Whitman to Deliver Commencement Address

Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman is set to present the address at the College's fifty-eighth annual commencement ceremonies on May 15.

Rising to national prominence when elected in 1994 as New Jersey's governor, Whitman, the state's first and only female chief executive, later joined the cabinet of President George W. Bush as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. President of the Whitman Strategy Group, a management consulting and strategic planning partnership, she is a member of the board of directors of SC Johnson, Texas Instruments, United Technologies, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. She also is a member of the Leadership Council of The Republican Majority for Choice, the Steering Committee of The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and the Oquirrh Institute Governors Board, comprised of former governors who advise the Institute on public policy issues.

"Christine Todd Whitman's career in public service exemplifies the kind of leadership to which CMC students aspire," says Bonnie Snortum, director of the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum. "A person of integrity, she also has demonstrated that she is not willing to compromise her standards in the face of political pressure."

Whitman's book, It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America, was recently published by Penguin Press.

Michnik Visits Campus

Adam Michnik, former dissident, historian, writer, lecturer, and one of Poland's leading journalists, spoke at a number of events and met with classes on campus this spring as a Podlich Distinguished Fellow.

Addressing an intimate gathering of 40 students, professors, and guests at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, Michnik spoke on the late Nobel Prize-winning poet Czeslaw Milosz—honored during the Milosz International Festival: The Exile in California, a four-day event held on the CMC campus in 1998—and the recent passing of Pope John Paul II, quoting Milosz in a 1988 journal entry: "At the very bottom of her poverty, Poland got the king, and such a king of which she dreamt, with roots in Polish royal dynasty, a judge from the apple orchard, uninvolved in the screeching reality of politics."

Michnik also was keynote speaker for the conference The Changing Face of Europe: European Institutions in the 21st Century, organized by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies. Michnik spoke on Poland's integration into Europe, including aspects of politics, economics, and security, and characterizing the EU's penchant for a free market economy.

Michnik has been the editor-in-chief of the first independent Polish daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, since he founded the publication in 1989. It is now Poland's largest newspaper and one of Europe's most influential dailies. A lifelong activist for human rights, he was detained many times between 1965 and 1986, spending a total of six years in prison for his opposition to the communist regime. An adviser to the Solidarity trade union during the 1980s, he was a negotiator for the Solidarity team during the Round Table negotiations of 1989 between representatives of the government, Solidarity, and other groups that brought an end to communist rule in Poland.

He is the author of countless essays, articles, and books, including Letters from Prison and Other Essays (1985), Letters from Freedom: Post-Cold War Realities and Perspectives (1998), and The Church and the Left (1993). He has received numerous awards in recognition of his eloquently articulated advocacy of democracy and freedom of the press. While in residence at CMC, he worked on two articles: one on terrorism and the French Revolution and one on Milosz and the contemporary meaning of The Captive Mind.

Bremer Addresses Res Publica Society

Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq L. Paul Bremer III treated on-campus and Res Publica guests to A Conversation with the Ambassador, addressing audiences at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum and in Los Angeles in April.

During his 23-year State Department career, Bremer served as special assistant or executive assistant to six secretaries of state. In 2002, President Bush appointed him to the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Bremer is a leading expert on crisis management, terrorism and homeland security. Author of The Alliance Response to Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: Deterrence, Defense, and Cooperative Options (1995) and Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism (2000), Bremer is a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Business.

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