SummaryBryan Stevenson: Public interest lawyer, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, AlabamaHe is known for his work to help the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. The Equal Justice Initiative has won legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults.
Stevenson has successfully argued several cases in the United States Supreme Court and recently won a historic ruling that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger are unconstitutional. He and his staff have won reversals, relief or release for over 115 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row. Stevenson is also a professor at the New York University School of Law.
Stevenson is the recipient of numerous awards including a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, the National Medal of Liberty from the American Civil Liberties Union after he was nominated by United States Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the Public Interest Lawyer of the Year by the National Association of Public Interest Lawyers and the Olaf Palme Prize in Stockholm, Sweden, for international human rights.
He has received 26 honorary degrees, including degrees from Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University and Washington University.
Stevenson’s , “Just Mercy,” is a New York Times bestseller that was named by Time Magazine as one of the 10 Best Books of Nonfiction for 2014. The book has been awarded several honors including a 2015 NAACP Image Award. His presentation “We need to talk about an injustice” is also a popular TedTalk.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO:
http://www.montana.edu/convocation/

The Northern Rockies Institute of Theology, a continuing education ministry of the ELCA is entering the world of digital education. Our first digital offering is now available on our website. When you purchase the class, you will have access to it throughout 2016 so can offer the class as a multi-session adult study or watch it on your personal computer at your convenience.

DIGITAL EDUCATION CLASSES

Learning Our Place: Wilderness and Wonder from a Biblical Perspective
Taught by Dr. Kathryn Schifferdecker, professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary
This course explores the book of Job and several biblical texts for insights about God, creation and humanity. What kind of world is this? What is our place in this world? How does the Bible speak of wilderness and wild creatures? What about “acts of God?” Cost of 12 months of access to the class is $40.

Syria in the Bible and in the Early Church: A Heritage at Risk
Taught by Dr. Thomas Lee who served for many years as Lutheran campus pastor at the University of Montana, Missoula, where he also—as a faculty affiliate—taught biblical Hebrew and Aramaic in UM’s Religious Studies Department. During the 1980s and into the 1990s he served on the staff of two archaeological projects in the Kingdom of Jordan and one in the Republic of Syria.

 In recent months we’ve become aware as well of the tragic loss of Syria’s rich cultural heritage at the hands of ISIS and by those who profit from the looting and sale of antiquities. This loss of antiquities and the humanitarian tragedy are not unrelated. As Dr. Amr al-Azm, a former official in the Syrian Ministry of Antiquities who now teaches Middle Eastern History and Archaeology at Shawnee State University in Ohio, reminds us: “A people without a history is a lost people . . . and history without people is meaningless.”

The following programs are offered by the Institute for Peace and Dialogue, shared by the National Council of Churches Interreligious Relations office.

International Summer Academies
http://www.ipdinstitute.ch/Summer-Academy-3-Month-CAS-Research-Program-2016/

3 Month Research Program 2016
http://www.ipdinstitute.ch/Summer-Academy-3-Month-CAS-Research-Program-2016/

1 Year Visitor Research Program
http://www.ipdinstitute.ch/1-Year-Visitor-Research-Program,-VRP/