MOUNT VERNON — Former Cornell College politics professor and Mount Vernon mayor Nicholas Berry, now a senior research analyst at the Center for Defense Information (CDI) in Washington, D.C., returns to campus Thursday, May 10, to lecture on “U.S.-China Relations at the Turning Point.” The lecture is at 11 a.m. in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons. Admission is free.
Berry’s expertise is in Asian security, China and Taiwan, Japan, North and South Korea, India and Pakistan, Indonesia, nuclear issues, Australia and New Zealand. His visit comes on the heels of several newsmaking events, including the China-U.S. spy plane incident and the U.S. submarine accident near Hawaii that killed nine people on a Japanese fishing boat. Berry joined the CDI, an independent monitor of the military, in 1999 after 34 years teaching at colleges, including Cornell from 1970 to 1982 and Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pa., where he was chair of the politics department. Berry earned a 1986 Fulbright Lectureship to the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
He served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy as a diver in explosive ordnance disposal. He is the author of three books: “War and the Red Cross,” “IR: The New World of International Relations” (fourth edition, with Michael Roskin) and “Foreign Policy and the Press.” He served as mayor of Mount Vernon from 1971 to 1975.
Berry earned a bachelor’s degree from Bethany College and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh.
The CDI was founded in 1972 as a private, non-governmental, research organization that analyzes military spending, policies and weapons systems.