“I think one of the most important things we do as journalists is that we take something that’s happening very far away, and we try to make people in the United States connect to that in some way — to understand how something that could be a million miles away from their daily life can have an impact,” says Lourdes Garcia-Navarro.
Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, South America correspondent for National Public Radio, will deliver the lunchtime keynote address, “Parallel Lives: Stories From An Interconnected World,” at the University of Denver’s third annual Internationalization Summit on April 15.
The daylong event will feature faculty, staff and student speakers on topics including Islamophobia, increasing environmental consciousness in the U.S. and China, individualized language learning programs, international learning and international students.
Garcia-Navarro, who currently lives in Brazil and has reported for NPR from countries including Israel, Libya, Iraq, Mexico, Cuba, Syria and Panama, will bring her global media experience to the event’s theme, “Uncommon Intersections: Cultivating Multiple Perspectives at Home and Abroad.” She came to the attention of event organizers with “The Rainforest Was Here,” her NPR multimedia presentation on deforestation in Brazil that features photo and audio coverage of how deforestation in the Amazon rain forest may be linked to drought and to worldwide climate change. She also draws comparisons between Brazil’s current rapid deforestation and the 19th century deforestation of the western United States, which similarly fueled the economic development of a nation.
“It was a piece where I looked at how a tree in the Amazon isn’t really a tree — where it travels once it’s cut down, where it ends up, and how the U.S. and everyone who buys wood is somehow complicit in that,” Garcia-Navarro said in a recent phone interview. “I think one of the most important things we do as journalists is that we take something that’s happening very far away, and we try to make people in the United States connect to that in some way — to understand how something that could be a million miles away from their daily life can have an impact.”
Though her message will resonate powerfully with journalism students — who, she says, are going into an uncertain but exciting future where “a lot of interesting, innovative things are happening” — Garcia-Navarro’s talk is meant to engage a wider audience around the conference theme: the less-explored, varied or unique ways that internationalization informs and intersects with higher education. It’s an especially timely subject given that topics such as study abroad, international research and partnerships with universities in other countries are featured prominently in Chancellor Rebecca Chopp’s new strategic plan, DU IMPACT 2025.
“The United States is a place that has always attracted a great deal of foreign students — because of the quality of its education, people are very interested in coming to study,” Garcia-Navarro said. “And there have always been programs where universities send people abroad for a semester, but I almost don’t think it’s enough. I think that the United States and its higher education needs to engage in a sustained way in the world. We’re living in a global environment at the moment, and I think it’s extremely important for students in this global community to have those connections and understandings and be exposed as much as they can to other ways of thinking and other cultures. I think it makes us nimble, I think it makes us empathetic, and I think it makes us good citizens of the global community.”
Garcia-Navarro also will be recognized as the 2016 Margolin Distinguished Journalism Lecturer and will receive the University of Denver’s Anvil of Freedom Award as part of the summit. Presented each year by the Department of Media, Film & Journalism Studies and the University’s Edward W. and Charlotte A. Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media, the Anvil of Freedom honors and recognizes individuals whose careers demonstrate commitment to democratic freedoms, ethics and integrity. Estlow Center Director Lynn Schofield Clark says Garcia-Navarro will receive the award specifically for her work on the rainforest multimedia piece.
“We liked how the story drew together these insights,” Clark says. “We thought it would be useful for someone to come and speak on these issues as we try to get a better understanding of how interrelated we are and how we have these dilemmas around the world that need to be better understood.”
Visit the summit webpage for details and to register.