Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Rajiv Vinnakota is the seventh president of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation). Prior to joining C&S in July 2019, Vinnakota served as the EVP of the Youth & Engagement division at the Aspen Institute. For 18 years, Vinnakota was the co-founder and CEO of The SEED Foundation, the nation’s first network of public, college-preparatory boarding schools for underserved children. In addition to being a former trustee and executive committee member for Princeton University, Vinnakota is the former national chair of its annual giving committee. He majored in molecular biology and also earned a certificate of studies from the Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs & Public Policy.

A renowned scholar and innovator in higher education and global justice reform and graduate of Wesleyan University and Yale Law, Hiram Chodosh is president of Claremont McKenna College, a recognized leader in freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and constructive dialogue through CMC’s nationally recognized Open Academy. Chodosh has also worked closely with Vinnakota and the Institute for Citizens and Scholars on a large national collaboration of college and university presidents to raise levels of civic preparedness and leadership.

A lawyer by training, Vernon C. Grigg III, Executive Director of the Kravis Lab for Civic Leadership, holds degrees from Yale Law School (J.D.), the London School of Economics (G.SC.), and the University of Michigan (BA). Grigg comes to the Kravis Lab from his role as CEO & President of Up with People, a fifty-five-year-old international nonprofit education and arts organization where he managed a global team of 50 employees across three continents and led the nonprofit to sustainability and health despite the challenges of the worldwide pandemic.

This discussion on civic leadership is co-sponsored by the President's Leaders Forum and the Kravis Lab for Civic Leadership.

Jared Polis, the 43rd Governor of Colorado, is an entrepreneur, education leader, and public servant. After launching several successful companies, including one out of his college dorm room, Polis committed himself to making sure other Coloradans had the opportunity to pursue their dreams. Polis founded schools for at-risk students and new immigrants and started nonprofits to help veterans and entrepreneurs.

Prior to serving as Governor, Polis served on the State Board of Education where he worked to raise pay for teachers and reduce class size for students, and represented Colorado's 2nd Congressional district, where he was rated the most effective member of the Colorado delegation.

As Governor, Polis has focused on saving Coloradans money, keeping our economy strong, and preserving our Colorado way of life. Polis delivered universal free full-day kindergarten, signed a number of bills to save families money on health care, and made significant progress towards the goal of 100% renewable energy by 2040, all while cutting taxes for small businesses and investing in affordable housing and transportation. His efforts to expand health care access to medically underserved communities and to ensure that equity and justice remain central to building a Colorado for All have produced impactful legislation and made progress toward his administration’s bold vision. 

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David Dreier '75 was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1980, where he served until January 2013. In Congress, he became the youngest — and the first Californian — chairman of the Rules Committee, playing a pivotal role in shaping all legislation for House debate. Dreier, a former chair of Tribune Publishing and a passionate advocate for press freedom, founded the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation to build the first public memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., celebrating press freedom and honoring slain journalists. Dreier received his B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and his M.A. in American government from Claremont Graduate University the following year. He serves as a trustee at CMC.

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John J. Pitney, Jr. is Roy P. Crocker Professor of American History and Politics at Claremont McKenna College where he teaches courses on Congress, interest groups, political parties, and mass media. A leading expert on the structure and practice of American politics, Pitney is a widely published author or co-author of six books on American politics, including The Art of Political Warfare (2000), The Politics of Autism (2015) and Un-American: The Fake Patriotism of Donald J. Trump (2020). In addition to his books, Pitney has published numerous scholarly articles and short essays, and is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines. He is routinely featured on NPR and other television and radio programs.

This Civility Award and subsequent discussion is sponsored by the Dreier Roundtable at CMC.

Steph Cha is the author of Your House Will Pay, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the California Book Award, and the Juniper Song crime trilogy. She’s a critic whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she served as noir editor, and is the current series editor of the Best American Mystery & Suspense anthology. A native of the San Fernando Valley, she lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Ms. Cha will deliver the 2024-2025 Golo Mann Lecture, sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at CMC.

POSTPONED - This event has been postponed -- more information will be released as it is available.

Andrew P. Miller is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP), working on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other Middle East issues. He previously served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs from 2022 to 2024 and worked at the National Security Council on Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinians during the Obama Administration.

Prior to this, he served as a Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, covering the Middle East and North Africa, counterterrorism, political-military affairs, and intelligence. From 2017 to 2020, Miller was the Deputy Director for Policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and a Nonresident Scholar in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program.

Miller’s previous government assignments included serving as the Director for Egypt and Israel Military Issues on President Obama’s National Security Council from 2014 to 2017, where he was involved in deliberations regarding U.S. security assistance to Egypt and Israel and Middle East Peace, among other issues. He also worked at the U.S. Department of State in a variety of intelligence and policy roles, including in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff, and at the U.S. Embassies in Cairo and Doha. Miller earned a B.A. in Political Science from Dickinson College and an M.A. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.

Mr. Miller's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at CMC.

Raised in segregated Mineola, Texas, Willie L. Brown, Jr., first became interested in government while attending San Francisco State College, where he participated in campus politics and in the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP. After earning a degree in political science, he went to Hastings law school, where he was elected president of his class. Few African American attorneys practiced in San Francisco at the time, and Brown made a name for himself by taking on cases others dismissed as hopeless.

Elected to the Assembly in 1964, Brown played an important role in the California Democratic Party throughout the 1960s and into the ’70s. He made his first impact on the national stage in 1972, when he electrified delegates to the Democratic National Convention with a fiery speech delivered during a credentials fight.

From civil rights to education reform, tax policy, economic development, health care, international trade, domestic partnerships and affirmative action, Brown left his mark on virtually every aspect of politics and public policy in California. From 1980 to 1995 he exercised unprecedented power in the legislature as the longest-serving speaker of the Assembly in state history. Then, as Mayor of San Francisco, he refurbished and rebuilt one of the nation’s busiest transit systems, pioneered the use of bond measures to build affordable housing, created a model juvenile justice system and paved the way for a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco, to anchor the city’s position as a center for the burgeoning field of biotechnology.

After leaving office in 2004, Brown wrote a regular newspaper column for the San Francisco Chronicle, hosted a daily radio program and became a frequent commentator on the national cable news network MSNBC. He shared the lessons of his life—in and out of politics—in his 2008 autobiography “Basic Brown.” Today, Brown heads the Willie L. Brown, Jr., Institute on Politics and Public Service, where this acknowledged master of the art of politics shares his knowledge and skills with a new generation of California leaders.

Mayor Brown's visit to the Athenaeum is co-sponsored by the Kravis Lab for Civic Leadership.

Dr. Levi Allen is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Indiana State University. His research focuses primarily on the confluence of religion and politics and how voters make decisions when their identities cross-pressure one another. His current book project, entitled Political Heretics?: Why Voters Defect from their Social Identities, focuses on how white born-again Christians who identify as Democrats balance their competing identities. His work has been published in such outlets such as Political Research Quarterly, American Politics Research, and Advances in Political Psychology.

Gastón Espinosa (chair) is the Arthur V. Stoughton professor of religious studies at Claremont McKenna College and the co-editor of the Columbia University Press Series in Religion & Politics. He has directed seven Latino national surveys and is the author or editor of Latino Religions & Politics in American Public Life (in progress), Race, Religion, Gender & the American Presidency (Spring 2025), Religion, Race & Barack Obama's New Democratic Pluralism, Religion & American Presidency: Washington to Bush, and Latino Religions & Civic Activism in the United States.

Dalia Fahmy is associate professor of political science at Long Island University and is a senior fellow at The Center for Global Policy in Washington DC. She is the author or editor of The Rise and Fall of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Future of Political Islam (forthcoming), Arab Spring: Modernity, Identity and Change, and Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy. She has published widely in scholarly journals and written editorials in media outlets including ABC, CNN, and the Washington Post.

Andra Gillespie is associate professor of political science at Emory University. She specializes in African American politics, post-Civil Rights leadership, and political participation and is the author of Race and the Obama Administration: Substance, Symbols and Hope and the New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America. Dr. Gillespie writes broadly for both scholarly and public venues, including Journal of Race and Policy, American Politics Review, Phylon, and the National Political Science Review.

Jerry Z. Park is associate professor of sociology and an affiliate fellow of the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion. His research explores religion, race, identity, politics, and civic participation and his work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including Sociological Perspectives, Religions, Social Problems, The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Social Psychology Quarterly, Review of Religious Research, and the American Journal of Sociology.

Imam Hadi Qazwani is the Muslim Chaplain at the Claremont Colleges Chaplaincy Center. After growing up in Iraq, he pursued Islamic studies at the pre-eminent seminary in Iran for six years before returning to the U.S. to graduate from UC Irvine. He earned his Ph.D from U.S.C. in Religious Studies, with aa focus on Islamic Studies. He has spoken on key issues affecting the U.S. Muslim community, including the intersection of religion, politics, and social change.

Rabbi Danny Lutz is the Jewish Chaplain at the Claremont Colleges Chaplaincy Center. He received his Master of Arts in Rabbinic Studies from American Jewish University and has spoken on many topics critical to the Jewish experience and identity, including in interfaith dialogue, Israel/Palestine, and politics and social change.

This conference is co-sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World, the Rose Institute of State and Local Government, the Kravis Lab for Civic Leadership, and the Department of Religious Studies, all at CMC.

Full conference info:

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John J. Pitney, Jr. is Roy P. Crocker Professor of American History and Politics at Claremont McKenna College where he teaches courses on Congress, interest groups, political parties, and mass media. A leading expert on the structure and practice of American politics, Pitney is a widely published author or co-author of six books on American politics, including The Art of Political Warfare (2000), The Politics of Autism (2015) and Un-American: The Fake Patriotism of Donald J. Trump (2020). In addition to his books, Pitney has published numerous scholarly articles and short essays, and is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines. He is routinely featured on NPR and other television and radio programs.

Ralph Lee currently leads projects on Orthodox Christianity at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. He supervises doctoral students at OCMS and at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, and leads a research project on spiritual formation in the Ethiopian Church in partnership with Sankt Ignatios College, Södertälje, Sweden.

Born in Pasadena, Pae White is a resident of Los Angeles, White received an MFA from Art Center College of Design and studied at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine, after receiving her bachelor’s degree from Scripps College in 1985. White’s work has recently been featured in solo exhibitions at Elvira Gonzalez, Madrid, Spain (2024) and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, CA (2023). White has created major public art works worldwide for the Oslo Opera House, Norway and Los Angeles International Airport among many others. Her works are part of prominent public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Tate Modern, London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; SFMOMA; MAK, Vienna; The Art Institute of Chicago; and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

This event is co-sponsored by the CMC Public Art Program and Scripps Fine Arts Foundation.

Gastón Espinosa is the Arthur V. Stoughton professor of religious studies at Claremont McKenna College and the co-editor of the Columbia University Press Series in Religion & Politics. He has directed seven Latino national surveys and is the author of numerous book including Latino Religions & Politics in American Public Life (in progress), Latino Pentecostals in America: Faith & Politics in Action, Religion, Race & Barack Obama’s New Democratic Pluralism,Religion, Race & the American Presidency, Religion & American Presidency: Washington to Bush, and Latino Religions & Civic Activism in the United States. 

Kenneth P. Miller is the Don H. and Edessa Rose Professor of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College, where he serves as Director of the Rose Institute of State and Local Government. Miller’s scholarship focuses on state and local politics, constitutional law, and political polarization. His publications include Texas vs. California: A History of Their Struggle for the Future of America (Oxford 2020), Direct Democracy and the Courts (Cambridge 2009), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on topics including the initiative process, political geography, state constitutionalism, state supreme courts, and voting rights.

Imam Dr. Hadi Qazwini is an Islamic scholar, educator, and community leader with almost 20 years of experience in facilitating religious and spiritual engagement among diverse Muslim and interfaith communities and settings. He has served as an imam and educator in several communities in Southern California and across the country. He has also traveled extensively across the world, providing culturally competent and mindful spiritual and religious education and promoting holistic wellbeing. Imam Dr. Qazwini grew up and attended school in Pomona. During his childhood, he often visited Claremont with his family and enjoyed taking walks in the Village and through the Claremont Colleges campuses. After high school, he started his undergraduate studies at the University of California Irvine, and following his sophomore year, decided to pursue rigorous traditional Islamic studies training in the preeminent seminary (hawza ‘ilmiyya) of Qum, Iran. After spending 6 years (2004-2010) pursuing advanced training in several Islamic studies disciplines such as Quranic studies, theology, philosophy, and law, he returned home and completed his BA in Sociology at UCI (2011). He then came to Claremont, earning his MA in Islamic Studies and Leadership at Claremont School of Theology and Bayan Islamic Graduate School (2014). Finally, Imam Dr. Qazwini earned his PhD in Religion with a focus on Islamic Studies at the University of Southern California (2022). During his PhD career, he worked closely with students at several local university campuses, providing spiritual care and counseling and assisting in developing student-facing programs.

An experienced spiritual counselor, Rabbi Danny Lutz is passionate about community building and working with students to facilitate deep learning and spiritual connection. Rabbi Danny was ordained in the Conservative Movement and is a member of the Rabbinical Assembly. He has served as spiritual leader at Der Nister in Downtown Los Angeles and worked as a spiritual counselor at Beit T’Shuvah, an addiction recovery center in Culver City.  Most recently, he was the Senior Jewish Educator for the University of Guelph Hillel in Ontario, Canada. In addition to providing education and spiritual guidance to the students and staff at Guelph, he facilitated the work of the educator team across Hillel Ontario. Rabbi Danny is also a carpenter and has worked extensively in theatre, as well as teaching woodworking to campers at Ramah Darom, creating beautiful ritual objects. Danny received his Ordination and Master of Arts in Rabbinic Studies from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University in 2020. Rabbi Danny and his wife, Rachel, a genetic counselor, recently relocated to La Verne and are thrilled to be back in California. 

This event is co-sponsored by the CMC Department of Religious Studies.

POSTPONED - This event has been postponed -- more information will be released as it is available.

Ellen Ketels serves as the Associate Dean of the Faculty for Curriculum and Associate Professor of Literature at CMC. She received her B.A. in Drama from Washington University in 2000, her M.A. in Late Medieval Studies from The Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York in 2002, and her Ph.D. in English from Columbia University in 2009. She sang professionally in New York City with a small jazz ensemble for many years. Since moving to Claremont, she has remained an avid theatregoer and has sung with lots of different ensembles in the LA area.

As a sophomore pursuing a dual major in Economics and Art History, Tiffany Choi '27 brings an interdisciplinary approach that merges analytical rigor with a profound appreciation for cultural and artistic movements. Originally from Seattle, she is a Gould Center fellow, actively engaging in exploring the evolving role of the humanities. Her artistic portfolio has won her national recognition and spans multiple mediums, including charcoal, soft pastels, acrylics, and digital, demonstrating a versatile and refined creative practice.

This relaxed evening at the Athenaeum is co-sponsored by ASCMC.
 

Robin Bartlett '67 grew up in a three-generation military family, and as the Vietnam war escalated, he enrolled in ROTC when entering college at CMC in 1963. Upon graduation as a Distinguished Military Graduate, he volunteered for Infantry, Airborne, and Ranger training, and assignment to the famed 82d Airborne Division. He got everything he asked for…and more. He led his platoon on more than 50 helicopter combat assaults and search and destroy missions in I Corps parallel to the DMZ and Laotian border in South Vietnam.

His book, Vietnam Combat: Firefights and Writing History, published by Casemate Publishers in March 2023, relates his unusual experiences during that war...some horrific, some humorous. The book has recently won the Independent Publisher Book Award, the Army Historical Foundation Award, and the Military Writers Society of America award for Military Nonfiction. Bartlett holds a master’s degree in media from Pace University in NYC and a BA degree in Comparative Literature from Claremont McKenna College. He is employed by CMC as a Development Outreach Partner and volunteers as an alumni interviewer and Class Liaison for 1966, 67 and 68. He is the President of the NY/NJ Chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association, and lives with his wife in Norwood, New Jersey. They have three sons, none of whom have pursued military careers.

Bartlett is the Athenaeum's Veterans Day speaker for 2024, and his presentation is co-sponsored by the Kravis Leadership Institute and the ROTC Program at CMC.

Chef Mary Sue Milliken is a James Beard and Julia Child Award-winning chef, cookbook author, media personality, and co-owner of Mundo Hospitality Group (Border Grill, BBQ Mexicana, Pacha Mamas, SOCALO, and Alice B.) with her business partner Susan Feniger. After becoming the first female chef at Chicago’s top French restaurant, Le Perroquet, in 1978, Milliken went on to work at the woman-owned, two-Michelin-star Restaurant D’Olympe in Paris, before rejoining Feniger in L.A. to launch City Café in 1981, applying French techniques to unfamiliar dishes from around the world. Milliken and Feniger brought their innovative approaches to The Food Network with the “Too Hot Tamales” and “Tamales World Tour” series, along with the Los Angeles’ popular food-centric radio show, KCRW’s “Good Food.” 

In 2011, Milliken competed on season three of Bravo’s “Top Chef Masters” and won $40,000 for her chosen charity, Share Our Strength. She has also co-authored five cookbooks. Milliken is passionate about food policy and works with nonprofits around the world to bring her expertise to help shape sustainable food systems. Milliken also serves on the Board of Trustees for the James Beard Foundation, as a member of the U. S. State Department’s American Chef Corps, and is a co-founder of Regarding Her.

Chef Milliken’s talk is part of the Roberts Environmental Center’s Sustainable Food Initiative 2024-2025.