The University of Miami’s Creative Writing Program welcomes award-winning author Peter Selgin February 13-17 for a week of new beginnings. Selgin, author of the “Your First Page” blog and 179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers, is a renowned editor of opening sentences, paragraphs, and pages. Join the Creative Writing Program as Selgin reads at Books and Books, conducts one-on-one manuscript consultations for senior creative writing students, and hosts the seminar “In the Beginnings” to discuss manuscript openings. Please visit http://www.as.miami.edu/english/creativewriting/writerinresidence for details.

For more information, please contact M. Evelina Galang, director of the Creative Writing Program, at [email protected] or Jen Mehan at [email protected].

The Miami Law Review Symposium “The Future of the Death Penalty in America” will be held Friday and Saturday, February 17-18 at Storer Auditorium at the School of Business Administration.

Several recent developments serve as proof that the death penalty in America may be at a crossroads: the abolition of the death penalty in New Mexico and Illinois, the switch to a single drug lethal injection protocol in Ohio and Washington, and the American Legal Institute’s decision to abandon capital punishment. Through keynote speaker Jordan M. Steiker, professor at the University of Texas School of Law, and four panel discussions, this symposium will explore whether or not the death penalty is near its end in the United States, the debate over new lethal injection protocols and whether drug shortages may lead to a resurgence of more visceral forms of execution, the reasonableness of death penalty alternatives and whether such punishment is just for the most heinous crimes, and the role of social science in examining the death penalty.

For a schedule of panel topics and speakers and to register for the symposium, visit http://lawreview.law.miami.edu/.

A distinguished panel of guests—which includes a former secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; the first female director, president, and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist—will discuss “Still an Immigrant Nation? How Immigration is Shaping America’s Character in the 21st Century” on Monday, February 6 at 5 p.m. at the Newman Alumni Center.

The panel, which is part of the University of Miami Global Affairs Lecture Series, will be moderated by Thomas “Mack” McLarty, president of the international advisory firm McLarty Associates and CEO of the fourth-generation family transportation business, McLarty Companies. Panelists will include:

• Michael Chertoff, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009 and co-founder and managing principal of Chertoff Group, which provides strategic counsel to corporate and government leaders on various security issues. A former federal judge, he is senior of counsel at Covington & Burling LLP.

• Carlos M. Gutierrez, vice chair of the Institutional Clients Group for Citigroup. Gutierrez was 7 years old when he and his family came to the United States from Cuba in 1960. As secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce from 2005 to 2009, he played a key role in the landmark CAFTA-DR agreement and was actively involved in U.S.-Cuba Policy during the Bush Administration, co-chairing the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. Prior to that, he served as chairman and CEO of the Kellogg Company, which he first joined in 1975 as a sales representative.

• Antonia Hernández, president and CEO of the California Community Foundation, which provides financial, technical, and management support to nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles County. Previously she was president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

• Jane Harman, the first female director, president, and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Harman took the helm in 2001 after nine terms in Congress, serving on the Armed Services, Intelligence, and Homeland Security committees. She was a top aide in the U.S. Senate, deputy cabinet secretary to President Jimmy Carter, and special counsel to the Department of Defense. She is a board member at the Newsweek Daily Beast Company.

• Andrés Oppenheimer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and syndicated columnist for The Miami Herald and more than 50 other newspapers. He is the anchor of television’s Oppenheimer Presenta and the author of six best-selling books on Latin American affairs.

Ambassador Shoukry, right, is interviewed by Bradford R. McGuinn, left, senior lecturer in UM’s Department of Political Science.

Calling 2011 a “tumultuous year full of promise and apprehension,” Egyptian Ambassador Sameh Shoukry spoke to a University of Miami audience last Wednesday, discussing a variety of topics that ranged from how the revolution that brought an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s rule has affected Egypt to what lies ahead for the most populous country in the Arab world.

“Egypt’s revolution was sparked primarily by people like yourselves—the young, people in tune with social matters,” said Shoukry, referring to the many UM students who attended his lecture, held at Cosford Cinema on the Coral Gables campus. “It was sparked by youth and supported by the vast majority of Egyptians.”

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Baroness Emma Harriet Nicholson of Winterbourne, left, a British politician and member of the House of Lords, lectured to a University of Miami international economics class on February 2, speaking on the topic “The United Kingdom and the European Union: Globalization, the Economy, and the Euro Zone.”

Her lecture was co-sponsored by the Jean Monnet Chair of the University of Miami in cooperation with the Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence, a partnership with Florida International University. Professor Joaquin Roy, director of the European Union Center, introduced the Baroness, and Maria Lorca, a lecturer in economic and international studies, gave the group a warm welcome.