Dartmouth Events

In our fast-changing world, urgent challenges from technology, trade, and war move fast and test institutions. Can diplomacy keep up?  Or are issues like infectious disease and economic inequality, conflict, and climate change just too hard? Please join U.S. Ambassador (ret.) Erica Barks Ruggles and Dickey Center director Victoria Holt, also a former diplomat, in discussion about the ancient institution of diplomacy – dating back to Carthage, Mohammed, and Ghenghis Khan – and its role today and in the future. They will debate diplomacy’s role, the U.S. approach, and how its use can tackle issues from regulating AI to arms control, from accelerating economic development to solving inequality, from preventing wars to promoting democracy – and the human networks and relationships it fosters as central and critical to global issues.  How we work together to solve complex challenges now and in the future will rely on the strength of our connections to friends, allies, and foes around the world.

The event will be recorded and livestreamed. Please click here to reserve your ticket to attend in-person, here to join online. 

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Ambassador Barks Ruggles is the Magro Family Distinguished Fellow in International Affairs at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth. She served for 33 years in senior leadership and diplomatic positions; most recently leading the successful U.S. effort to rejoin UNESCO, setting up the U.S. Mission from scratch and re-establishing U.S. leadership in the U.N.'s lead institution on AI and emerging technology ethics, education standards, and cultural preservation especially in conflict areas.  

She served as the Senior Representative and Head of Delegation to four major International Telecommunication Union conferences in 2022 and oversaw all U.S. policies and relationships with the U.N. while at the Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO). Prior to that, she was Senior Diplomatic Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and Acting Chancellor of the College of International Strategic Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University.

From 2015 to 2018, Barks Ruggles served as the Ambassador of the United States to the Republic of Rwanda. Earlier in her career as a diplomat and civil servant, she served as the Deputy to the United States Permanent Representative to the U.N. serving on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor overseeing international human rights, and democracy programming in the Middle East and South and Central Asia.  

Victoria K. Holt is the Norman E. McCulloch Jr. Director of the John Sloan Dickey Center. She joined Dartmouth in 2021 with a background in public policy, leadership and diplomacy. In Washington, DC, she served as Vice President at the Henry L. Stimson Center, a research and policy institute focused on international affairs, and directed the Transforming Conflict and Governance program. Earlier Holt was tapped to be Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Security, Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO), and served at the State Department from 2009 to early 2017. In that role, she was responsible for policy and guidance for actions in the UN Security Council and oversaw the Offices of Peace Operations, Sanctions & Counterterrorism and UN Political Affairs. Holt led the development of U.S. diplomatic initiatives, including the 2015 Leaders' Summit on U.N. Peacekeeping, hosted by President Obama to increase capacities for UN operations.