Plenary sessions 2024

Panel on Georgetown’s Race, Power & Justice course pilot

Join CNDLS Executive Director Edward Maloney for an official welcome to TLISI 2024, followed by a moderated panel with faculty and students who piloted Georgetown’s new Race, Power & Justice seminar, part of the new Pathways to Social Justice curriculum. Panelists will share their experiences and lessons learned from this innovative 1-credit course that all entering Georgetown students will take starting this fall. 

About the speakers

Edilma L. Yearwood, Associate Professor of Nursing at the School of Nursing, also serves as Chair for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, and Anti-Racism. Dr. Yearwood’s research focuses on the mental health of minority and immigrant youth, cultural factors impacting mental health, and youth empowerment strategies. 

Adam Rothman, Professor of History and Director of Georgetown’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Its Legacies, specializes in U.S. history from the Revolution to the Civil War, focusing on slavery and abolition in the Atlantic world. Adam received the Provost’s Distinguished Achievement in Research (2018) and the James S. Ruby Faculty Appreciation Award (2023), and co-edited Facing Georgetown’s History: A Reader on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation (2021). 

Jeremy Koons, Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University in Qatar, specializes in epistemology and ethical theory, particularly Wilfrid Sellars’s philosophy. Koons most recently authored The Ethics of Wilfrid Sellars (Routledge, 2019). 

Chantal Li is an undergraduate student in the School of Foreign Service (‘25). She’s pursuing a Science Technology and International Affairs major with a certificate in Diplomatic Studies and a minor in Religion, Ethics, and World Affairs.

Promoting intentional dialogue at Georgetown in a post-audience world

Digital devices, hybrid working and learning environments in response to the pandemic, and communication platforms have provided great flexibility and have reshaped the way we interact. In many ways, the pandemic has accelerated digital demands on our time and created a focus on efficiency rather than reflection and dialogue. This virtual session will describe a framework that recognizes the outside pressures that we face and helps us to be more intentional in the way we are present with one another and work towards co-creating the types of environments that promote dialogue and understanding. 

About the speaker

Jeanine Turner is a Professor and Director of the Communication, Culture, and Technology Program and holds a joint appointment in the business school as the Annette N. Shelby Endowed Chair in Business and Leadership Communication. Over the past twenty years at Georgetown, her research has explored the use of communication technologies by individuals and organizations. In addition to her work with graduate students in the CCT program, she also teaches courses in the McDonough School of Business to graduate students, executives, and undergraduates.

Professor Turner has published over 50 articles and book chapters and presented her work nationally and internationally. Her book, Being Present: Commanding Attention at Work and at Home by Managing Your Social Presence (Georgetown University Press 2022) provides strategies for addressing the challenges of engaging attention in a world of digital devices, and will be available to win at our book raffle event. The book earned a 2022 Gold Medal Axiom Publishing Award given to promising business titles and was listed on JP Morgan’s 2022 Summer Reading list as a top 10 book. She loves teaching students and discovering the complexities of communication. 

Dare to speak: Defending free speech on college campuses

​​Join us in welcoming Suzanne Nossel, Chief Executive Officer of PEN America, the leading human rights and free expression organization. Nossel is a leading voice on free expression issues in the United States and globally, writing and being interviewed frequently for national and international media outlets. She is author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All, which will be available for raffle at this year’s book raffle event. For this keynote, Nossel will be in conversation with Georgetown Provost Robert Groves who will help to provide the Georgetown context for these issues.

About the speaker

Suzanne Nossel currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of PEN America, the leading free expression organization, and is author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All which will be available at this year’s book raffle event. She also serves on the Meta Oversight Board. Her career has spanned government service and leadership roles in the corporate and nonprofit sectors. She has served as the Chief Operating Officer of Human Rights Watch and as Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. During the first term of the Obama Administration, Nossel served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations. Nossel coined the term “Smart Power,” which was the title of a 2004 article she published in Foreign Affairs Magazine and later became the theme of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s tenure in office. Nossel is a featured columnist for Foreign Policy magazine and has published op-eds in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, and dozens of other outlets, as well as scholarly articles in Foreign Affairs, Dissent, Democracy, and other journals. Of note in 2023, Nossel published two cover stories and an additional oped in the Wall Street Journal. Nossel is a magna cum laude graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Teaching and learning with AI: A conversation with Cal Newport and Eddie Maloney

Building on the many conversations at Georgetown about Generative AI and how it is transforming teaching and learning, join us for a lunchtime keynote conversation with Georgetown Professor Cal Newport, Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of Computer Science, and CNDLS Executive Director Edward Maloney. Our conversationalists look forward to a mainly Q&A style keynote responding to audience questions submitted in advance and posed during the session.

About the speaker

Cal Newport is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University. His scholarship focuses on the theory of distributed systems, while his general-audience writing explores intersections of culture and technology. He is the author of eight books, including, most recently, Slow Productivity, which will be available to win at this year’s book raffle event, A World Without Email, Digital Minimalism, and Deep Work. These titles include multiple New York Times bestsellers and have been published in 40 languages. Newport is also a contributing writer for the New Yorker and the host of the Deep Questions podcast.