Advisory Board Members
Eugene F. Assaf, Class of ‘84 (Kirkland & Ellis)
Mr. Assaf is a litigation partner in the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, DC. He represents clients in complex litigation matters and provides advice regarding defamation and libel. He has also served as an instructor for the American Bar Association and the District of Columbia Bar for trial training and litigation training. He received his M.A. in philosophy as a Rotary International Post Graduate Fellow from Essex University in England. He received his J.D. from Notre Dame Law School, after which he served as a law clerk to Judge Joseph F. Weis, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
John Bailey, Class of ‘95
(Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, Bush Administration)
John Bailey was recently appointed to Bush’s Administration. Previously he served as a senior program officer for National Initiatives with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, John served as the deputy policy director for Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez. During this time, he worked closely with the White House and other agencies on comprehensive immigration reform, innovation policy, homeland security, pandemic influenza, and health care reform. John contributed to the development of the American Competitiveness Initiative, which was announced during the President’s 2006 State of the Union address. He also served as an ex-officio member of the U.S. Department of Education’s Future of Higher Education Commission.
Previously, John was the deputy policy director for Bush-Cheney ‘04 campaign. He served as the lead campaign advisor on technology, labor, housing, and education policy. In 2002, Secretary of Education Rod Paige appointed John to serve as the nation’s second director of the Office of Educational Technology where he managed over $800 million in grants and $30 million in research projects. John served as Pennsylvania’s first director of educational technology for Governor Tom Ridge and worked closely with the Governor’s technology team. He also led the department’s e-government initiatives including the development of the department’s first webpage, migration of several legacy applications to web-based services, and the creation of one of the nation’s first web-based grant application systems.
Admiral Dennis C. Blair, U.S. Navy (retired)
(The Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership 2007-08)
Admiral Blair holds the Omar Bradley Chair of Strategic Leadership at the Army War College and Dickinson College. He also holds the John M. Shalikashvili Chair in National Security Studies with the National Bureau of Asian Research. From 2003 to 2006 he was the president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a federally funded research and development center based in Alexandria, Virginia. Prior to retiring from the Navy in 2002, Admiral Blair served as Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, the largest of the combatant commands. During his 34-year Navy career, Admiral Blair served on guided missile destroyers in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and commanded the Kitty Hawk Battle Group. Ashore, he served as Director of the Joint Staff and as the first Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Military Support. He has also served in budget and policy positions on the National Security Council and several major Navy staffs. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Admiral Blair earned a master’s degree in history and languages from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and served as a White House fellow at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He has been awarded four Defense Distinguished Service medals and has received decorations from the governments of Japan, Thailand, Korea, Australia and Taiwan.
Betty Richardson Churchill, Class of ‘58
Betty Richardson Churchill served the Central Intelligence Agency for ten years at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. and McLean, Virginia and in Berlin, Germany. She was subsequently employed by Air Force Intelligence in Frankfurt, Germany where she also tutored German employees of Procter and Gamble in English language speaking skills. She accompanied her husband, Daniel (MBA, Boston University, who followed a business career in corporate finance), for multi-year assignments in NYC, Seattle, Brussels, Belgium, Athens, Greece, and London, and England where she lived for 15 years and acquired dual British and U.S. citizenship. Betty Churchill has enjoyed 25 years of residence abroad. When her husband retired in 1998, the Churchills reestablished primary residence in Washington, D.C., where they currently live. Mrs. Churchill is an active member of various cultural and special interest organizations, and is always involved in participative sports. Her current interests include national and international affairs, travel, developments in the creative arts, and active sports.
Henry D. Clarke Jr., Class of ‘55 (Managing Member, Flamevine Management Advisors LLC)
Henry D. Clarke Jr. has enjoyed an extraordinarily active and successful career in international business and finance-from Pittsburgh to Egypt to China. He has served in leadership positions in a number of business organizations, including the American Business Conference, the World Economic Forum, the International Trade Committee and the International Ice Cream Organization. He has been especially active as a mentor for the next generation of business leaders in such organizations as the Young Presidents Organization. Mr. Clarke has served in numerous volunteer capacities: Running two successful campaigns for the United Way and as executive vice president of the United Way of Greenwich, Connecticut; creating the Henry D. Clarke, Jr. Volunteer of the Year Award; serving as the vice chairman of the Brunswick School and as a member of the Board of Visitors of Wake Forest University; and acting as finance chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party. He has been especially generous with his time and resources in support of Dickinson College. He has contributed directly to Dickinson’s Trout Gallery and is and emeritus Trustee of Dickinson’s Board. Certainly his most important and enduring contribution to Dickinson College is his personal sponsorship of The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues (formerly The Clarke Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Contemporary Issues). He continues to help guide the development of The Forum in his capacity as chairman of The Clarke Forum board.
Steven C. Clemons, (Senior Fellow and Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation)
Mr. Clemons serves as executive vice president of the New America Foundation, a centrist policy think tank in Washington, D.C. From 1987-1994, Steve Clemons served as executive director of the Japan America Society of Southern California. In 1994, he became executive director of the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, a bipartisan foreign and domestic policy center founded and supported by the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation. In 1995, Clemons became senior policy adviser for International and Economic Affairs to U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) from 1995 to 1997. From 1997-99, Clemons served as executive vice president of the Economic Strategy Institute, a centrist economic policy think tank in Washington. Steve Clemons also co-founded with Chalmers Johnson the Japan Policy Research Institute (JPRI) in 1994 and still serves as director of JPRI. Clemons previously served on the Advisory Board to the Center for U.S.-Japan Relations at the RAND Corporation and is presently on the advisory board of The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Steve Clemons is also a co-founder and Executive Committee member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy. Clemons also maintains a personal website with various writing and commentary at www.TheWashingtonNote.com. Clemons publishes articles widely in journals and newspapers in the U.S., Middle East, Europe, and Asia on American security and defense policy and on U.S.-Japan relations and is a frequent contributor on national radio and news programs. Clemons is also an avid marathon runner, fisherman, and collector of contemporary art. He is also a member of many of the nation’s leading foreign policy and economic policy associations.
Yvonne Y Haddad
Yvonne Haddad is professor of History of Islam and Christian Muslim Relations in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She is the past president of the Middle East Association of North America. Her fields of expertise include: Islamic Thought in the Modern World, Women in Islam, Muslims in the West and Arab Intellectuals. Her most recent books include: Not Quite American? The Shaping of Arab and Muslim Identity in the United States, and Muslim Women in America: Gender, Islam and Society.
Howard J. Lalli, Class of ‘90 (Senior Vice President, Edelman)
Howard J. Lalli, a senior vice president at Edelman, is a recent graduate of the Institute for Georgia Environmental Leadership, a selective program of the University of Georgia’s Fanning Institute dedicated to building a diverse network of environmentally-educated leaders. His work in sustainable development began five years ago with his stewardship of the environmental reputation of Atlantic Station, one of the country’s largest, mixed-use, public-private partnership brownfield redevelopments. That work continues today in his advisory role with the BeltLine initiative to increase greenspace, improve transit, connect neighborhoods and foster livable communities around a 22-mile loop of historic railroad encircling downtown and midtown Atlanta. He serves on the development and communications committee of the Georgia Conservancy and is a member of the Urban Land Institute.
Prior to joining Edelman in 2001, Lalli worked for a decade in media, beginning with The Conde Nast Publications’ Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, where he served as assistant managing editor under Tina Brown. He would later work with Brown again as the founding managing editor of Talk magazine, a Miramax Films/Hearst Publishing joint venture. In between, Lalli served as the founding editor of The Palm Beach and Boca/Delray Jewish Times, community newspapers in Florida and the founding publisher and editor of the re-launched Central PA regional magazine, published by public broadcaster WITF in Harrisburg, Pa. Lalli has also served as executive editor of Atlanta magazine; written a media column for Creative Loafing, an Atlanta alternative newspaper; and hosted radio programs and appeared on “The Georgia Gang,” a public affairs TV program. Lalli was honored as Dickinson’s first recipient of its Outstanding Young Alumnus award in 2005.
Ron Simon, Class of ‘73, (Curator, The Paley Center for Media)
Ron Simon has spent the last 25 years working at The Paley Center for Media (formerly The Museum of TV & Radio) in New York City where he is currently the curator. Exhibits he has helped to create range from “Worlds without End: The Art and History of the Soap Opera” to “Witness to History,” a thematic investigation of how electronic media have brought a shared experience of the world and history within reach. As the 30-year-old museum focuses its gaze more internationally, Simon has become more involved in cross-cultural projects, including a retrospective of British writer Dennis Potter and a survey of German television after reunification. He also teaches graduate courses in the film studies department at both New York and Columbia Universities. Ron graduated from Dickinson in 1973 and later received his M.A. in film from Columbia University.
Simon has written for many publications, including The Encyclopedia of Television and Thinking Outside of the Box: A Contemporary Television Reader, as well as serving as member of the editorial board of Television Quarterly and a judge on the George Foster Peabody committee.
Marjorie Speers, Ph.D. Class of ‘78 (Executive Director, Association of Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs, Inc. (AHRPP))
Marjorie Speers is currently the executive director of AAHRPP, a national accrediting entity. She formerly served as the acting executive director at the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, on detail from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Speers joined the National Bioethics Advisory Committee (NBAC) in 1999 as project director for a comprehensive report on human subjects protection in the United States. From 1995-2000, she was deputy associate director for science at the CDC in Atlanta, where she oversaw all domestic and international research. From 1991-1995 she served as director of the Division of Chronic Disease Control and Community Intervention at CDC. Dr. Speers holds doctoral degrees in psychology and epidemiology from Yale University, and has held teaching positions at the University of Connecticut and the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Douglas T. Stuart, (Former Clarke Center Director and Professor of International Studies)
In October of 2001, Professor Douglas Stuart became the first holder of the J. William and Helen D. Stuart Chair in International Studies at Dickinson College. Between 1998 and 2003 Professor Stuart served as director of The Clarke Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Contemporary Issues (now named The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues). Since 2001 he also serves as an adjunct professor at the U.S. Army War College. Professor Stuart is the author or editor of six books, four monographs, and over 30 published articles dealing with international affairs. He is a member of the editorial board of Westview Press (Dilemmas in World Politics series), a Councillor with the Atlantic Council (Washington, D.C.), and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS, London) and the Italian Institute for International Affairs (IAI, Rome). Dr. Stuart is a former NATO Fellow, and a regular lecturer at the U.S. Army War College and other U.S. military institutions. He has been a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. (1989-90), the IISS in London (1994) and the George Washington University (1997-98). Professor Stuart received his Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Southern California in 1979. Prior to coming to Dickinson, Professor Stuart taught for the Johns Hopkins (SAIS) Graduate Program in Bologna, Italy.
