Honorary Degree Ceremony & Oliver Tambo Lecture with Leymah Gbowee
John J. DeGioia
President of Georgetown University
requests the pleasure of your company for the conferral of an honorary degree upon
Leymah Gbowee
2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate,
Founder and President of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa,
and Executive Director of the Institute on Gender, Law, and Transformative Peace
As a special feature of this event, Leymah Gbowee will also deliver the Oliver Tambo Lecture on “Peace is…”
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
5:00 p.m.
Gaston Hall, Healy Hall, Third Floor
Reception to follow in Healy Hall Second Floor Corridor
Georgetown University
37th & O Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. 20057
Register for this event
ABOUT LEYMAH GBOWEE
Leymah Gbowee, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, is a peace activist, trained social worker, and women’s rights advocate. Ms. Gbowee’s leadership of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace—which brought together Christian and Muslim women in a nonviolent movement that played a pivotal role in ending Liberia’s civil war in 2003— is chronicled in her memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers, and in the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Ms. Gbowee is the Founding Executive Director of the Institute on Gender, Law, and Transformative Peace at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law. She is the founder of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, the founding head of the Liberia Reconciliation Initiative, and the co-founder and former Executive Director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-A). She previously served as Executive Director of the Women, Peace, and Security Program at Columbia University. She is also a founding member and former Liberian Coordinator of Women in Peacebuilding Network/West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WIPNET/WANEP).
A global thought leader and international facilitator for peace, Ms. Gbowee has been named one of the 100 Most Influential African Women by Avance Media, one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy, by Apolitical, and one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, Fortune Magazine. In 2020, Ms. Gbowee was honored with the Martin & Coretta King Inaugural Peace & Justice Award. She advises numerous organizations working for peace, women’s rights, youth, and sustainable development, and currently serves as a Member on the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Level Advisory Board on Mediation, as a Juror for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s Hilton Humanitarian Prize, and as a Trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Ms. Gbowee holds an M.A. in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University, and has received a number of honorary degrees from universities around the world.
ABOUT THE OLIVER TAMBO LECTURE
The Oliver Tambo Lecture at Georgetown University, instituted in the leader’s memory after his 1987 speech on our campus, constitutes an important forum for the exploration of current issues on the African continent. Previous speakers include President Thabo Mbeki, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, South African Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel, South African activist and educator Mamphela Ramphele, scholar and theologian Charles Villa-Vicencio, and Former Public Protector of the Republic of South Africa Thuli Madonsela.
Accommodation requests related to a disability should be made by emailing eventsRSVP@georgetown.edu by February 8th.