Great Decisions speaker series starts Jan. 30

The Great Decisions lecture series — an annual lecture and film series hosted at The College of Wooster and focused on international affairs — will begin Jan. 30. This year’s theme is “U.S. Foreign Policy in an Election Year.”

All events are free and open to the public and begin at 7:30 p.m. at Gault Recital Hall, Scheide Music Center, located at 525 E. University St. on the college campus.

The opening series speaker will be Nina Jankowicz, former executive director of the Disinformation Governance Board of the United States Department of Homeland Security, who will present Information, Disinformation and the 2024 Election on Jan. 30.

Jankowicz took office April 27, 2022, and held the position until the shutdown of the board on May 18, 2022. Before her time in politics, Jankowicz graduated as a double-major in Russian and political science from Bryn Mawr College, having also spent a semester at Herzen State Pedagogical University in Russia. Following this, she became a Fulbright fellow in Kyiv and later a disinformation fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Jankowicz also spent time as the supervisor of the Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute.

During her career Jankowicz has written two books: “How To Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News and the Future of Conflict” in 2020 and “How To Be a Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment and How To Fight Back” in 2022.

Other series speakers include the following:

—Feb. 6: Global Security Threats and U.S. Foreign Policy with former U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kirk Lippold.

—Feb. 13: Can the U.S. Support Political Stability Abroad? Reflections on the State and Civil Society in East & West Africa with Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

—Feb. 20: Can the U.S. Support Political Stability Abroad? Reflections on the State and Civil Society in East & West Africa with Ibra Sene, associate professor of history and global and international studies department chair at The College of Wooster.

—March 6: Sound the Alarm, Film Screening & Discussion with John Trainor, the director of the 2022 film that focuses on the 1995 launching of a rocket from Norway that would falsely alert Russian forces of an incoming nuclear attack, leaving then President Boris Yeltsin with few minutes to decide how to react.

The Great Decisions lecture series is a joint venture between The College of Wooster and the local Wayne County community for the purpose of bringing in experts on foreign policy and international affairs in order to contribute to the ongoing education of Wooster students and the broader community.