Education / Lecture Platform
Week Two — July 1–7, 2012
The Lehrer Report: What Informed Voters Need to Know
Retired “PBS NewsHour” anchor Jim Lehrer, moderator of presidential debates for more than two decades, will lead this week in which policymakers, analysts, and government leaders will discuss the issues Americans will be considering as we elect a president, our entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. In a week of Fourth of July celebration, we ask what is the national climate on health care, jobs, taxation and our nation’s financial stability? We will hear from a variety of perspectives in a mix of lecture and conversation, facilitated by one of the most respected newsmen of our time.
Confirmed Lecturers
Jim Lehrer
Monday 7/2 |
Tuesday 7/3 |
Wednesday 7/4 |
Thursday 7/5 |
Friday 7/6 |
Andrew Kohut |
Whit Ayres
|
Jim Lehrer |
Ralph J. Cicerone |
Michael Gerson
|
Monday–Friday, July 2–6 @ 10:45 a.m.
Jim Lehrer
retired anchor, “PBS NewsHour”; presidential debate moderator
Jim Lehrer is executive editor and retired anchor of the “PBS NewsHour,” one of the most trusted news programs in television. A career in newspapers led him topublic television, where, after serving as Washington correspondent for PBS’s “The Robert MacNeil Report,” Lehrer paired with MacNeil in 1976 to create “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.” In September 1983, they launched “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” which became “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” in 1996, following MacNeil’s departure, and the “PBS NewHour” in 2009. Lehrer retired in May 2011.
In the last six presidential elections, Lehrer has served as a moderator for eleven nationally televised debates among the candidates. Twice, in 1996 and 2000, he was selected as the sole moderator for all presidential and vice presidential debates. Lehrer’s journalistic honors include the Chairman’s Award at the 2010 National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences News & Documentary Emmy Awards, the 1999 National Humanities Medal, the Fourth Estate Award from the National Press Club, two Emmys and the George Foster PeabodyBroadcast Award.
Lehrer is the author of more than 20 novels. His most recent book, September 2011’s Tension City, is a nonfiction account of the presidential debates. He attended Victoria College and the University of Missouri before joining the Marine Corps.
In the news:
Back to top ↑
Monday, July 2
Andrew Kohut
president, Pew Research Center
Andrew Kohut is the president of the Pew Research Center, where he also acts as director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Global Attitudes Project. A frequent op-ed essayist for The New York Times and former columnist for the Columbia Journalism Review, he serves as a press commentator on the meaning and interpretation of opinion poll results, including work for NPR and the “PBS NewsHour” as a public opinion analyst.
Previously, Kohut served as director of the Times Mirror Center and president of the Gallup Organization, the American Association of Public Opinion Research and the National Council on Public Polls. The founding director of surveys for the Times Mirror Center, Kohut also founded Princeton Survey Research Associates and has been a member of the Market Research Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. Kohut has co-authored four books, including, most recently, America Against the World and The Diminishing Divide: Religion’s Changing Role in American Politics.
Among his many honors, Kohut received the first Innovators Award from American Association of Public Opinion and its highest honor, the Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement. Kohut graduated from Seton Hall University and studied graduate sociology at Rutgers.In the news:
Back to top ↑
Tuesday, July 3
Whit Ayres
Republican strategist; founder and president, Ayres, McHenry & Associates
Whit Ayres is the president of Ayres, McHenry, & Associates Inc., a national public opinion and public affairs research firm located in Alexandria, Va., with clients including U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, Lamar Alexander, Bob Corker and Lindsey Graham, and the National Rifle Association, the Boy Scouts of America, America’s Health Insurance Plans, and the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association. He is also chairman of the American Association of Political Consultants and co-founder, with former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, of Resurgent Republic.
Ayres is a guest periodically on Fox News, CNN and NPR. His comments and analyses appear in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and numerous regional newspapers. Previously, Ayres served as senior executive assistant for Budget and Policy to Governor Carroll Campbell in South Carolina. He has also served as a tenured member of the political science faculty at the University of South Carolina.
An active private pilot, Ayres flies his Beechcraft Baron throughout the eastern United States and is a member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. He graduated from Davidson College and received master’s and doctoral degrees in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Back to top ↑
Tuesday, July 3
Donna Brazile
Democratic strategist; founder and managing director, Brazile & Associates
Donna Brazile is the managing director of Brazile & Associates LLC, a general consulting, grassroots advocacy, and training firm based in Washington, D.C. A veteran Democratic political strategist, she is vice chair of Voter Registration and Participation at the Democratic National Committee, and former chair of the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute.
A New Orleans native, Brazile has worked on every presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000, when she served as campaign manager for former Vice President Al Gore, becoming the first African-American woman to manage a presidential campaign. She is the author of the best-selling memoir Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, a syndicated newspaper columnist for United Media, a columnist for Ms. Magazine and O Magazine, and an on-air contributor to CNN, NPR and ABC, where she regularly appears on “This Week.”
In August 2009, O, The Oprah Magazine chose Brazile as one of its 20 “remarkable visionaries” for the magazine’s first-ever O Power List. She has also been recognized among the 100 Most Powerful Women by Washingtonian magazine, Top 50 Women in America by Essence magazine, and received the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s highest award for political achievement. Brazile is a graduate of Louisiana State University.
On social media:
Back to top ↑
Thursday, July 5
Ralph J. Cicercone
President, National Academy of Sciences
Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences and chair of the National Research Council. His research in atmospheric chemistry, climate change and energy has involved him in shaping science and environmental policy nationally and internationally. Prior to his election as Academy president, Cicerone was chancellor of University of California, Irvine, where he served previously as dean of the School of Physical Sciences and founding chair of the Department of Earth System Science.
Cicerone has held positions at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the NationalCenter for Atmospheric Research and the University of Michigan. In 2001, atPresident Bush’s request, he led a National Academy of Sciences study of climate change and its impact on the environment and human health. Cicerone is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Russian Academy of Sciences and Korean Academy of Science and Technology, and past president of the American Geophysical Union.
Among his many honors, Cicerone has received the Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science and the Albert Einstein World Award in Science. He earned a degree in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Illinois.
Back to top ↑
Friday, July 6
Michael Gerson
columnist, The Washington Post
Michael Gerson is a nationally syndicated columnist who appears twice weekly in TheWashington Post. Formerly the Roger Hertog Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Gerson is the author of Heroic Conservatism and co-author of City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era.
Gerson was a top aide to President George W. Bush as assistant to the president for policy and strategic planning. He was a key administration advocate for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the President’s Malaria Initiative, the fight against global sex trafficking, and funding for women’s justice and empowerment issues. Gerson also served in the White House as director of presidential speechwriting. He was previously a senior editor at U.S. News and World Report, speechwriter and policy adviser for Jack Kemp, and speechwriter for Bob Dole during the 1996 presidential campaign.
A senior adviser at ONE, Gerson serves on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience, and the boards of Bread for the World, the Initiative for Global Development Leadership Council, and the International Rescue Committee. He is also the Hastert Fellow at the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at his alma mater, Wheaton College in Illinois.
On social media:
In the news:
Mark Shields
columnist, Creators Syndicate
A nationally known columnist and commentator, Mark Shields has worked in Washington through the administrations of nine U.S. presidents. As an editorial writer for The Washington Post, he began writing his column, now distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate, in 1979. Since 1988, Shields has provided weekly political analysis and commentary on national campaigns on “PBS NewsHour.”
For 17 years, Shields was moderator and panelist on CNN’s Capital Gang, and is now is a regular panelist on “Inside Washington,” the weekly public affairs show seen on ABC and PBS. In addition to attending 17 national party conventions and working on or covering the last 11 presidential elections, he has taught American politics and the press at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Public Policy and he was a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy Institute of Politics.
Shields served in the United States Marine Corps before going to Washington, where he began working in 1965 for Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire. In 1968, he work for Robert F. Kennedy in the New York senator’s presidential campaign and later held leadership positions in three other presidential campaigns. Shields’ book On the Campaign Trail is about the 1984 presidential campaign. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.
