Writer Barbara Crossette ’63 to Speak on Women’s Leadership During the Pandemic

President Kathleen Harring will lead a panel discussion following the talk on April 12.

 Tuesday, April 5, 2022 10:40 AM

Illustration by iStock

Muhlenberg’s Center for Ethics event series will host a forum on women’s leadership during the pandemic on Tuesday, April 12, at 7 p.m. in Moyer Hall’s Miller Forum. The event will be free and open to the public.

This forum will include a keynote talk by writer Barbara Crossette ’63 based on her article exploring the roles of several women world leaders, “What the World Learned About Women’s Talents in a Hellish Year.”  Following the talk, President Kathleen Harring will lead a discussion between women who have served in leadership positions throughout the pandemic, including Crossette and panelists Vice President for College Life and Dean of Students Allison Williams; Karen Shoemaker ’83, chief executive officer at The Arc of Lehigh & Northampton Counties, a disability services organization; and Karen Britt, professor of business/economics at Northampton Community College and an adjunct faculty member at Muhlenberg.

Crossette, a writer on international affairs, is senior correspondent and editor at PassBlue.com and author of several books about Asia. She was The New York Times’ chief correspondent in Southeast Asia and South Asia from 1984 to 1991 and later the Times bureau chief at the UN. She’s won the George Polk Award for foreign reporting, a Fulbright Award for contributions to international understanding and the Shorenstein Prize, awarded jointly by research centers at Harvard and Stanford Universities, for writings on Asia that enhanced understanding of the region in the West.

The 2021-2022 Center for Ethics program’s theme is “Pandemic: Response, Resilience, Reflection.” This panel is co-sponsored with the Office of the President.