Dr. Norton to Chair 2010 United Nations DPI/NGO Conference in Melbourne, Australia
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10/29/2009
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The United Nation’s Department of Public Information/Non-Governmental Organizations (DPI/NGO) announced that Dr. Mary E. Norton will chair the 63rd Annual DPI/NGO Conference which will be held in Melbourne, Australia in 2010. She will also serve as co-chair of the Conference’s Planning Committee.
A North Arlington resident, Norton is Associate Dean and Professor, Global Academic Initiatives at Felician College. In 2005 she was instrumental in securing NGO status for the College and established a three-credit fellowship program at the United Nations for Felician students. Today, Felician is one of only 18 colleges world-wide to be granted NGO status by the UN.
A five-time Fulbright Scholarship recipient, Norton serves as the official representative to the DPI, as well as the International Council of Nurses to both the DPI and UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
In September she co-chaired the Youth Committee, and moderated the Franciscan International and Felician College-sponsored workshop titled, “Issues of Trust: Using Civilian Satellites and Military Hardware to Facilitate Nuclear Disarmament,” at the 62nd Annual DPI/NGO Conference held in Mexico City, Mexico. The workshop was one of only 12 proposed workshops selected from North American Non-Governmental Agencies.
Norton served as a field researcher for the National Institute of health in collaboration with Harvard and New York University Medical Schools. She has authored a chapter on Transcultural Ethics and has conducted research on patient autonomy and informed consent in Pakistan and Jordan. This research has been translated into Urdu and Arabic. She has also conducted ethics workshops sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Fulbright Intern-country grants in Qatar, Finland, and Jordan.
She also helped develop graduate and undergraduate programs in nursing in Iran, Jordan and Pakistan where she also served as the Director of the BSN Program.
In collaboration with the United Nations office in Tehran, Iran, and the Imperial Medical Center of Iran, Norton developed an immunization program for villages outside Tehran and immunized 500 children.
She served with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, International Rescue Committee and Cornell Medical School cooperative project delivering health care in the Cambodian refugee camps on the Thai/Cambodian border.
Norton holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Jersey City State University and Master of Arts, Master of Education, and Doctor of Education degrees from Columbia University, New York. She has completed a post-doctoral course in Biomedical Ethics and the Medical Humanities at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, NY.
About the DPI/NGO
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) have been partners of the Department of Public Information (DPI) since its establishment in 1947. Official relationships between DPI and NGOs date back to 1968. The Economic and Social Council in its resolution 1297 called on the DPI to associate NGOs with effective information programs in place and thus disseminate information about issues on the United Nation’s agenda and the work of the organization. Through associated NGOs, the DPI seeks to reach people around the world and help them better understand the work and aims of the United Nations.
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