In late April, the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) will host Chief Washington Correspondent for the New York Times David Sanger and former Commander of the U.S. Central Command Admiral William Fallon. Both speakers will address the College community in Mead Memorial Chapel.
David Sanger will speak next Wednesday, April 20 at 8 p.m. and Admiral William Fallon will speak on Tuesday, April 26 at 4:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public, although priority seating will be given to students.
David Sanger is the chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times. Sanger was heavily involved in the Times’ release of Wikileaks documents and has most recently been covering White House policy towards the political instability in the Arab world. His first book, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power, was published in 2009.
Sanger joined the Times in 1982 after graduating magna cum laude from Harvard. He served as correspondent and
later bureau chief in Tokyo until 1994 and specialized in reporting on matters of international economics. Sanger was among the team of reporters awarded the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Challenger space shuttle disaster, and among a second Pulitzer Prize-winning team for coverage of the Clinton administration’s policies in controlling exports to China. He was appointed chief Washington correspondent in 2006.
Retired Admiral William Fallon is the former commander of the U.S. Central Command and led U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2007 until 2008. Fallon submitted a request to retire in March of 2008 due to media reports over disagreements between Fallon and the Bush administration over whether to go to war in Iran. An article titled “The Man Between War and Peace” appeared in Esquire magazine.
“Press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president's policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom [Central Command] region,” said Fallon at the time of his resignation. "I have therefore concluded that it would be best to step aside and allow the secretary and our military leaders to move beyond this distraction and focus on the achievement of our strategic objectives in the region.”
Fallon currently serves as the CEO of NeuralIQ, which specializes in cybersecurity.
MCAB Speakers Committee co-chairs Colin Gibson ’11 and Caitlin Ludlow ’13 stressed the relevancy of this year’s speakers.
“The major things that were hitting the headlines when we were going through this process [of choosing speakers] were all … very centered in the realm of foreign politics, foreign affairs and international relations,” said Gibson.
“We looked for people that we thought had interesting and relevant things to say … but were still active in their fields,” said Ludlow. “There are certainly athletes and entertainers that were part of the discussion [of who to bring], but for this year, we really wanted to have an academic focus.”
Although the specifics of the committee’s budget are confidential, co-chairs stressed that this year’s choices were made to save money in preparation for future speakers.
"Traditionally the MCAB Speakers committee has brought a major speaker every two years. However, this year the committee decided to bring two medium-level speakers, with the aim of keeping costs low enough to bring another major speaker next year."
The Speakers Committee is currently accepting applications for funding for the Fall 2011 symposium. Both co-chairs hope that students will submit proposals before the end of the spring term.
MCAB announces spring speakers
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