The Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership at Metropolitan State College of Denver provides a comprehensive and unique program that examines the role and meaning of leadership in both public affairs and the arts. The Center conveys its message that leadership matters at all levels of civic life through conferences, an academic course of study and guest speakers.

Established in 1993, the Center is a nonpartisan, educational project. The not-for-profit Center is connected to the Political Science Department at Metro State and offers programming for the historic Golda Meir House and Museum located on the Auraria Campus in Denver. Because Golda Meir was twice an immigrant to new lands before becoming a world leader, the Center pays particular attention to the idea that leadership can emerge from the most unlikely places.

Golda Meir Leadership Award
Washington/Denver Summer Program
The Center
Conferences and Speakers
International Figures
The Middle East
Diversity Matters
The Arts
World Politics
Domestic Issues
Other Visitors

Golda Meir Leadership Award:

To mark the 1998 centennial of Golda Meir’s birth, the Center inaugurated an annual leadership award. In recognition of Meir’s husband Morris, whom she met while living in Denver, the award covers the arts in addition to public affairs.
The award contains a piece of the original floor from the Golda Meir House and these words from Meir:

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the
success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was
for it regardless of the possible outcome.

The award, to date, has been presented to:

The Center has also instituted an annual student award for leadership. The students who have received this recognition are: Claire Wright; Megan Reyes; Safa Suleiman; Cheri Hughes; Krystal Bigley; Gayle Johnson; Karen Norder; Maureen Turnbull; and Candance Farmer.

 

Washington/Denver Summer Program:

During June of each year, the Center and the Political Science Department at Metro State conduct a program for students that provides participants with first-hand exposure to the practice of leadership in Washington, DC. The program combines course study with activities in the nation’s capital.

The Center:

The Golda Meir Center operates from offices in the historic Golda Meir House and in the Political Science Department at Metro State. The Political Science Department is on the fourth floor of the King Center on the Auraria Campus, while the House is located at 1146 Ninth Street Park on the campus near downtown Denver. Norman Provizer (Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania) is the founder and director of the Center, as well as a professor of Political Science at Metropolitan State College of Denver.

Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership
Campus Box 43, Metropolitan State College of Denver
P.O. Box 173362, Denver, CO
80217-3362.
303-556-3157 or 303-556-3220 (telephone)
303-556-2716 (fax)
provizen@mscd.edu or goldal@mscd.edu (e-mail)

The Center’s web site, www.goldameircenter.org, contains additional information on activities, along with a virtual tour of the Golda Meir House and Museum and images of Golda Meir. Richard Moeller (Ph.D. Edinburgh University), of Metro State’s Political Science Department, created and maintains the site.

Donations to the Golda Meir Foundation are tax deductible.

Conferences and Speakers:

Until 1997, the Center focused much of its energy assisting the Auraria Foundation’s efforts to finish the historic renovation of the Golda Meir House. Following the completion of that renovation and the creation of the Golda Meir Museum, the Center has engaged in a full schedule of diverse programming.

In 2000, for example, the Center hosted the annual, international meeting of the Association of Third World Studies. The Center has also been the site of conferences on the topics of: Cultural and Political Leadership in Africa; American Indian Leadership; Reparations in America; the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights at 50; Native Americans Today; and Cuban-Jewish Artists

Additionally, the Center has featured scores of individual speakers. The following is a partial listing of visitors connected to the Center.

International Figures:

The Middle East:

Diversity Matters:

  • Bobby Seale, Co-founder of the Black Panther Party
  • James Foreman, former Executive Director of SNCC
  • Thomas Begay, Navajo Code Talker
  • Asma Gull Hasan, author, American Muslims: The New Generation
  • John Echohawk, Executive Director, Native American Rights Fund
  • Eric Cahn, Holocaust survivor
  • Bill Hosokawa, journalist and author, Nisei and Out of the Frying Pan
  • Donnie Betts, producer, Destination Freedom: Black Radio Days
  • Randall Robinson, President, TransAfrica
  • Luis Rosa, pardoned Puerto Rican nationalist
  • J.E. Rash, President, Legacy International
  • Arturo Lopez Levy, former Secretary, B'nai B'rith in Cuba
  • Reza Aslan, author, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam

 

The Arts:

  • Charles Sherman, sculptor, whose, bronze of Golda Meir was acquired by the Center through the generosity of Dr. Morton and Toby Mower of Baltimore
  • Djimon Hounsou, actor
  • Roy Purcell, artist, whose print of Golda Meir was donated to the Center by Roz Duman
  • Dianne Reeves, Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist
  • Barbara Trent, Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker
  • Wynton Marsalis, Grammy award-winning trumpeter and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer
  • Simon Bitton, filmmaker, who discussed her documentary on poet Mahmoud Darwich
  • Tami Katz-Frieman, Art Curator, Israeli Forum of Museums
  • Marilyn Lande, digital artist, who displayed her work on women
  • Mary Redhouse, vocalist and instrumentalist
  • Joe Nicastri, sculptor
  • Dennis McNally, author, A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead
  • David Edmonds, BBC and co-author, Wittgenstein's Poker
  • Susanne Kaul, Bielefeld University, Germany

 

World Politics:

  • Valentin Peschanski, Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences
  • Thomas Gouttierre, Director, Center for Afghanistan Studies, University of Nebraska, Omaha
  • Olga Ruffins, Center for the Study of Africa and the Middle East (CEAMO), Havana, Cuba
  • Peter Bridges, former U.S. Ambassador to Somalia
  • James Mittleman, American University
  • Mary Ann Casey, U.S. Ambassador
  • Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
  • Ved Nanda, University of Denver Law School
  • Yi Sun, University of San Diego
  • Kada Akacem, University of Algiers
  • Thomas Stauffer, oil economist, formerly of Harvard University
  • Mark Kurlansky, author, The Basque History of the World
  • Stephen Kinzer, journalist and author, Crescent and Star: Turkey between Two Worlds
  • Reza Ghods, author, Iran in the Twentieth Century
  • Tahira Khan, formerly of the Woman’s Resource Center in Pakistan
  • Meenakshi Rishi, Ohio Northern University

 

Domestic Issues:

  • Andrei Markovitz, University of Michigan
  • Barbara Perry, Sweet Briar College
  • Morris Dees, Southern Poverty Law Center
  • Dave Dellinger, member of the Chicago Eight
  • Jean Bethke Elshtain, University of Chicago
  • Hank Brown, former U.S. Senator
  • Neal Richardson, attorney and author
  • Spencer Crona, attorney and author
  • Walter Gerash, attorney
  • Michael Parenti, author and academic
  • William Halter, Deputy Commissioner, Social Security Administration
  • Wellington Webb, Mayor, City and County of Denver
  • Sherman Finesilver, former Chief Judge, Federal District Court, Colorado
  • Diana DeGette, member of the U.S. House of Representatives
  • Mark Udall, member of the U.S. House of Representatives
  • John Temple, editor and publisher, Rocky Mountain News
  • Dennis Judd, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle
  • General (Ret.) Merrill McPeak, Former Cheif of Staff, U.S. Air Force

 

Other Visitors:

  • Elliott Gould, actor
  • Alan Dershowitz, Harvard University Law School
  • Naomi Wolf, author
  • Dr. Ruth (Westheimer), therapist
  • Tovah Feldshuh, actress

 

Additional Activities:

The Center has been a sponsor of several conferences held by the American Studies program at the Louisiana State University in Shreveport on American presidents. It has also been a sponsor of the Denver International Film Festival and the Denver Jewish Film Festival, as well as the oral-history project Chicanismo.

Additionally, the Center sponsored activities by members of the University of Toronto’s G-7 Research Group, including Director John Kirton, during the 1997 Summit of the Eight meeting in Denver. It also cooperated with Lucky Duck Productions in New York in the making of the Lifetime television documentary on Golda Meir and held the world premiere of the documentary prior to its broadcast.