Incoming Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim gave a lecture on global health and human rights at Brown University on Tuesday, according to The Boston Globe. The speech was free and open to the public, The Globe reported. Kim is an expert in the field, having spent three years heading the World Health Organization's international programs for HIV/AIDS and helping to found the nonprofit global health organization Partners in Health, according to The Globe. Kim is currently employed at Harvard Medical School as chair of their department of social medicine, Provost Barry Scherr previously told The Dartmouth. Kim, a graduate of Brown, received his diploma from the university in 1982, according to The Globe.
Western policymakers must understand the religious and historical basis of radical Islam before they can respond effectively to Muslim extremists, Paul Marshall, author and senior fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, said during his Tuesday lecture "Understanding Radical Islam." Marshall began his speech by listing some of the most commonly cited explanations for Islamic radicalism, including poverty, opposition to globalization and hatred of Western countries. These explanations, he said, are incomplete. Marshall instead pointed to the history of Islam and the Islamic world in order to explain the radicalization of some Muslims. Marshall said that Westerners' perceived unwillingness to use radical Muslim books, journals and movies to better understand the movement is illogical. "If we want to understand them, they are quite willing to explain their views," he said. The lecture was sponsored by The Dartmouth Review and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative educational organization that supports the study of American history and values on college campuses.
