Highlights
Forum 2009: Education and the American Future
New York City
October 21-23, 2009
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 2009 Plenary Speakers
Wednesday, October 21
City Streets and School Corridors
A native of New York, Joel Klein became New York City schools chancellor in July 2002 after serving in the highest levels of government and business. He oversees the nation’s largest public school district, which has more than 1,450 schools and over 1.1 million students. The city’s school system was recently awarded the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has called Chancellor Klein “a true leader who never shies away from the tough and sometimes controversial decisions that are necessary to implement change.”
Klein’s comprehensive reform program, Children First, has transformed the New York City public school system. Student performance has risen; schools have become safer; and educators have received additional autonomy. Highlights of the first four years of the Children First education reforms include: the creation of a wide array of academic supports for struggling students; the establishment of new supports for parents, including parent coordinators in every school and a Translation and Interpretation Unit; the launch of the Impact Schools initiative to improve school safety; and the expansion of small schools and charter schools to provide additional educational options for students.
Before Klein became chancellor, he was chairman and chief executive officer of Bertelsmann, Inc., one of the world’s largest media companies. From 1997 to 2001, he was assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division. His appointment to the Justice Department came after Klein served as deputy counsel to President Clinton.
Klein was born in New York City where he attended the city’s public schools and graduated from William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens. He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, both magna cum laude.
Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor, City University of New York
Wednesday, October 21
City Streets and School Corridors
Matthew Goldstein was appointed Chancellor of The City University of New York (CUNY), effective September 1, 1999. He is the first CUNY graduate to lead the nation's most prominent urban public university (City College, Class of 1963). Dr. Goldstein has served in senior academic and administrative positions for more than 30 years, including as President of Baruch College, President of the Research Foundation, and Acting Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of CUNY. Prior to being named Chancellor, he was President of Adelphi University.
He has held faculty positions in mathematics and statistics at Baruch College, the CUNY Graduate School and University Center, Polytechnic University of New York, Cooper Union, Eastern Connecticut State University, and the University of Connecticut.
Currently, Dr. Goldstein is a member of the Board of Trustees of the JP Morgan Funds and of the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center. He is a Director of the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education, ex officio, the United Way of New York City, and a member of the Business Advisory Council for Columbia Management. Dr. Goldstein is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Goldstein earned his doctorate from the University of Connecticut in mathematical statistics, and a bachelor's degree with high honors in statistics and mathematics from The City College of The City University of New York.
E. Gordon Gee, President of The Ohio State University
Wednesday, October 21
Presidential Address
Among the most highly experienced and respected university presidents in the nation, E. Gordon Gee returned to The Ohio State University after having served as Chancellor of Vanderbilt University for seven years. Prior to his tenure at Vanderbilt, he was president of Brown University (1998-2000), The Ohio State University (1990-97), the University of Colorado (1985-90), and West Virginia University (1981-85).
Gee graduated from the University of Utah and earned his J.D. and Ed.D. degrees from Columbia University. He clerked under Chief Judge David T. Lewis of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals before being named a judicial fellow and staff assistant to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he worked for Chief Justice Warren Burger. In 1979 he was named dean of the West Virginia University Law School, and in 1981 was appointed to that university's presidency.
Active in a number of national professional and service organizations, Gee served as a Trustee for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation and as chairman of the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land Grant Universities. He is a member of the National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges, founded by the College Board to improve the teaching and learning of writing. He also serves on the NCAA Presidential Taskforce on the Future of Intercollegiate Athletics.
Gee has received a number of honorary degrees, awards, and recognitions. He was a Mellon Fellow for the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies and a W.K. Kellogg Fellow. In 1994, he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Utah as well as from Teachers College of Columbia University.
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Gwen Ifill, Author and Journalist
Thursday, October 22
Inspiration Awards Speaker
Gwen Ifill is moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. She is also frequently asked to moderate debates in national elections, most recently the Vice Presidential debate during the 2008 election. She is the author of The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.
Ifill joined both Washington Week and the NewsHour in 1999, interviewing newsmakers and reporting on issues ranging from foreign affairs to politics. Before coming to PBS, she spent five years at NBC News as chief congressional and political correspondent. She still appears as an occasional roundtable panelist on Meet the Press. Ifill joined NBC News from The New York Times where she covered the White House and politics. She also covered national and local affairs for The Washington Post, Baltimore Evening Sun and Boston Herald American.
A native of New York City and a graduate of Simmons College in Boston, she has received more than a dozen honorary doctorates and is the recipient of several broadcasting excellence awards, including honors from the National Press Foundation, Ebony Magazine, the Radio Television News Directors Association and American Women in Radio and Television. Ifill serves on the board of the Harvard University Institute of Politics, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Newseum and the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
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Tony Plana, Actor, Director, and Education Advocate
Thursday, October 22
Evening Event Speaker
With an acting career in film, television, and theatre spanning almost thirty years, Tony Plana stars today as the much loved “Ignacio Suarez,” father of Betty on the hit television show Ugly Betty. He most recently starred in Showtime’s landmark, groundbreaking series Resurrection Boulevard, for which he received 2001 & 2002 ALMA award nominations for best actor. It was the first English language weekly series in the history of television to be produced, written, directed and starring Latinos. He is the recipient of two Nosotros Golden Eagle awards for outstanding work in film and television, as well as five Los Angeles Dramalogue Awards for Theatre.
Plana is the co-founder and executive artistic director of the East L.A. Classic Theatre, a group comprised primarily of Hispanic American theatre professionals. The East L.A. Classic Theatre has been dedicated to serving the Latino community through educational outreach programs to primary and secondary schools and through bi-lingual productions of traditional and contemporary classics.
Through the East L.A. Classic Theatre, Plana has developed a unique and innovative literacy program called Beyond Borders: Literacy through Performing Arts. It is designed to enable students to expand their educational horizons and academic achievements by moving beyond their personal, cultural and vocational borders. Working directly with language arts teachers, Beyond Borders utilizes the performing arts to impact literacy skills in academically at risk and bilingual students. Proven to facilitate and even accelerate student achievement of district and state literacy standards, the program is being implemented in five school districts in southern California.
In addition to his extensive involvement in the media arts, he also serves on various boards including the American Red Cross, the East L.A. Community Youth Center, the Center Theatre Group Diversity Advisory Committee, and the Young Musicians Foundation created by Henry Mancini.
Immigrated to the US from Cuba at a young age, Plana overcame great adversity to go on to attend Loyola-Marymount University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree through the Honors Program in Literature and Theatre Arts, graduating magna cum laude. He received professional training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
Friday, October 23
The College Board’s National Commission on Writing award in honor of Senator Edward Kennedy
Since 2001, Bob Kerrey has been president of The New School, a university founded on strong democratic ideals and daring educational practices, and well-suited for his leadership.
Throughout his career in public service, while serving as a governor and U.S. senator from Nebraska during the 1980s and 1990s, Bob Kerrey advocated for increased education spending. He continues to do so, recognizing that democratic life flourishes most when all citizens are properly educated and given every chance to participate in the political process. In his view, the United States has an obligation to work with the rest of the world to expand opportunities for all people. That is why he supports active diplomacy, foreign aid and free trade. Such support led him to serve on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and to become an active member of the 9/11 Commission.
As president of The New School, Bob Kerrey has implemented a powerful strategy for change and development consistent with the university's historic academic mission and responsive to the needs of the twenty-first century. Recognizing The New School's strengths in design, liberal arts, the social sciences and the visual and performing arts, he is transforming the university.
Under his leadership, The New School is undergoing an unprecedented period of growth. Enrollment and full-time faculty have increased significantly, with the undergraduate population alone increasing by over 51 percent to more than 6,000 degree students. Since 2001, a record $214 million has been raised for scholarships, professorships, capital projects, major conferences and cutting-edge research. Plans are now underway for the largest space expansion in the university's history. A new signature building at 65 Fifth Avenue will embody the ahead-of-the-curve vision of The New School.
Friday, October 23
The College Board’s National Commission on Writing award in honor of Senator Edward Kennedy
Theodore C. Sorensen, former special counsel and adviser to President John F. Kennedy and a widely published author on the presidency and foreign affairs, practiced international law for more than 36 years as a senior partner, and now of counsel, at the prominent U.S. law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. The former chairman of the firm’s International Practice Committee, he has represented U.S. and multinational corporations in negotiations with governments all over the world and advised and assisted a large number of foreign governments and government leaders, ranging from the late President Sadat of Egypt to former President Mandela of South Africa.
In 2002, Mr. Sorensen was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Sorensen is on the advisory board of the Foreign Policy Leadership Council, a director of the Council on Foreign Relations (until 2004) and the Century Foundation, a member of the advisory board of the Partnership for a Secure America and an honorary co-chair of the ABA Commission on the Renaissance of Idealism in the Legal Profession. Mr. Sorensen is the author of the 1965 international best seller Kennedy, seven other books on the presidency, politics or foreign policy and numerous articles on those subjects in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times and other publications.
Mr. Sorensen was born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1928. He is father of three sons, one daughter and is married to Gillian Martin Sorensen, a former New York City commissioner, a former United Nations under-secretary general and current senior advisor and national advocate at the United Nations Foundation.
Mr. Sorensen's memoirs, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History, were published by HarperCollins in May of 2008.
Arlene Ackerman, Superintendent, Philadelphia School System
Friday, October 23
The College Board’s National Commission on Writing
School District of Philadelphia Superintendent, Dr. Arlene C. Ackerman, has more than 30 years of experience in leading large, diverse urban public school systems.
Dr. Ackerman, who assumed her duties in Philadelphia in June 2008, came to the School District from the Teachers College of Columbia University, where she served as Director of the Urban Education Leaders Program and Chairperson of the Superintendents and Scholars Symposium. The Urban Leaders Education Program is the College's largest doctoral program for public-school leaders. She joined Teachers College's Education Leadership faculty as the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Outstanding Educational Practice in 2006.
Dr. Ackerman also is Superintendent in Residence of Los Angeles-based Broad Center, where she facilitates and directs the Broad Superintendents Academy. The Academy is a ten-month executive management program designed to prepare CEOs and senior executives from business, government, and education backgrounds to lead urban public school systems.
Prior to 2006, Dr. Ackerman was Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District and the District of Columbia Public Schools. During her tenure in San Francisco, the city's public schools--with, 62,000 students and 117 schools--attained five consecutive years of improved achievement for all.
