Ambassador Ertharin Cousin to Deliver Keynote at Annual Institute for Honor Symposium This year’s symposium will take place March 14-15 and address the intersection of corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

By Emily Innes
February 14, 2025

Washington and Lee University’s annual Institute for Honor Symposium, this year titled “Food, Housing and Health: Exploring Corporate Impact on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals in the Shenandoah Valley,” will take place Friday, March 14, and Saturday, March 15.

Registration is required for Friday evening’s reception and dinner and can be accessed online here. The keynote address and panel discussions are free and open to the public. Saturday’s luncheon is complimentary, but registration is required. Please follow this link to register for Saturday’s luncheon.

This year’s symposium will explore the intersection of corporate responsibility and development from varied perspectives, particularly relating to access to food, housing and health care. The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will serve as a framework for the symposium’s discussions. Adopted in 2015, the United Nations (U.N.) agenda included 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which are an urgent call for action by all countries in global partnership to combat poverty through strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality and spur economic growth.

“This is the third and final symposium that I organized that explores the connection between corporate responsibility and society,” said Kish Parella, the Class of 1960 Professor of Ethics and Law at W&L and organizer of the symposium. “This year, we are bridging the gap between the global and the local to explore access to the essentials that matter most to people: food, housing and healthcare. Our experts include a U.S. ambassador and local community organizations who can all provide unique perspectives on how our local community can better achieve the promise of sustainable development.”

The keynote address, “The Sustainable Transformation of our Global Food Systems: An Imperative for the Survival of Whom?,” will be delivered by Ambassador Ertharin Cousin on March 14 at 4:45 p.m. in Stackhouse Theater in Elrod Commons, following opening remarks by Dennis Cross, acting director of Lifelong Learning, and Professor Parella at 4:30 p.m. Entrance into Stackhouse will begin at 4:10 p.m.

Ambassador Cousin currently serves as the managing director and CEO of Food Systems for Future Ventures and the CEO of the fund’s sister nonprofit, Food Systems for the Future Institute. Both organizations support her vision of a world without hunger and malnutrition. Previously, Ambassador Cousin was the executive vice president and chief operating officer of America’s Second Harvest (now Feeding America), before serving as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome from 2009 to 2012. She led the U.N. World Food Programme as executive director from 2012 to 2017. Under her leadership, the organization began identifying, championing and implementing sustainable solutions for global hunger and nutrition.

The symposium will also include panel discussions on March 14 led by Professor Parella that build upon Ambassador Cousin’s address and explore how corporate conduct can promote or impede access to food, housing and healthcare. Panelists include Lindsey Perez, executive director of the Rockbridge Area Relief Association, who will discuss housing; Tim Diette, provost and dean of the faculty/professor of economics and business at Hampden-Sydney College and former Executive Director of the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty, who will discuss education; and Holly Ostby, community health improvement program manager at Carilion Rockbridge Community Hospital, who will discuss health.

A full schedule of the symposium’s events is available here.

Established in 2000 at W&L by a generous endowment from the Class of 1960, the Institute for Honor includes an array of initiatives and specific programs designed to promote the understanding and practice of honor as an indispensable element of society. The Institute for Honor Symposium is dedicated to the advocacy of honor as the core value in personal, professional, business and community relations. For more information or to register for the entire program, please contact W&L’s Office of Lifelong Learning (lifelong@wlu.edu) or call 540-458-8916.