FVCC’s 2019 Mansfield Lecture to Focus on U.S./China Relations

Flathead Valley Community College invites the community to the 2019 Mansfield Lecture on Monday, Sept. 23, featuring University of Montana Professor of Political Science Dr. Karen Ruth Adams. Free and open to the public, the lecture will begin at 7 p.m. in the Arts and Technology Building on the Kalispell campus.

Inspired by the life and legacy of Montana’s Michael Joseph Mansfield, who served as a U.S. Representative from 1943-1953 and a U.S. Senator from 1953-1977, FVCC’s annual Mansfield Lecture seeks to promote a spirit of inclusivity and collaboration. During his many years at the Capitol and afterward as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 1977-1989, Mansfield’s thoughtful statesmanship, political finesse and humble personality gained him wide respect from Republicans and Democrats alike.

In 1998, Mike Mansfield delivered the first Leader’s Lecture in the U.S. Senate. In this lecture, he characterized the Senate majority and minority leaders as “first among equals” and quoted the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, who said, “A leader is best when the people hardly know he exists. And of that leader the people will say when his work is done, `We did this ourselves.'”

In her Sept. 23 lecture titled “First Among Equals: The U.S., China and 21st Century Leadership,” Dr. Adams will explore the relevance of Mansfield’s leadership philosophy to contemporary world politics, focusing on the crucial relationship between the United States and China and the resulting implications for human, national and global security.

Dr. Adams teaches and writes about international relations and human, national and global security. She has published articles and chapters on great power politics, the strategic effects of military technology and the causes, conduct and consequences of war. Dr. Adams earned a B.A. in political science and economics from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2014, she was named a “super forecaster” in the Good Judgment Project, a four-year study of geopolitical forecasting sponsored by the CIA’s U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. Dr. Adams traces her interest in human, national and global security to her upbringing near the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons complex in Colorado during the Cold War and traveling to China with her aunt in 1984.

The Mansfield Lecture is made possible by a gift to FVCC’s Foundation. For more information, contact Gerda Reeb at 756-3889 or greeb@fvcc.edu.