overseeing all Newsweek‘s editions abroad. He also writes a regular column for Newsweek, which also appears in Newsweek International and The Washington Post. He is the host of Fareed Zakaria GPS, a new foreign affairs show on CNN Worldwide.

The speakers will anchor plenary sessions that will incorporate panel discussions made up of FIU professors.

The Geopolitical Summit also will serve as the official debut of FIU’s School of International and Public Affairs. Known as SIPA, the school brings together international, governmental, and social sciences with the goal of deepening understanding of an increasingly global society.

SIPA includes undergraduate and graduate programs in political science, international relations, public administration, geography, sociology, anthropology and criminal justice, as well as centers, institutes and other programs.

For more information on the summit, please visit http://summit.fiu.edu. For more information about SIPA, visit: http://international.fiu.edu.

Media contact: Madeline Baró at 305-348-2234.

-FIU-

About FIU:
Florida International University was founded in 1965 and is Miami’s only public research university. With a student body of more than 38,000, FIU graduates more Hispanics than any other university in the country. Its 17 colleges and schools offer more than 200 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations and law. FIU has been classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a “High Research Activity University.” In 2006 FIU was authorized to establish a medical school, which will welcome its first class in 2009. FIU’s College of Law recently received accreditation in the fastest time allowed by the American Bar Association.