The following programs are ahead for The Denver Forum. It should be
noted that events listed below are events presently scheduled. More
events will be added as program opportunities occur.
Please scroll down to view all of the event details, or you may use the navigation to access the event details you are looking for.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Denver Forum Proudly Presents:
Gretchen Peters
Former ABC News Correspondent
Author of and Speaking on: “Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda”
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Denver Forum Proudly Presents:
The Honorable Michael Bennet
United State Senator, Colorado
Speaking on: “The Way Ahead for Colorado and America”
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Denver Forum Proudly Presents:
T.R. Reid
Foreign Correspondent for The Washington Post & Commentator for National Public Radio (NPR)
Author of and Speaking on: “The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care”
Friday, October 9, 2009
The Denver Forum Proudly Presents:
Marty Meehan
Chancellor, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Speaking on: “American Higher Education in Peril”
 |
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Denver Forum Proudly Presents:
Gretchen Peters – Former ABC News Correspondent
Author of and Speaking on: “Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda”
12-Noon Luncheon
Oxford Hotel
1600 17th Street
Sage Room
Members: $30, Non-Members, $45
Phone Reservations: 303-832-9030
Event Sponsor:
To register for this event please click here.
|
Gretchen Peters – Biographical Brief
 Gretchen Peters covered Pakistan and Afghanistan for more than a decade, first for The Associated Press and later as a reporter for ABC News.
A Harvard graduate, Ms. Peters was nominated for an Emmy for her coverage of the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, and won the SAJA Journalism Award for a Nightline segment on the former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf.
Ms. Peters` work has appeared in leading media outlets including The Christian Science Monitor, The New Republic and The National Geographic Channel, and she has been a regular
Gretchen Peters` Speeches:
The Myth of the Ideological War on Terror: A Look at Criminal Groups Backing the Taliban and al Qaeda, told from the first-hand perspective of a reporter on the ground.
How Drugs Have Shaped the Afghan Conflict from the 1980`s to the Present: Gretchen discusses the history of modern Afghanistan and the roots of the rise of the Taliban and fundamentalist Islam in the region.
A Global Look at the Links Between Insurgency and Crime: Gretchen draws on her vast experience as a journalist in this compelling look at the links between insurgency and criminal activity.
Raising Children in a Nation on the Brink: Getchen`s tale of her three years as a mother and ABC News reporter in Pakistan.
|
 |
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Denver Forum Proudly Presents:
The Honorable Michael Bennet – United State Senator, Colorado
Speaking on: “The Way Ahead for Colorado and America”
12-Noon Luncheon
Oxford Hotel
1600 17th Street
Sage Room
Members: $30, Non-Members, $45
Phone Reservations: 303-832-9030
Event Sponsor:
To register for this event please click here.
|
Michael Bennet – Biograhical Brief
Michael Bennet, the junior Senator from Colorado, has served most recently as the Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools. As a dedicated public servant with comprehensive experience as a businessman, Michael has a proven record of facing tough tasks at critical times. As Superintendent, Michael worked to improve student achievement and classroom performance, while also overseeing a halt to years of budgetary cuts in the Denver Public Schools. While serving as Chief of Staff to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, Michael was credited with leading the way on balancing a historic budget deficit. Prior to his service to the city, Michael was a Managing Director at the Anschutz Investment Company, where he managed the restructuring of over $3 billion in corporate debt. Representing Colorado as our state’s next U.S. Senator, Michael will use his understanding and leadership on complex financial and economic issues to be a voice for Colorado’s working families.
Almost four years ago, Michael inherited a School District whose achievement rates were flat and, where, for year after year, budgets were cut. With the help of Denver Public Schools’ principals and teachers, Michael has turned this around. Achievement and graduation rates are up, with Denver’s kids growing faster than all the kids in the state on every single test at every single grade level with the exception of one math test.
As Superintendent, Michael worked hard to end the annual cycle of budget cuts at the Denver Public Schools. 2008 was the first in five years that the district did not have to cut its budget, and this year Denver was able to invest an additional $18 million in its schools and classrooms to enrich the academic environment for children. As a result, programs such as comprehensive Early Childhood Education have been enacted allowing over 2,000 four year olds to now have a full day Early Childhood Education. Additionally, for the first time in Denver’s history, over 90% of five year olds have access to full-day kindergarten. These improvements are closing the achievement gap suffered by low-income children.
Michael, working with the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, revolutionized Procomp, a system of differentiated pay that pays teachers more for driving student achievement, serving in a high poverty school, or bringing a special set of talents, like the teaching of math or special education. Although the changes proposed were controversial, nearly 80% of Denver’s teachers voted for the new proposal.
Prior to serving as Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, Michael served for two years as Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s Chief of Staff. Michael oversaw the balancing of an historic budget deficit, the renegotiation of several collective bargaining agreements, and a complete redesign of the police oversight function. Michael, along with the Mayor, was widely credited with putting together a first rate, diverse team to lead the City through unprecedented fiscal challenges.
Before joining Mayor Hickenlooper’s administration, Michael was a Managing Director of the Anschutz Investment Company, where he had direct responsibility for the investment of over $500 million. He led the reorganization of four distressed companies including Forcenergy (which later merged with Denver-based Forest Oil), Regal Cinemas, United Artists, and Edwards Theaters, which together required the restructuring of over $3 billion in debt. Michael also managed, on behalf of Anschutz, the consolidation of the three theater chains into Regal Entertainment Group, the largest motion picture exhibitor in the world.
 Prior to moving to Denver, Michael served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice during the Clinton Administration.
Michael earned his bachelor’s degree with honors from Wesleyan University and his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of The Yale Law Journal.
Michael married Susan Daggett, a successful natural resources lawyer, in 1997. Michael and Susan are the proud parents of three daughters, Caroline (9), Halina (7), and Anne (4). |
 |
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Denver Forum Proudly Presents:
T.R. Reid – Foreign Correspondent for The Washington Post & Commentator for National Public Radio (NPR)
Author of and Speaking on: “The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care”
12-Noon Luncheon
Oxford Hotel
1600 17th Street
Sage Room
Members: $30, Non-Members, $45
Phone Reservations: 303-832-9030
Event Sponsor:
To Register Click Here
|
Biographical Brief -- T.R. Reid
 Tom Reid is an American foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and author of nine books, and his tenth entitled, "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care", will be published in August.
A frequent guest on National Public Radio`s Morning Edition, he is married to Denver attorney Margaret M. McMahon with whom he has three children (Denver is home to the Reids). A Classics major at Princeton University, T.R. served as a naval officer, taught and held various positions before working for the Post.
T.R. is the author of five books in English and two in Japanese. Through his reporting for The Washington Post, his syndicated weekly column, and his light-hearted commentary from around the world for National Public Radio (NPR), he has become one of America’s best-known foreign correspondents.
His 2008 PBS Frontline documentary, "Sick Around the World," under the premise that the US health care system is a failure, looked at the national health care systems of five wealthy countries around the world. The first two countries visited were the U.K. and Japan, both places where Reid has lived while serving as the Washington Post bureau chief and has had doctors. They were followed by Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland.
Frontline asked T.R. Reid to follow-up with a companion documentary, "Sick Around America" which aired March 31, 2009, on PBS. But when it appeared, Reid was nowhere to be seen, and his conclusion, "You can`t allow a profit to be made on the basic package of health insurance", was completely absent from the program.
As quoted by Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action and The Corporate Crime Reporter, Reid said "...mandating for-profit insurance is not the lesson from other countries in the world. I said I`m not going to be in a film that contradicts my previous film and my book."
T.R. has been a frequent and highly treasured guest of The Forum.
|
 |
Friday, October 9, 2009
The Denver Forum Proudly Presents:
Marty Meehan – Chancellor, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Speaking on: “American Higher Education in Peril”
12-Noon Luncheon
Oxford Hotel
1600 17th Street
Sage Room
Members: $30, Non-Members, $45
Phone Reservations: 303-832-9030
Event Sponsor:
To Register Click Here
|
Biographical Brief -- Marty Meehan
Marty Meehan is the second chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the fourteenth leader of the institution and its predecessor schools, founded in the 1890s.
“Higher education is the foundation of this region. It will determine the region’s future,” says Meehan. “What we do now, today, at this university, will decide who will leave and who will stay. Now—there has never been a more critical time than now.”
“This place gave me a chance when there weren’t a lot of other opportunities,” Meehan adds. “I feel passionately about this university. Fundamentally, I can tell you it gave me the basis to do whatever I’ve been able to do with my life.”
Commenting on the unanimous decision by the University of Massachusetts Trustees to appoint Meehan as chancellor, President Jack Wilson said, “Marty Meehan is a leader, an innovator, and has a demonstrated passion for higher education in general and UMass Lowell in particular.” He assumed the chancellorship on July 1, 2007.
A UMass Lowell alumnus, Meehan graduated cum laude in 1978, having studied education and political science. He received a master’s degree in public administration from Suffolk University in 1981 and a juris doctor from Suffolk University Law School in 1986. He holds honorary degrees from Suffolk and Green Mountain College in Vermont. Meehan served as an adjunct faculty member in political science at UMass Lowell in the late 1980s.
A resident of Lowell, Meehan represented the fifth congressional district of Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2007. He served on the House Armed Services and Judiciary committees. Widely respected as a reformer, he established a national reputation for his legislative leadership in reforming campaign finance laws and protecting people against the health risks in tobacco use. Among his priorities were maintaining a balanced federal budget, preserving Medicare and Social Security, supporting and strengthening the military, and supporting economic growth that is worker- and environment-friendly.
Meehan served as Massachusetts deputy secretary of state for securities and corporations from 1986 to 1990. The Boston Globe reported, "During Meehan`s four years as deputy secretary, the Securities Division [went] from being a frequent embarrassment to gaining a national reputation as hard-hitting and activist." In the early 1990s, Meehan was the first assistant district attorney of Middlesex County, supervising more than 150 people, including 80 prosecutors, in an office admired for aggressive prosecution of child abuse, domestic violence and other violent crimes.
Meehan is married to Ellen T. Murphy, a health-care consultant and former vice president at Lawrence General Hospital. Ellen received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1986 from Simmons College, where she majored in international relations and French. She received a master’s in business administration in 1992 from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. Marty and Ellen are the parents of Robert Francis Meehan, born in 1999, and Daniel Martin Meehan, born in 2002. |
|
