World-traveling PSU grad to speak at Apple Day

Maggie Fleming’s life has been anything but typical since receiving her degree from Pittsburg State University.

The featured speaker of the 2008 Apple Day convocation, Fleming (BA ’01) was not long ago just like the students she will be addressing this week. But it is what she has done with her time since finishing her coursework at Pitt State that has kept people talking.

A native of Pittsburg, Fleming has spent much of the last seven years between Africa, Europe and the United States. In Africa, she served as a Community Health and AIDS Prevention volunteer with the Peace Corps in Togo, and as an administrator and human resource assistant for a local NGO (non-governmental organization) in Tanzania. She also worked as a support-base manager/report writer for the Swiss NGO Medair in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 2005, Fleming received her master’s degree in African Studies from the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland. During her research, she spent more than six weeks between Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and eastern Congo looking at the reintegration process women and children go through after having been raped in war-torn countries.

In the United States, she has worked in numerous jobs and trades – from a counselor at a camp for the elderly/disabled to a substitute teacher to a volunteer track coach. Currently, she is serving on Sen. Sam Brownback’s foreign policy team in Washington, D.C. In his office, she serves as an aide and assistant on issues such as human trafficking, global health, religious freedoms, and human rights.

Fleming will speak on the day’s theme, “One Gorilla Makes a Difference,” at 3 p.m. on Thursday, March 6, at McCray Recital Hall. For more information, contact Edie McCracken at 620-235-4794.

---Pitt State---