The Center for Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific Studies and the Asian Studies Program at Georgetown University recently invited University of Guam President Robert Underwood to speak in the Peter Tali Coleman Lecture of Pacific Public Policy.                                                 

Underwood’s lecture, which was held on November 16, was entitled “The Changing American Lake in the Middle of the Pacific.” Underwood shared his thoughts on the history and current developments in Guam, Micronesia, and the Pacific and called on both islanders and the United States to seek out and fully define how they should view their future relationship.

Among the distinguished members in attendance was former U.S. Ambassador Peter R. Rosenblatt, who in 1977, was nominated by then-President Jimmy Carter to negotiate on the political status of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

A transcript of Underwood’s lecture is available for download.

Below is an excerpt:                                                                                 

As we face the prospect of the renegotiation of the compacts as they terminate in 2023, America must consider what its long-term purposes are for the broader Asia Pacific or Indo Pacific Region. America must think about the role of the islands within that purpose. While it makes those calculations, it must re-engage the islanders themselves in political and economic projects which are based on respect for the unique history of the islands, islander aspirations and the right to a unique future. To view them as part of an American lake in today’s world seems backward and colonialist. To see them as partners in a broader plan to democratize and humanize the world is the appropriate path to take, but only if that is what both the US and the islands are seeking. To see the islands only as the base and basis for military strength is to take us back to the imperialistic and arrogant days of the early Cold War.

 

Cong. Radewagen Receives Distinguished Alumni Award

Before his lecture, Underwood also presented a 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award to the Honorable Amata Coleman Radewagen, Congresswoman, American Samoa. Radewagen was elected as American Samoa’s third Member of Congress in 2014 and is the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from American Samoa. She graduated from UOG in 1975 with a bachelor of arts in psychology.

The lecture series is named after Radewagen’s father. The Peter Tali Coleman Lecture on Pacific Public Policy honors the legacy of Peter Tali Coleman, the first person of Samoan descent to be appointed Governor of American Samoa and who later became the territory's first popularly elected governor.  He earned his law degree from Georgetown University.