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Juniata College

Campus News

Juniata College

(Posted September 2, 2008)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Richard Mahoney, who has spent the last four years as visiting professor for the New York University Stern School Program at the Universidad de Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has been hired as the director of Juniata College's Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.

Mahoney also will be a member of Juniata's faculty as the Elizabeth Evans Baker Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies. His career in higher education has been wide-ranging and varied. He has taught at colleges and universities for nearly three decades and is a published author, accomplished filmmaker, political speechwriter and a former elected official.

"The quality of the program here is obvious. What we would like to do is build a platform on top of that structure that works to globalize the peace and conflict studies program by building alliances with educational, international and human rights organizations and connect that with service learning opportunities."

Richard Mahoney, director, Baker Institute

As director of the Baker Institute, Mahoney, who started his new duties Aug. 25, will oversee all programs associated with the institute, as well as all academic programs associated with the institute and the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies.

"The quality of the program here is obvious," says Mahoney, who succeeds Andrew Murray, professor emeritus of peace studies at Juniata as director of the institute. "What we would like to do is build a platform on top of that structure that works to globalize the peace and conflict studies program by building alliances with educational, international and human rights organizations and connect that with service learning opportunities."

"Dick Mahoney brings a vast array of experience and a unique perspective to the mission of Juniata's peace studies program," says Thomas R. Kepple, president of Juniata. "His work in politics, filmmaking and other fields should bring a fresh point of view to one of the college's most celebrated programs."

Mahoney earned a bachelor's degree in history in 1973 from Princeton University, taking time in his undergraduate career to study at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris in the 1971-72 academic year. He went on to earn a master's degree in international relations in 1975 from Johns Hopkins University. He pursued and earned a law degree in 1979 from Arizona State University and returned to Johns Hopkins to earn a doctoral degree in international relations in 1980.

Mahoney started his academic career in 1980 at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz. He has taught as a guest lecturer or professor at Oxford University, Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the Beijing Institute of Foreign Trade, and the Universidad del Pacifico in Quito, Ecuador. He also was the John F Kennedy Presidential Scholar at the University of Massachusetts during the 1987-88 academic year. He was a Kennedy Scholar at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in 1988-89.

He has written three book on politics and political regime change, including "JFK: Ordeal in Africa," "Sons and Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy," and "Getting Away with Murder." He also published a book of poetry, "Petalos."

More recently, he has directed three documentary films. "Strong at the Broken Places," from 2003, details stories from the home front of the Iraq war. He directed "Creando Enemigos" in 2007 and "Causes and Consequences of the Argentine Default" in 2008.

After moving to Costa Rica in 1999, he founded Nuestra Familia Escuela de Idiomas, a language school that funneled its profits to fund two orphanages in Heredia, Costa Rica.

Mahoney also has had an active political career. He was elected Secretary of State for Arizona in 1991, serving a four-year term. In 1994, he ran as a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, and in 2002 he was an independent candidate for governor of Arizona, receiving 9 percent of the vote.

Mahoney also has worked as a speechwriter or political consultant from 1978 to 2002. He was chief speechwriter for the presidential campaigns of Colorado Sen. Gary Hart and Illinois Sen. Paul Simon. He also worked for former Arizona Sen. Morris Udall and Richard Celeste, the former governor of Ohio.

He has been a member of the Policy History Association, African Studies Association, Latin American Studies Association, American Political Science Association and the International Studies Association.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.

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