To enhance its educational and cultural offerings, AUC's Distinguished Visiting Professor program brings a number of eminent scholars, writers, and artists to campus for short-term lectureships or workshops.Leading scholars of religion, prominent historians, expert law professors and world-renowned scientists are among the broad array of distinguished visiting professors who come to AUC each year to teach, conduct research and deliver public lectures. Through these visits, the university serves as a prime venue for the exchange of ideas, intellectual debate and cultural outreach.
Throughout the past few years, AUC has served as a venue for prominent speakers including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud and Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Mohamed Tantawi.
Recent Distinguished Visiting Professors at AUC Mary Deane Sorcinelli, associate provost for faculty development and professor of educational policy and research administration, Amherst, was a distinguished visiting professor in Fall 2009 where she delivered a lecture on How to Develop an Effective Mentoring Network. Sorcinelli received her EDD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with concentrations in higher education and faculty development; her MA in English from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts; and her BA in English from Westfield State College, Westfield, Massachusetts. She is the recipient of the Innovation Award, Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education; Bob Pierleoni Spirit of POD Award; Theodore M. Hesburgh Award; and Dorothy Harlow Award; among many others.
Rokus de Groot, composer and chair of the Department of Musicology, University of Amsterdam, delivered the Edward Said Memorial Lecture, “Contrapuntal Intellectual: Edward Said and Music,” and “Staging Majnun Layla: An Intercultural Experiment” in Oriental Hall in Fall 2009. De Groot earned his MA in musicology from the University of Amsterdam and his PhD from the University of Utrecht. His research focuses on the 20th and 21st century music, particularly on the aesthetics and techniques of composition and in the interaction between different cultural traditions; focusing on the perspective of present-day re-conceptualizations of past and present religious and spiritual traditions.
Sir John Meurig Thomas, world-renowned chemist and an honorary professor of materials science at the University of Cambridge, delivered an English Public Lecture in Fall 2009 at Oriental Hall, AUC Downtown. Reviving the discoveries of Michael Faraday at AUC, Thomas highlighted Faraday’s achievements and discoveries that contributed to the world of science and technology. Thomas is the emeritus professor of chemistry at the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory of the Royal Institution and is the recipient of 20 honorary degrees, more than 100 named lectureships and holds more than 40 honorary fellowships in universities and colleges worldwide.
John Prendergast, human rights activist, offered solutions to failing U.S. policy in Northeast Africa in a lecture he delivered at AUC in Spring 2008. Prendergast was an advisor to the State Department and the White House, and a senior advisor to the International Crisis Group. Prendergast spent most of his career focusing on crisis issues in Africa, including bringing international attention to the genocide in Sudan and the violence of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. Prendergast is co-chair of ENOUGH, a joint project of the Crisis Group and the Center for American Progress that aims to end the crimes against humanity in Darfur, northern Uganda and eastern Congo. He is also a supporter of the Genocide Intervention Network.