Skip to Content
  • Browse
  • Past Issues
  • Search

Arts and Letters

Wagner History

Wagner News

Inside Sports

Alumni Stories

Obituaries

Alumni Events

From the President

Feature Stories
Winter 2022
Winter 2021
Fall 2021
Summer 2019
Winter 2018–19
Summer 2018
Fall 2017
Summer 2017
Fall 2016
Winter 2015-16
Summer 2015
Fall 2014
Winter 2013-14
Summer 2013
Fall 2012
Summer 2012
Fall 2011
Summer 2011
Fall 2010
Summer 2010
Fall 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2008
Summer 2008

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Brings Her Light to Wagner

SHARE
PRINT
BACK TO TOP
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Brings Her Light to Wagner
Writing a New Story
A New Generation of Nurse Leaders

On January 9, 50 young people from up and down the East Coast were on campus for a special guest talk by Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian peace activist who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. The talk was part of a Lutheran vocational retreat in New York City. Many Wagner students on campus for athletic activities between semesters attended as well.

Leymah Gbowee with Wagner student group.
Leymah Gbowee greets Samantha Sullivan '18, Jackie Dluhi '17, Sofia Roma '18, Jordyn Peck '16, and Taylor Butigian '17.

In 2002–03, Gbowee led a women’s nonviolent, interfaith protest movement that helped end the Liberian civil war and led to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as Liberia’s president — the first woman president in Africa. (Sirleaf also received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, along with Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.) Gbowee’s work became more widely known through the documentary Praying the Devil Back to Hell, which won the Best Documentary award at the 2008 Tribeca film festival.

At Wagner, Gbowee immediately engaged her audience with her humor, sympathy, and personality in a talk she called “My Life, My Work, My Faith.”

“When you’re looking for your life’s vocation, you’re in a strange room with no light,” she said. The civil war undermined her motivation to become a pediatrician, and she fell into a dark place, dropping out of school and entering an abusive relationship.

She found her light when she became a social worker serving women who had survived abuse. Sadness, anger, and excitement about her work brought her to a place of “unexplained joy” that has motivated her ever since to pursue her sense of personal mission.

She emphasized that in a person’s vocation, life, work, and faith are inextricable. “The most important lesson for my life,” she said, “is the sense of a higher power.” She proudly calls herself “a Jesus person,” and she sees religious faith as the basis for respecting others’ faiths and having an appropriate sense of humility.

“Never despise humble beginnings,” she concluded, and encouraged all peace-loving people to step into the light.

Gbowee appeared at Wagner College through Project Connect. An initiative of the Eastern Cluster of Lutheran Seminaries funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Project Connect supports vocational exploration by young Lutherans. Wagner’s Chaplain Martin Malzahn, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, was a member of the retreat’s leadership team.

Wagner students will have new opportunities for vocational exploration during the upcoming academic year, thanks to a grant from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE), a program of the Council of Independent Colleges.

Beginning in the fall, students in religiously-affiliated student organizations will participate together in community service and engage in interfaith dialogue, for the purposes of exploring their sense of vocation. Student leaders, staff, and faculty will plan activities, attend conferences, and receive training this spring and summer.

In addition, vocational exploration through interfaith dialogue will be incorporated in spring semester seminars that are part of Wagner’s new trial extension of the First Year Program.

  • Wagner News
  • activism
SHARE
PRINT

Related Stories

image description

Alumna Profile: Aurora Brennan '13

Sep 27, 2021 Some college students check into their dorms, go to their classes, do their assignments, take their tests and, four years later, collect the
image description

From Your Alumni Board

Sep 27, 2021 From your Alumni Board My fellow Seahawks, As your Alumni Association Board president, I have the honor of serving the alumni communit
image description

Serving All Of Us

Mar 12, 2021 Wagner alumni have a long history of helping each other.
CLASS NOTES
OBITUARIES
CONTACT US

LATEST NEWS

image description

Pride Collection comes to Horrmann Library

The Horrmann Library is the home of a unique collection of over 2,000 titles on …

image description

Yuliya Johnson: Global Health Guardian

Alumna Yuliya Johnson helps keep her adopted country safe from pandemics, bioterrorism.
by Tim O’Bryhim

image description

Chris Cappelli: Global Health Guardian

If nothing happens, it means alumnus Chris Cappelli has done his job right.
by Tim O’Bryhim

image description

President Araimo makes Staten Island Power 100

City & State N.Y., a magazine dedicated to New York’s local and state politics and …

  • About the Magazine
  • Give to Wagner
  • Wagner Newsroom
  • Wagner Home
FOLLOW US

© 2025 All Rights Reserved