The AHC’s Simpson Institute is co-sponsoring a student panel event, “Emerging Democracies and their Struggle against Authoritarian Rule,” on Monday, April 11, 2011, at 3:30 p.m. in the Wyoming Student Union East Ballroom.  The panel, consisting of four international students, will discuss current events as they relate to emerging democracies in countries like Egypt and Libya.  Professor Pete Simpson, Department of Political Science, will moderate the panel, and questions will be taken from the audience.  Other sponsors are the UW College of Arts and Sciences and the Malcolm Wallop Fund for Conversations on Democracy. 

“We are eager to give these international students an opportunity to speak to the underlying relationships that feed into recent political events in the Middle East and to share with the community how significant these events are to democracy throughout the world,” says Dean Oliver Walter, College of Arts and Sciences, who also is a political scientist. “We hope conversations, such as this, will open the door to more dialogue about how and why democracies develop.”

Simpson Institute archivist, Leslie Waggener, adds, “We’re excited about the students who have agreed to participate in this event. Two of the UW students are women, one from Egypt and another from Bahrain. I feel the viewpoint of women from those countries is of particular value to the discussion.”

For more information about the event, call Leslie Waggener at 766-2557, or send her email at lwaggen2@uwyo.edu.

–Leslie Waggener, Simpson Archivist