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Ex-president of Colombia at DePauw Monday
Doors to Kresge Auditorium for Monday’s Ubben Lecture by 2016 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Juan Manuel Santos will open at 6:30 p.m. The speech by the former president of Colombia, “Global Citizenship: Now More Than Ever,” starts at 7:30 and will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience.
Kresge Auditorium is located within DePauw’s Green Center for the Performing Arts (605 S. College Ave.). Like all Ubben Lectures, the event is presented free of admission charge and is open to all. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis, and no tickets will be distributed.
President Santos led Colombia from 2010 until two months ago, when his second term ended. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end” and was recently announced as the recipient of the Tipperary International Peace Award.
Santos will become the 11th Nobel laureate and ninth winner of the Nobel Peace Prize to be welcomed to DePauw as an Ubben Lecturer. The previous visitors included Malala Yousafzai, Leymah Gbowee, Oscar Arias, F.W. de Klerk, Mikhail Gorbachev, Shimon Peres, Willy Brandt, Elie Wiesel, Leon Lederman and Ferid Murad, a 1958 DePauw graduate.
Beginning his career as a journalist, Santos entered public service career as head of Colombia’s delegation to the International Coffee Organization (ICO) in London. In 1991 he was appointed Colombia’s first minister of foreign trade, leading a drive to modernize Colombia’s competitiveness in the world market.
In 2000, Santos was appointed minister of finance, successfully handling Colombia’s worst economic crisis in 80 years. Also National Defense Minister, in 2005 he founded the National Unity (Partido de la U) political party.
On June 20, 2010, he was elected president of the Republic of Colombia, earning the most votes in the country’s history. In June 2014, he was re-elected with a platform based on three pillars: Peace, Equity and Education.
In January 2017 Santos was named Statesman of the Year by the World Economic Forum. TIME magazine has twice recognized him as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Established in 1986 with support of 1958 DePauw graduates Timothy H. and Sharon Ubben, the Ubben Series has presented 110 events over the past 32 years in its goal “to bring the world to Greencastle.”
Previous Ubben Lecturers have included Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Spike Lee, Jimmy Kimmel, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jane Goodall, Tony Blair, Mike Krzyzewski, Colin Powell, Andrew Luck, Barbara Bush, Jesse Jackson, Todd Rundgren, Martin Luther King III, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Ken Burns, Ron Paul, Karl Rove, Howard Dean, Dan Quayle, Jane Pauley, Harry Belafonte, Sam Donaldson, John Major, Ralph Nader, Bret Baier, Mitch Albom, Peyton Manning, Jim Lovell, ice cream entrepreneurs Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, David Hanson and robot creation Sophia, Ross Perot and many others.