Dr. Paul Torrens is Professor of Health Services, teaches courses in health services organization and financing, health services organization and theory, managerial processes inhealth service organizations and managed care. Dr. Torrens received his M.D. from Georgetown University and his M.P.H. from Harvard University. A physician by initial training, he has had a long career in the two areas of health care management and health care policy.

As a health care manager, Dr. Torrens has had many years of direct management experience in hospitals and health organizations. He has also many years of membership on governing boards of health care organizations of various kinds; he currently serves on the Board of Directors of Blue Shield of California, as well as the Board of PacificCare Behavioral Health of California. He is also a member of the Financial Solvency Standards Board, Department of Managed Care, State of California, and the Attorneys General Task Force on Charity Care.

As a health policy expert, Dr. Torrens has served in a wide variety of advisory and consulting capacities to governmental and non-governmental organizations in all parts of the United States and in eighteen foreign countries.

June O’Leary, Visiting Professor of Economics at Pomona College.
She specializes in healtheconomics and health policy. Her research interests include Medicare managed care and quality of care. She graduated from the Harvard School of Public Health; M.S., and received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in economics.

Rosemarie Sweeney, vice president for public policy and practice support at the AAFP, is responsible for overseeing government relations and policy center divisions in Washington D.C. and the information technology, health information technology center and practice support divisions at the organization’s headquarters in Leawood, Kan. She was instrumental in the development of The Robert Graham Center: Policy Studies in Family Medicine and PrimaryCare and the development of the Center for Health Information Technology.

Jeffrey Stern (brother of Jenna Stern PZ ‘10) has been on the ground in Afghanistan since 2007. Because he is a recent college graduate (Duke University ‘07) he is uniquely capable of relating to the Claremont College community.

Jeffrey is currently working as the International Engagement Manager at the National Constitution Center, developing international civics education and civil society building projects in Afghanistan. He jas developed election education materials for illiterate and semi-literate Afghans in Dari and Pashto for the United Nations, and is currently managing a State Department grant to create reciprocal exhibitions at the National Museum in Kabul and here at the National Constitution Center, comprised of photographs and oral histories developed in collaboration between a group of students in Afghanistan and a group of Students from Philadelphia. He has worked in business development, women’s rights and education in Afghanistan, and has written for Slate, the Philadelphia Inquierer, Esquire UK, Esquire.com, Time.com, Time Magazine, Newsweek.com, and others.

Professor Edward Haley of Claremont McKenna is the W.M.Keck Foundation Chair of International and Strategic Studies and Senior Research Associate at the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies.

“The State of Democracy in America: The election of President Obama and the Importance of Civic Activism and Education”

April 6, 2009

About the speaker:

Activist, educator, author, member of the Weathermen (later known as the Weather Underground). Born William Charles Ayers on December 26, 1944, in Oak Park, Illinois. A former radical activist, Bill Ayers has established himself as an educator and author. He grew up as the middle child of five in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn. His father was a business executive and his mother was a homemaker.

At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Ayers became politically active, joining the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which sought social and political change and opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam.  He graduated in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in American studies.

After college, Ayers devoted much of his time to his activism. He was among the demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Developing a more militant version of the SDS, Ayers helped found the Weathermen the following year. The group thought more drastic measures were needed to end the war in Vietnam. In October 1969, the Weathermen took to the streets in what was called the “Days of Rage” protests. The event started off with the bombing of a statue in Chicago’s Haymarket Square and then erupted into a clash between the group members and the police. During the conflict, 287 Weathermen were arrested.

Later that year, the group took responsibility for bombing several police cars in Chicago in retaliation for the killing of Mark Clark and Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party by the police. By early 1970, many members of the group were in hiding, including Ayers. The organization was rocked by tragedy in March of that year when three members—Theodore Gold, Terry Robbins, and Ayers’ girlfriend Diana Oughton—were killed while making bombs in New York City.

Even after these deaths, the group remained active. Ayers participated in the 1971 bombing of the Capitol building and the 1972 bombing of the Pentagon. He remained underground for a decade. While on the run, Ayers became involved with fellow Weather Underground member Bernardine Dorhn.

Ayers returned to school to study early childhood education at Bank Street College of Education and received his master’s degree in 1984. He worked as an instructor while working on a doctorate in curriculum and teaching, which he completed in 1987. Ayers joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1992. In addition to his work at the university, he has become an accomplished author, writing numerous works on education, including The Good Preschool Teacher: Six Teachers Reflect on Their Lives (1989), To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher (1993), and Teaching for Social Justice: A Democracy and Education Reader (1998).

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Ayers found himself in the midst of media maelstrom. His connection to Democratic candidate Barack Obama became an issue brought up by John McCain’s campaign, which made automated calls to voters in several states, including Nevada and Wisconsin. The message, in part, said that Obama “has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans,” according to an Associated Press report.

Obama and Ayers have known each other for years. Ayers and Dohrn hosted an event for Obama at their house in the mid-1990s during Obama’s first campaign for the Illinois Senate. They both have worked with two non-profit groups, the Woods Fund of Chicago and Chicago Anneberg Challenge, over the years. They have not been in contact with each other, however, since 2005 excluding one chance encounter in their shared neighborhood in 2007, according to a report in The New York Times. “The suggestion that Ayers was a political adviser to Obama or someone who shaped his political views is patently false,” said Obama campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt to The New York Times.

Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is on sabbatical for the 2008-2009 academic year. He lives in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood with Bernardine Dohrn.

Biography courtesy of Biography.com

“The State of Democracy in America: The election of President Obama and the Importance of Civic Activism and Education”

As a high school student, in 1968, Paula Crisostomo put the Chicano struggle for equal rights on the map. Sick of the appalling quality of education Chicanos received, she organized the largest high school student protest in American history. (It was also the first mass protest against racism ever organized by Mexican-Americans.) The walkout had a tremendous impact at the time, and has inspired a new generation of social activists; it stands today as a watershed moment of the Civil Rights Era.

In March, 1968, under Crisostomo’s leadership, thousands of Chicano students from five East Los Angeles high schools walked out of their classes; by the time the protest ended, a week and a half later, more than 20,000 students had participated, many in sympathy walkouts across the city.  Crisostomo’s actions that week, and in the years since, are a reminder that equal rights in America have often been advanced through the courage of ordinary individuals.

Her story was featured in the PBS documentary Chicano!: Taking Back the Schools, and in the award-winning HBO movie Walkout, directed by Edward James Olmos. Today, Crisostomo is the Director of Government and Community Relations for Occidental College in Los Angeles. She provides leadership and direction for the school’s community outreach strategies, neighborhood relations and education programs.

“Post-Election Musings on Religion, Foreign Policy, and the New Presidency”

November 11, 2008

About the speaker:

Christopher Hitchens has covered and opined on the Iraq war, the 2008 election, the American political system, and virtually every important cultural and political phenomenon.  He has subjected himself to waterboarding, a Santa Barbara makeover, and Hardball, all in the name of journalism.  Hitchens has appeared on nearly every major news talk shows to mention.  He has contributed to Vanity Fair, The Nation, Slate, the London Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times Book Review and the Atlantic Monthly, among many others.

He is the author of “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything”, “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice”, and “The Trial of Henry Kissinger”, among others.

Learn more about Christopher Hitchens at www.hitchensweb.com.

Special thanks go to the Pitzer College Campus Life Committee, Pitzer College Student Senate, the Pomona College Religious Department for their crucial contributions to the Hitchens event.

“Gender Matters: Sharpening the Attack on the Glass Ceiling”

April 17, 2008

Kimba Maureen Wood is a United States federal judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Born in Port Townsend, Washington, Wood received a B.A. from Connecticut College in 1965, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics in 1966, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1969. Wood was in private practice in Washington, D.C. from 1969 to 1970, and was then an attorney with the Office of Economic Opportunity from 1970 to 1971. She relocated to New York City and returned to private practice from 1971 to 1988.

On December 18, 1987, Wood was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated by Constance Baker Motley. Wood was confirmed by a unanimous United States Senate on April 19, 1988, and received her commission on April 20, 1988. She entered on duty on July 28, 1988. She served as chief judge from 2006 to 2009 and assumed senior status on June 1, 2009.

One of Wood’s most famous decisions was sentencing Michael Milken, known as “The Junk Bond King”, in 1990 to ten years in prison; the sentence was reduced to two years imprisonment and three years probation in 1991.

Wood was Bill Clinton’s second unsuccessful nominee for attorney general in 1993.  Janet Reno was later nominated and confirmed for the post.

Later, in 1998, Wood presided over the case of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem v. Christie’s, Inc., in which the ownership of the Archimedes Palimpsest was disputed. Wood also later presided over Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc., 88 F. Supp 2d 116 (S.D.N.Y. 1996), more widely known as the Pepsi Points Case.

Wood has also served on the Amherst College Board of Trustees, ending her term in 2001.