Fleming Lecture Series Features Quaker Lobbyist Joe Volk on Jan. 31
As part of the James G. Fleming Lecture Series, Guilford will present a lecture by Joe Volk, the executive director of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), on Thursday, Jan. 31 at 7:30 p.m. at New Garden Friends Meeting. His talk, titled “My Journey to Iran: Practicing Hope in an Age of Fear,” is free and open to the public.
Volk will also appear in the panel discussion “Making Peace an Election Issue: How to Be a Catalyst for Change” on Friday, Feb. 1 at 7:30 p.m., also at New Garden Friends Meeting. He will be joined by three other FCNL staff: legislative director Ruth Flower, campaigns director Jim Cason and field program secretary Kathy Guthrie.
Volk has more than three decades of experience working for peace and social justice. He has lobbied Congress to support peaceful prevention of deadly conflict, nuclear disarmament, peace in Iraq and many other issues. He is a past chair and current member of the Steering Committee of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL) and is a board member of Africa Action and The Justice Project (a veterans’ organization. He serves on the advisory council of Foreign Policy in Focus, a think-tank without walls.
Prior to joining FCNL in 1990, Volk worked 18 years for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and served as its National Secretary for Peace Education from 1982 to 1990.
The FCNL is a nonpartisan, Quaker lobby in the public interest and is the first registered national religious lobby in the U.S. FCNL was founded in 1943 to bring the spiritual values of Friends into the public policy process. It currently represents 26 yearly meetings of the Religious Society of Friends.
The James L. Fleming Lecture Series, established by a gift to the Guilford College by James L. Fleming, is devoted to lectures and programs designed to bring about world peace through international law.
Both the talk and panel discussion are free and open to the public. For more information, call 336-316-2222.
Jan. 31, 2008