Amphitheater Lecture Speakers - Post-Journal

Chautauqua 2012Amphitheater Lecture SpeakersFriday, July 6Michael GersonMark ShieldsMichael Gerson is a nationally syndicated columnist whoappears twice weekly in The WashingtonPost. Formerly the Roger Hertog SeniorFellow at the Council on ForeignRelations, Gerson is the author ofHeroic Conservatism and co-authorof City of Man: Religion and Politicsin a New Era.Gerson was a top aide to PresidentGeorge W. Bush as assistantto the president for policy andstrategic planning. He was a keyadministration advocate for the President’sEmergency Plan for AIDS Relief,the President’s Malaria Initiative, the fightagainst global sex trafficking, and funding for women’s justiceand empowerment issues. Gerson also served in the WhiteHouse as director of presidential speechwriting. He was previouslya senior editor at U.S. News and World Report, speechwriterand policy adviser for Jack Kemp, and speechwriter forBob Dole during the 1996 presidential campaign.A senior adviser at ONE, Gerson serves on the UnitedStates Holocaust Memorial Council, the Holocaust MemorialMuseum’s Committee on Conscience, and the boards ofBread for the World, the Initiative for Global DevelopmentLeadership Council, and the International Rescue Committee.He is also the Hastert Fellow at the J. Dennis Hastert Centerfor Economics, Government, and Public Policy at his almamater, Wheaton College in Illinois.A nationally known columnist and commentator, MarkShields has worked in Washington throughthe administrations of nine U.S. presidents.As an editorial writer for TheWashington Post, he began writinghis column, now distributed nationallyby Creators Syndicate, in1979. Since 1988, Shields hasprovided weekly political analysisand commentary on national campaignson “PBS NewsHour.”For 17 years, Shields was moderatorand panelist on CNN’s CapitalGang, and is now is a regular paneliston “Inside Washington,” the weekly publicaffairs show seen on ABC and PBS. In addition to attending17 national party conventions and working on or coveringthe last 11 presidential elections, he has taught Americanpolitics and the press at the University of Pennsylvania’sWharton School, Georgetown University’s Graduate Schoolof Public Policy and he was a fellow at Harvard’s KennedyInstitute of Politics. He is a graduate of the University ofNotre Dame.PAGE 22FROM PAGE 20WEEK THREEMonday, July 9Michelle NunnMichelle Nunn is the CEO of Points of Light Institute. Sheco-founded HandsOn Atlanta in 1989,and what began as a 12-person grassrootsstartup has grown into thelargest volunteer network in thecountry. At Points of Light Institute,Nunn leads the organizationand its business units — HandsOnNetwork, generationOn andAmeriCorps Alums — in engagingmillions of volunteers each yearto use their time, talent, voice andmoney to solve the pressing issues ofour time. Nunn is a graduate of the Universityof Virginia, where she majored in historyand minored in religion, and has studied at Oxford Universityand in India. She was a Kellogg National Fellow andhas a master’s degree in public administration from theKennedy School of Government at Harvard University.Tuesday, July 10Jon GertnerJon Gertner is an editor and writer whose stories on business,science, and society have appeared in ahost of national magazines and havebeen widely anthologized. Between2004 and 2011, Gertner worked asa writer for The New York TimesMagazine. He is currently an editorat Fast Company magazine, wherehe writes and edits feature storiesabout innovation and technology.Gertner’s new book from PenguinPress — The Idea Factory: BellLabs and the Great Age of AmericanInnovation — arose from his interest inexploring the origins of modern communicationstechnologies as well as Bell Labs’ extraordinary influenceon America’s culture of innovation. His book was hailedby Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times as both “riveting”and “thrilling.” In The New York Times Sunday BookReview, Walter Isaacson noted: “The Idea Factory exploresone of the most critical issues of our time: What causes innovation?Why does it happen, and how might we nurture it?”Wednesday, July 11Jeff NesbitJeff Nesbit is the executive director of Climate Nexus, anew, national initiative based in New York that focuses on climateand clean energy communications. The initiative — supportedby several foundations as a sponsored project of RockefellerPhilanthropy Advisors — works closely with an establishednetwork of science, technology, public health, cleanSEE PAGE 24