British parliament welcomes El Paso scholar on global health panel
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After walking around in Parliament Square and mingling with the larger-than-life cast iron statues of Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela, my wife, Anuja and I entered the Palace of Westminster from the Cromwell Green. We were, finally, inside the closely guarded compound of the United Kingdom’s Houses of Parliament. The date was September 2, 2014 and the Big Ben struck its chimes precisely at 5:30 p.m.
Some 45 minutes later, Lord Collins of Highbury introduced me as “Dr. Arvind Singhal, a leading global academic of communication and social change, based at the Department of Communication, The University of Texas at El Paso”
A wave of UTEP Miner pride ran down my spine. What was I doing inside the highly ornate complex of towers, turrets, and spires that is home to the British House of Commons and the House of Lords? Sitting in the packed CMA room which adjoined the 100 yard long Westminster Hall — where Winston Churchill lay in state for 23 days, and from where Nelson Mandela and President Barack Obama addressed the two Houses of Parliament, I was participating in a parliamentary panel on global public health policy.