Only at GW: Visitors to GW this Fall

The George Washington University was at the center of it all this fall semester.

The GW + Phones = Hope initiative, which was launched with an event on campus that included Chelsea Clinton and Christy Turlington Burns, aims to collect 20,000 used cell phones by March. The phones will be recycled to help fund health mobile technology programs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nepal. (Click here to find out how to donate.)

GW also continued this past semester to draw a wide cast of high-profile visitors, from leading public servants to award-winning authors.

On World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, GW hosted President Barack Obama, along with U2's Bono, musician Alicia Keys, CNN's Sanjay Gupta and a number of politicians and HIV/AIDS experts. At the event, President Obama promised to commit more money for HIV/AIDS programs and provide antiretroviral treatment to an additional 2 million people across the globe by 2013. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, spoke via satellite. They emphasized the importance of HIV/AIDS education and supporting antiretroviral treatment in the neediest communities.
A trio of speakers, who touched on issues including race, inequality and the economy, also came through the Foggy Bottom Campus. In September, World Bank President Robert Zoellick discussed the economy and inequality; just a few months later, democratic intellectual Cornel West, as the keynote speaker of the GW University Writing Program's "Democracy and Public Argument" conference, shared a similar message in an address about poverty and the concentration of power and wealth.

Author Toni Morrison, a Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, discussed race and read from her 2008 novel, A Mercy. GW dedicated a bench in Ms. Morrison's honor.

Caroline Kennedy spoke in September at GW's Lisner Auditorium about her mother Jacqueline Kennedy's, B.A. '51, love for her family and strong opinions on politics. She detailed her favorite excerpts from recently released audio conversations between her mother and historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

Some of the country's most influential decision-makers were also on campus this semester. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and former secretaries Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge, in a discussion moderated by Admiral Thad Allen, M.P.A. '86, spoke about the security challenges facing the nation in a post-9/11 world. The next month, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia headlined the GW Law Review Symposium, setting the stage for a series of discussions on constitutional interpretation.
Food and the future of creative cuisine took center stage when two of the world's most acclaimed chefs, José Andrés and Ferran Adrià, shared the spotlight and swapped culinary tales in September at Lisner Auditorium.

And the momentum isn't likely to stop. Next semester's highlights include the Clinton Global Initiative, to be held March 30 to April 1, and a series of events commemorating the 100th anniversary of the university in Foggy Bottom.

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