Ford School

Noting the federal government's long history of partnering with religious and secular charities to serve communities in need, Joshua DuBois, Spiritual Advisor to President Obama and former Executive Director of the White House Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships discusses how he navigated religious issues in the White House and the devotionals that he sent to President Obama each morning.

Dear Ford School Alumni and Friends: The featured speaker will be Ford School/Brookings/New York Times-affiliated economist, Justin Wolfers, discussing economics and happiness. Justin and his partner Betsey Stevenson—another nationally prominent economist, currently a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers—joined the Ford School faculty in fall 2012.

Lieutenant General David Petraeus, Commander of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth. General Petraeus served in Iraq as the first commander of the Multinational Security Transition Command – Iraq from June 2004 to September 2005, during which he was responsible for helping organize, train, and equip Iraq 's security forces. He previously commanded the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Rebecca Blank will deliver the Citi Foundation Policy Talks @ the Ford School keynote of the two-day Poverty, Policy, and People: 25 Years of Research and Training at the University of Michigan.

The Ford School welcomes human rights scholar Alejandro Castillejo-Cuéllar, associate professor and chair of Anthropology Department at the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia.

Registration required. 

National journalist Chuck Lewis discusses the manipulation of truth.

U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel is a Distinguished Professor at Georgetown University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is Chairman of the Atlantic Council and a Member of the Secretary of Defense's Defense Policy Board.

Free and open to the public. Registration required. The Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy will host this conference as one of the highlights of the school's year-long centennial celebrations.

Please join us for a conversation with President and CEO of CARE USA Helene D. Gayle and Ford School faculty Marina Whitman and Sharon Maccini on current trends in international development aid, microfinance, and global health initiatives.

Free and open to the public Join the conversation on Twitter: #policytalks About the event: Please join us as Kenneth Lieberthal returns to the University of Michigan for a lecture on current U.S-China relations under President Obama's new foreign policy team. Lieberthal will also take questions from the audience and from Twitter. From the speaker's bio: Kenneth Lieberthal is senior fellow in Foreign Policy, Global Economy, and Development and also at the John L.

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of President Gerald R. Ford's birth. To honor President Ford's legacy, the Charge to the Class will be delivered by Paul H. O'Neill, 72nd U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and deputy director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget under President Ford. Join the conversation on Twitter: #fordlegacy From the speaker's bio Paul H. O'Neill was the 72nd Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, serving from 2001-2002.

Lecture by General Michael Hayden, retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the CIA and NSA.

Sultan Al Qassemi is a 33-year-old scholar, columnist, and influential Twitter commentator. TIME Magazine says he's "shaping the conversation" on events unfolding in the Middle East. NPR says he "wrote the first draft of Middle East history in short sentences tapped out on his computer and his cell phone."

Abstract The case for a national effort to create core standards grows stronger by the day. Currently, 50 states have 50 standards, and most states are setting the bar as low as possible in order to comply with the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements of NCLB. Half the states have set fourth-grade reading benchmarks so low that they fall beneath even the most basic level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.