Rethinking America’s Global Role: After Iraq, After Darfur, Is There a Strategy for the Next Quarter-Century?

Science Center Hall B

The wrenching events of the past six years — a terrorist attack, a war that has divided the country, the rise of new nuclear threats and a genocide in Africa that the world only tepidly tried to stop — raise simultaneous challenges for the country unlike any in our lifetimes. In this panel, our classmates try to reach back through the past 25 years and forward to the next 25 to discuss strategies that go beyond today’s rhetoric, or the partisanship of the coming presidential election. Over the next quarter century, are there ways to restore American credibility and power around the world? What has happened — and what should happen — to America’s role and image of itself as an exporter of democracy, a model for economic development, and as a global policeman?

Moderator/Panelist: David Sanger ‘82

David Sanger is the chief Washington correspondent of the New York Times. In 25 years at the paper, he has covered technology, spent six years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, served as international economics correspondent and, for seven years, White House correspondent, covering the arc of the Bush presidency. He has been a member of two teams that won the Pulitzer Prize, and has received numerous awards for coverage of American foreign and national security policy.

Panelists:

James Hershberg ‘82

James Hershberg is Associate Professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington University and Director Emeritus of the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. He is the author of James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age along with numerous scholarly and popular articles on cold war and nuclear history and is currently working on studies of the Vietnam War and Cuban Missile Crisis.

Nicholas Kristof ‘82

Nicholas Kristof is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. In a reporting career that has taken him to 120 countries (and every Chinese province) he has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for his columns on the Darfur crisis and, with his wife Sheryl WuDunn, for their coverage of the Tianamen Square Democracy movement. He has also won numerous other journalism awards. He and Sheryl are the authors of China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power and Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia.

Sarah Stookey ‘82

Sarah Stookey is an Assistant Professor at the School of Business at Central CT State University who spent almost a decade promoting community-based economic development in Nicaragua during and after the Sandinista period. She also helped to create grassroots-managed lending in programs in the Philippines and Zambia. She studies and teaches critical perspectives on management theory, the ethics of business and its relation to society, and leadership. She has also taught at UMASS Amherst and at Mount Holyoke College.

Finding Solutions to the Climate Crisis

Science Center Hall C

The Challenges of Global Warming: Global Warming is upon us. In the United States, the policy discussion has finally moved from ‘Is it happening?’ to ‘What can we do?’ In this panel, we will get an up-to-date view of climate science and technological approaches to mitigating the effects of human-induced climate change. We will then discuss the start of the new climate movement, led by grassroots activists and officials at the state levels, among others. The panel will consider whether this nascent movement can help to build unprecedented energy, economic, and social policy.

Panelists:

Jon Isham ‘82

Jon Isham is the Luce Professor of International Environmental Economics at Middlebury College and, in 2005, was chosen by Middlebury students as the first recipient of The Marjorie Lamberti Faculty Appreciation Award. He is the co-editor of Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement and is a volunteer for Vice-President Gore’s Climate Project.

Kit Kennedy ‘82

Kit Kennedy is Special Deputy Attorney General for Environmental Protection in the New York Attorney General’s Office and is Chief of the Environmental Protection Bureau. The Bureau enforces state and federal environmental laws. Recent initiatives include lawsuits to slow global warming. She worked previously for 18 years at the Natural Resource Defense Council, where she was a senior Attorney and Director of the Northeast Energy Project.

Bill McKibben ‘82

Bill McKibben wrote the first book for a general audience on climate change, The End of Nature, 1989. He’s written ten books since, most recently Deep Economy, and his articles appear regularly in publications such as Harper’s and the Atlantic. A scholar in residence at Middlebury College, he founded Stepitup07.org, which in April organized the largest grassroots environmental protests since Earth Day 1970.

Dan Shrag

Dan Shrag is Professor Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment. He studies climate and climate change over the broadest range of Earth history, from the Snowball Earth hundreds of millions of years ago to the changes in El Nino over the last few decades. He is currently working on technological approaches to mitigating the effects of human-induced climate change.

Living to 100: Implications for Ourselves and the Country

Science Center Hall D

After the 25th reunion, we will not be getting any younger; however, many of us (and our peers throughout the country) will be living longer than our parents and certainly our grandparents. The panelists will discuss what this means for our personal well-being along with the economic and political ramifications.

Moderator: Amy Wolfson ‘82

Amy Wolfson is a Professor of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross. Her research points to the need for more sleep for adults and children, and she has become a voice in debate about school start times. She has written many articles and her book, The Woman’s Book of Sleep: A Complete Resource Guide was published in 2001. She has a grant from NIH for a study of urban, middle school students’ sleep patterns and daytime functioning.

Panelists:

Mehmet Oz ‘82

Mehmet Oz is Vice-Chair and Professor of Surgery at Columbia University. He directs the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital. His research interests include heart replacement and minimally invasive cardiac surgery, complementary medicine, and health care policy. He has authored numerous scholarly publications, three New York Times best sellers (e.g., YOU: The Owner’s Manual), and received several patents. He is the health expert for the Oprah Winfrey Show and host on Oprah and Friends (XM radio).

Stephen D. Flach ‘82

Stephen D. Flach is the Medical Director at Covance Laboratories, Madison, Wisconsin, where he works with pharmaceutical companies in the clinical aspects of drug development. He graduated from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and received his medical training in internal medicine from John Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in health economics from the Wharton School of Business.

Kim Belshè ‘82

Kim Belshè has spent most of her professional career in public service, working for California members of Congress and two California Governors. At present, she serves in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cabinet as the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Agency, an agency that oversees the state’s health care, social services, and rehabilitative policies.

Leslie Beckhart Jenal ‘82

Leslie Beckhart Jenal is an attorney, an educator, and a bioethicist. She is an ethics consultant at a Los Angeles hospital and has contributed to two books on critical care medicine, including Three Patients– International Perspective on Intensive Care at the End of Life. She is also a contributor to an international discussion group which consults on many issues involving critically ill patients.