Over almost two decades, award-winning journalist and web and TV host, Laura Ling has dedicated herself to exposing the world to critical global issues, including slave labor in the Amazon, the drug war in Mexico, Internet censorship in China, and women’s rights in Turkey. As the Director of Development for Discovery Digital Networks, Ling oversees the creation and production of original web series. She is also the host of Going Off Grid and Rituals With Laura Ling. In March 2009, Ling captured the world’s attention from a different standpoint, when she was arrested and held captive in North Korea for 140 days, after attempting to report on the trafficking of North Korean women. Granted a special pardon, she returned to the U.S. and documented her experience in her 2010 memoir, Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home, penned with her sister, Lisa.​

Diversity at Auburn University encompasses the whole of human experience and includes such human qualities as race, gender, ethnicity, physical ability, nationality, age, religion, sexual orientation, economic status, and veteran status.

The Cross-Cultural Center for Excellence is committed to providing reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, and activities. To request disability accommodation, contact the CCCE at least ten days in advance at (334) 844-2976 (phone), (334) 844-2856 (fax), or e-mail Stephanie Patterson at sjp0014@auburn.edu.