Event Details

Macalester has a long and distinguished history of alumni, faculty and students participating in work and service in the Middle East. Amid the many challenges of our time the refugee crises of the Middle East loom and are as critical as ever. 

Join distinguished Macalester graduates Rick Latham Lechowick ’04 and Farah Haddad ’17   who are helping the world face up to and solve the most pressing refugee problems in the Middle East., They will share their experiences with moderator Andy Overman, Harry M. Drake Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and Fine Arts. 

Register here for the link to attend.

Host: Dr. Andy Overman
Drake Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and Fine Arts
Classical Mediterranean and Middle East dept
Director of the Macalester Omrit Projects

Farah Haddad (’17) is from Damascus, Syria. She is a graduate of United World College. At Macalester Farah majored in Political Science. She also interned at Advocates for Human Rights in the Twin Cities, worked at HeartLink, an NGO through Minneapolis Children’s Hospital, and was deeply engaged in refugee issues. Farah founded the Committee for Refugee Student Access (CRSA) at Mac. She completed her M.S. at the London School of Economics in Women, Peace, and Security Studies. She wrote her thesis on “Displacement and Gender among Syrian Men.” Farah lives in London and works at Choose Love, a new global relief movement that provides emergency assistance and long-term solutions to refugee crises in fifteen different countries.

Rick Latham Lechowick (’04) is from Los Angeles, CA. While at Mac Rick majored in Classics and Religious Studies. He played rugby and the bagpipes, though not at the same time, and performed in Bad Comedy. Rick was a distinguished Watson Fellow studying in India and Southeast Asia. He went on to work at a school for refugees in Nablus in the West Bank. Rick is an expert on the Yazidis of northern Iraq and works with the survivors of the 2014 ISIL genocide in Sinjar. For the last six years he has lived and taught north of Mosul in and around the Yazidi IDP camps of Iraqi Kurdistan. Rick is currently completing his Ph.D. in Ethno-Political Studies at Exeter University in the U.K. within the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. He teaches courses on Peacemaking and Conflict in Israel and Palestine and Contemporary Politics and Economics in the Middle East.