Forum Highlights
Forum 2008 Houston
In addition to over one hundred sessions and workshops on pressing educational issues, Forum attendees were treated to exciting speeches and special events featuring luminaries from the fields of education, politics, arts, and media.
Forum 2008 Honorary Chairs
- Michael Crow - President of Arizona State University
- Abelardo Saavedra - Houston Schools Superintendent
- Bill H. White - Mayor of Houston, Texas
Forum 2008 Keynote Speakers
- Richard Rodriguez - Author and Essayist
- Allan H. (Bud) Selig - Commissioner of Major League Baseball
Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University
Thursday, November 6
Forum 2008 Honorary Chair
Michael Crow became the sixteenth president of Arizona State University in 2002. He is transforming ASU into one of the nation’s leading public metropolitan research universities—one that engages in the economic, social, and cultural vitality of its region. He has committed the university to global engagement, and to setting a new standard for public service.
Since Crow took office, ASU has reached a number of important milestones, including the establishment of major interdisciplinary research initiatives such as the Biodesign Institute; the Global Institute for Sustainability; and MacroTechnology Works, a program integrating science and technology for large-scale applications, including the Flexible Display Center, a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Army.
Prior to joining ASU, Crow served as the executive vice provost of Columbia University, where he also was professor of science and technology policy in the School of International and Public Affairs. He played the lead role in the creation of the Columbia Earth Institute, and helped found the Center for Science, Policy, and Outcomes in Washington D.C., a think tank dedicated to linking science and technology to desired social, economic, and environmental outcomes.
A lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, Crow has authored a number of books and articles on the analysis of research organizations, technology transfer, science and technology policy, and the practice and theory of public policy.
He received his undergraduate degree in political science and environmental studies from Iowa State University and his doctorate in public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.
Abelardo Saavedra, Houston Schools Superintendent
Thursday, November 6
Forum 2008 Honorary Chair
Abelardo Saavedra was appointed superintendent of schools for the Houston Independent School District in December 2004. Saavedra joined HISD in February 2001 as the superintendent of the Southeast District. Beginning in August 2002, until his appointment as interim superintendent in June 2004, he served as the district’s executive deputy superintendent for School Support Services. Prior to joining HISD, he was the superintendent of schools in his native Corpus Christi, Texas from 1993 to 2000.
In his third full year as superintendent of America’s seventh-largest school district, Saavedra and the HISD Board of Education have led HISD to enact a new pay-for-performance program for teachers, streamlined district administration, and built and equipped science labs in more than 100 elementary schools. In 2004, Saavedra also spearheaded Reach Out to Dropouts, a campaign that successfully recovers hundreds of students each year. In 2006, Dr. Saavedra committed HISD to preparing students academically, socially, and emotionally for college and the workforce by creating a college-bound culture in every school. HISD prepares students for higher education throughout their academic careers by laying a solid educational foundation in the earliest grades, promoting Advanced Placement and dual-credit courses in secondary school, and emphasizing to students at all grade levels and their parents that college is both possible and essential.
Saavedra earned a bachelor of science and a master of science degrees at Texas A&I University in Kingsville, and completed his doctorate in school administration at the University of Michigan. He serves on several community boards and was in the American Leadership Forum’s 2004–2005 class.
Bill H. White, Mayor of Houston, Texas
Thursday, November 6
Forum 2008 Honorary Chair
Bill White serves as the mayor of Houston, Texas. He is currently in his third term and has held the position since January, 2004.
A native Texan and a son of school teachers, White attended Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude with a degree in economics, and The University of Texas School of Law, where he became editor-in-chief of its law review.
Until the early 1990s, White practiced business litigation and anti-trust law in the Houston area. From 1993 to 1995, he served as Deputy Secretary of Energy under President Bill Clinton and helped diversify national energy supplies. He was also the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party from 1995 to 1998. Before becoming mayor of Houston, White returned to the private sector and headed the WEDGE Group, an energy, construction, and real estate company.
White has brought his skills as a businessman to the Houston mayor's office. These talents were on display as he led Houston’s compassionate response to the humanitarian crises created by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. For his hands-on efforts, White received a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2007.
In his third term as mayor, White is accelerating work to revitalize Houston’s most neglected neighborhoods and has initiated programs to make homes more energy efficient and reduce pollution. The mayor’s education program, Expectation Graduation: Reach Out to Dropouts, has helped students find the resources and encouragement that they need to receive their high school diploma.
Richard Rodriguez, Author and Essayist
Wednesday, November 5
Forum 2008 Keynote Speaker
Richard Rodriguez is one of America’s most important essayists and a master of the “personal essay.” He writes about the intersection of his personal life with some of the great vexing issues of America.
Rodriguez, the son of Mexican immigrant parents, grew up in Sacramento, California. He was an undergraduate at Stanford University and went on to spend two years in a religious studies program at Columbia University. He then studied English Renaissance literature at the Warburg Institute in London and was a doctoral candidate at the University of California in Berkeley.
In 1982, he published an intellectual autobiography, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez. A memoir of a “scholarship boy,” Hunger remains controversial for its skepticism regarding bilingual education and affirmative action. In 1992, Rodriguez published Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father, a “philosophical travel book,” concerned with the moral landscape separating “Protestant America” and “Catholic Mexico.” Days of Obligation was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction in 1993.
In 2002, Rodriguez published Brown: The Last Discovery of America. In a series of essays concerned with topics as varied as the cleaning of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, cubism, and Broadway musicals, Rodriguez undermines America’s black and white notion of race and proposes the color brown for understanding the future (and past) of the Americas. As a journalist, Rodriguez worked for over two decades for the Pacific News Service in San Francisco; he has also been a contributing editor for Harper’s Magazine and the Sunday Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times.
Many recognize him from his television appearances on PBS. For more than ten years he has appeared as an essayist on “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.” His televised essays on American life were honored in 1997 with a George Peabody Award.
In 1993, Richard Rodriguez was given the Frankel Medal (now renamed “The National Humanities Medal”)—the highest honor the federal government gives to recognize work done in the humanities.
Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball
Friday, November 6
Forum 2008 Keynote Speaker
Bud Selig was named the ninth Commissioner of Baseball in 1998, by a unanimous vote of the 30 Major League Baseball club owners. Prior to his election as Baseball’s Commissioner, Selig served as Chairman of the Executive Council and was the central figure in Major League Baseball’s organizational structure dating back to September 1992.
Selig has led the way toward implementation of many of the game’s structural changes, including the Wild Card playoff format, interleague play, realignment, restoration of the rulebook strike zone, and consolidation of the leagues’ administrative functions.
In August 2002, Selig engineered an historic labor agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Association that avoided a work stoppage for the first time in 30 years, and included meaningful revenue sharing among the clubs. In October 2006, MLB and the MLBPA continued the unprecedented era of labor peace by reaching a new five-year collective bargaining agreement. By the end of the agreement, baseball will have enjoyed 16 years without a strike or a lockout, the longest period of uninterrupted play since the inception of the collective bargaining relationship.
The significant changes to baseball’s economic system have helped the sport achieve increased competitive balance, made evident in 15 different clubs earning the 16 postseason slots available in the 2006 and 2007 seasons, and seven different clubs winning the last eight World Series.
In November 2005, MLB and the MLBPA announced another historic agreement to toughen its drug testing policy. The program, which is the strongest in professional sports, highlighted Selig’s long-term effort to try to rid the game of illegal steroids and other performance-enhancing substances.
In 2006, MLB and the MLBPA partnered to stage the inaugural World Baseball Classic, the most important international baseball event ever ventured, in which Major League players competed for their home countries for the first time.
Selig is in the process of guiding the game through a significant renaissance. Major League Baseball has now set its all-time regular season attendance record in each of the last four seasons, culminating in an all-time high of 79,503,175 fans in 2007.
