By Joan C. McKinney, director of university communications
CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. - Campbellsville University's Kentucky Heartland Institute on Public Policy will host Victoria Barnett, staff director of church relations at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 17.
The address is free and open to the public and is in the Little Auditorium of the Student Union Building.
“Causes and Lessons of the Holocaust” is the title of Barnett's address. Her visit is sponsored in part by a Marvin and Joyce Benjamin Fund grant CU received from the Hardin County Community Foundation. The Benjamin Fund was created by the couple to help fight the problems of racism, prejudice, and anti-Semitism.
Barnett will also speak in area schools and to CU classes Sept. 18.
Barnett is the author of several books and one of the general editors of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, the English translation series of Bonhoeffer's complete works published by Fortress Press. She has written numerous articles and book chapters on the churches during the Holocaust, and is the author of the website article on Bonhoeffer published on the Museum's website (http://www.ushmm.org/bonhoeffer/).
Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church.
John Chowning, vice president for church and external relations and executive assistant to the president, who founded KHIPP, said the session will be “very informational,” and he hopes everyone to take advantage of CU hosting Barnett on campus.
Barnett is a graduate of Indiana University and Union Theological Seminary, New York. She is the author of For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler (Oxford University Press, 1992) and Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity during the Holocaust (Greenwood Press, 1999), and editor/translator of Wolfgang Gerlach's And the Witnesses were Silent: the Confessing Churchand the Jews (University of Nebraska Press, 2000) and the new revised edition of Eberhard Bethge's Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography (Fortress Press, 2000).
She is completing a doctorate in conflict studies, focusing on interfaith relations, at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.
Chowning said, “Campbellsville University has established the institute that primarily focuses focus its attention on facilitating public policy study and issues debate, while encouraging the involvement of Christian leaders in the public and civic arenas.
“A wide range of public issues will be studied and presented by the institute for the purposes of engaging Campbellsville University students, faculty and staff, and the general public, in a greater awareness and understanding of the myriad issues confronting our culture,” he said.
Chowning said KHIPP is “committed to preparing Christian civic and political leaders for the 21st century.”
He said, “A greater awareness of the public policy process and understanding of the numerous issues being debated in our nation is essential for the citizenry as a whole.”
All events are free and open to the public.
Anyone requesting more information about KHIPP, can contact Chowning at (270) 789-5520.
Campbellsville University is a private, comprehensive institution located in South Central Kentucky. Founded in 1906, Campbellsville University is affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention and has an enrollment of 2,310 students who represent 100 Kentucky counties, 32 states and 28 foreign nations. Listed in U.S.News & World Report's 2007 “America's Best Colleges,” CU is ranked 22nd in “Best Baccalaureate Colleges” in the South and eighth in the South for “Great Schools, Great Prices.” CU has been ranked 15 consecutive years with U.S.News & World Report. Campbellsville University is located 82 miles southwest of Lexington, Ky., and 80 miles southeast of Louisville, Ky. Dr. Michael V. Carter is in his ninth year as president.