Ms. Amina J. Mohammed is the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and also Chair of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Group.
Prior to her appointment, Ms. Mohammed served as Minister of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, where she steered the country’s efforts on climate action and efforts to protect the natural environment.
Ms. Amina Mohammed first joined the United Nations in 2012, as Special Adviser to former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, with the responsibility for post-2015 development planning. Mohammed led the developing planning process, which resulted in global agreement around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Amina Mohammed began her career in Nigeria, with her work focused on the design of Nigerian schools and clinics. She also served as an advocate, focused on increasing access to education and other social services to all students, before moving into the public sector, where she rose to the position of adviser to three successive Presidents on poverty, public sector reform, and sustainable development.
Ms. Mohammed has been awarded several honorary doctorates and has served as an adjunct professor, teaching courses on international development. Ms. Mohammad has received various global awards over the course of her professional endeavors, and has served on numerous international advisory boards and panels. Based on her advocacy efforts and sustainable development involvement, Ms. Amina J. Mohammed’s call for ethical uses of technology was successfully heard and responded to.
]]>Ms. Amina J. Mohammed is the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and also Chair of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Group.
Prior to her appointment, Ms. Mohammed served as Minister of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, where she steered the country’s efforts on climate action and efforts to protect the natural environment.
Ms. Amina Mohammed first joined the United Nations in 2012, as Special Adviser to former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, with the responsibility for post-2015 development planning. Mohammed led the developing planning process, which resulted in global agreement around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Amina Mohammed began her career in Nigeria, with her work focused on the design of Nigerian schools and clinics. She also served as an advocate, focused on increasing access to education and other social services to all students, before moving into the public sector, where she rose to the position of adviser to three successive Presidents on poverty, public sector reform, and sustainable development.
Ms. Mohammed has been awarded several honorary doctorates and has served as an adjunct professor, teaching courses on international development. Ms. Mohammad has received various global awards over the course of her professional endeavors, and has served on numerous international advisory boards and panels. Based on her advocacy efforts and sustainable development involvement, Ms. Amina J. Mohammed’s call for ethical uses of technology was successfully heard and responded to.
Faced with skepticism, Coleman uses her speech to reiterate how public universities drive American research along with health benefits. Coleman concludes by emphasizing that we should seek new revenue streams in order to fund public universities, to foster partnerships between public research universities and the private sector, and by improving student access through policy reforms.
Within a 15-year span, starting in 2000, investment by American state governments in public higher education declined by 30 percent. Thirty percent. That is an ominous start to the 21st century. And a large step backward in a nation aiming for the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by the year 2020.
Mary Sue Coleman, President of the Association of American Universities, delivered a compelling speech on September 27, 2016, at the Times Higher Education World Academic Summit, University of California, Berkeley. In this speech, Coleman spoke quite vocally about the issue of higher education being a public good that is appearing to become increasingly inaccessible and lacking support. Within her speech, a noteworthy quote she stated was, "We are, I believe, at a tipping point. The question is which way public higher education will fall, and who will do the pushing," suggestive of the lack of support among state governments towards public education, which had declined by a whopping 30 percent. As a result of the decline in state funding for public education, Coleman explained how such coincided with the increased costs of education for students and families. Accordingly, this increase in tuition costs had led universites to make major cuts, to educational programs, as well as services, which may potentially weaken the quality of the education students receive as a result of the state investment declines for public educational universities that are now offering less programs and services to their students, yet charging students and families increased tuition rates.
Faced with skepticism, Coleman uses her speech to reiterate how public universities drive American research along with health benefits. Coleman concludes by emphasizing that we should seek new revenue streams in order to fund public universities, to foster partnerships between public research universities and the private sector, and by improving student access through policy reforms.
Within a 15-year span, starting in 2000, investment by American state governments in public higher education declined by 30 percent. Thirty percent. That is an ominous start to the 21st century. And a large step backward in a nation aiming for the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by the year 2020.
Cody Keenan wrote speeches with and for former President Barack Obama for more than a decade. Throughout times of challenge and change, Keenan helped President Obama craft remarks on every topic for every audience, a key strongpoint that his career working for President Obama and Congess significantly highlight – Keenan could craft rhetoric for all topics that werre relatable and resonating to all listeners, with the same messaging ringing through from the tiny backyards in Iowa to the biggest stadiums in the country; from a sermon in Selma to Obama's farewell address.
Keenan has been described as the “Springsteen” of Obama’s White House, and was named by British GQ as one of the “35 Coolest Men Under 38 (And a Half).” In January of 2017, after 36 years of hopefully waiting, Keenan finally earned and was thereby given the opportunity to write his "dream speech" – one in which President Obama welcomed the World Champion Chicago Cubs to the White House. Indeed, Keenan demonstrated quite impressive speechwriting career highlights galore!
Having received his higher education at both Northwestern University (class of '02) and Harvard University, Cody Keenan’s passion for public service was polished during his role as a young aide to Senator Edward Kennedy. Upon leaving the White House, President Obama asked Keenan to continue their partnership as his collaborator on his upcoming book, as well as as his post-presidential speechwriter, maintaining the close-knit bond the two had developed while President Obama was in office.
]]>Cody Keenan wrote speeches with and for former President Barack Obama for more than a decade. Throughout times of challenge and change, Keenan helped President Obama craft remarks on every topic for every audience, a key strongpoint that his career working for President Obama and Congess significantly highlight – Keenan could craft rhetoric for all topics that werre relatable and resonating to all listeners, with the same messaging ringing through from the tiny backyards in Iowa to the biggest stadiums in the country; from a sermon in Selma to Obama's farewell address.
Keenan has been described as the “Springsteen” of Obama’s White House, and was named by British GQ as one of the “35 Coolest Men Under 38 (And a Half).” In January of 2017, after 36 years of hopefully waiting, Keenan finally earned and was thereby given the opportunity to write his "dream speech" – one in which President Obama welcomed the World Champion Chicago Cubs to the White House. Indeed, Keenan demonstrated quite impressive speechwriting career highlights galore!
Having received his higher education at both Northwestern University (class of '02) and Harvard University, Cody Keenan’s passion for public service was polished during his role as a young aide to Senator Edward Kennedy. Upon leaving the White House, President Obama asked Keenan to continue their partnership as his collaborator on his upcoming book, as well as as his post-presidential speechwriter, maintaining the close-knit bond the two had developed while President Obama was in office.
The slavery extension question had seemingly been settled by the Missouri Compromise nearly 40 years earlier. The Mexican War, however, had added new territories, and the issue flared up again in the 1840s. The Compromise of 1850provided a temporary respite from sectional strife, but the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854—a measure which was sponsored by Douglas—brought the slavery extension issue to the forefront once again. Douglas’s bill in effect repealed the Missouri Compromise by lifting the ban against slavery in territories north of the 36°30′ latitude. In lieu of the ban, Douglas offered popular sovereignty, the doctrine which states that the actual settlers in the territories should decide the fate of slavery in their own land, being the central focus of such settlers, and not Congress.
In 1854,Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois presented a bill destined to be one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in our national history. Supposedly a bill “to organize the Territory of Nebraska,” an area covering the present-day states of Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, and the Dakotas, contemporaries referred to it as“the Nebraska bill.” Today, we know it as the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
By the 1850s, there were pressing demands to structure the western territories. The land acquired from Mexico in 1848, the California Gold Rush of 1849, and the unyielding movement toward westward expansion forced farmers, ranchers, and over-viewers toward the Pacific. The Mississippi River had indeed long served as a highway for the north-south traffic, but the western lands needed a river of steel, not a river of water—denoting a transcontinental railroad in order to link the eastern states to the Pacific. Whic h led to the golden question of: What route would that railroad take?
Stephen Douglas, one of the railway’s chief organizers and supporters, wanted to develop a northern route through Chicago. However, the only problem with this idea is that would take the rail lines through the disorganized territory of Nebraska, which was located north of the 1820 Missouri Compromise line, where slavery was prohibited. Others, mainly slaveholders and allies of, most specifically, favored a southern railroad route, perhaps one that went through the new stateof Texas. Nevertheless, in order to pass his “Nebraska bill,” Douglas needed a compromise.
On January 4, 1854, StephenDouglas introduced a bill designed to maintain common ground. He proposed arranging the extensiveterritory “with or without slavery, as their constitutions may prescribe.”
This policy became known as “popular sovereignty,” and was policy that contradicted the Missouri Compromise, and leaving open even more, the question of slavery. However, despite Douglas’s proposal and efforts to meet northerners and southerners in the middle, even that was not enough to satisfy a group of dominant southern senators led by the state of Missouri’s David Atchison. These senators wanted to explicitly repeal the 1820 line. Douglas viewed the railroad line as the “onward march of civilization,” and thus, he agreed to the southern senators’ demands. Douglas told Atchison, “I will incorporate it into my bill, though I know it will raise a hell of a storm.” From that moment on, the Nebraska bill debate was no longer a discussion about organizing railway lines; it was all about slavery.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates can be can be defined as a series of seven debates between incumbent Senator Stephen A. Douglas, as the Democratic Party candidate, and Republican challenger Abraham Lincoln, Republican Party candidate for the U.S. Senate from Illinoiw during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign, principally concerning the issue of slavery extension into the territories.
Lincoln and Douglas decided to hold one debate in each of the nine congressional districts in Illinois. Both candidates had already spoken in Springfield and Chicago within a day of each other, so they decided that their joint appearances would be held in the remaining seven districts. Each debate lasted 3 hours. The format was that one candidate spoke for 60 minutes, then the other candidate spoke for 90 minutes, and then the first candidate was allowed a 30-minute rejoinder. The debates previewed the issues that Lincoln later faced after his victory in the 1860 presidential election. Illinois was a free state, and the main issue discussed in all seven debates was slavery in the United States, particularly its future expansion into new territories.
The slavery extension question had seemingly been settled by the Missouri Compromise nearly 40 years earlier. The Mexican War, however, had added new territories, and the issue flared up again in the 1840s. The Compromise of 1850provided a temporary respite from sectional strife, but the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854—a measure which was sponsored by Douglas—brought the slavery extension issue to the forefront once again. Douglas’s bill in effect repealed the Missouri Compromise by lifting the ban against slavery in territories north of the 36°30′ latitude. In lieu of the ban, Douglas offered popular sovereignty, the doctrine which states that the actual settlers in the territories should decide the fate of slavery in their own land, being the central focus of such settlers, and not Congress.
In 1854,Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois presented a bill destined to be one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in our national history. Supposedly a bill “to organize the Territory of Nebraska,” an area covering the present-day states of Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, and the Dakotas, contemporaries referred to it as“the Nebraska bill.” Today, we know it as the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
By the 1850s, there were pressing demands to structure the western territories. The land acquired from Mexico in 1848, the California Gold Rush of 1849, and the unyielding movement toward westward expansion forced farmers, ranchers, and over-viewers toward the Pacific. The Mississippi River had indeed long served as a highway for the north-south traffic, but the western lands needed a river of steel, not a river of water—denoting a transcontinental railroad in order to link the eastern states to the Pacific. Whic h led to the golden question of: What route would that railroad take?
Stephen Douglas, one of the railway’s chief organizers and supporters, wanted to develop a northern route through Chicago. However, the only problem with this idea is that would take the rail lines through the disorganized territory of Nebraska, which was located north of the 1820 Missouri Compromise line, where slavery was prohibited. Others, mainly slaveholders and allies of, most specifically, favored a southern railroad route, perhaps one that went through the new stateof Texas. Nevertheless, in order to pass his “Nebraska bill,” Douglas needed a compromise.
On January 4, 1854, StephenDouglas introduced a bill designed to maintain common ground. He proposed arranging the extensiveterritory “with or without slavery, as their constitutions may prescribe.”
This policy became known as “popular sovereignty,” and was policy that contradicted the Missouri Compromise, and leaving open even more, the question of slavery. However, despite Douglas’s proposal and efforts to meet northerners and southerners in the middle, even that was not enough to satisfy a group of dominant southern senators led by the state of Missouri’s David Atchison. These senators wanted to explicitly repeal the 1820 line. Douglas viewed the railroad line as the “onward march of civilization,” and thus, he agreed to the southern senators’ demands. Douglas told Atchison, “I will incorporate it into my bill, though I know it will raise a hell of a storm.” From that moment on, the Nebraska bill debate was no longer a discussion about organizing railway lines; it was all about slavery.