Although the Fall 2008 Athenaeum schedule has not been finalized, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd will be coming to CMC this semester.  Karl Rove is slated to speak September 15 as a Res Publica Speaker; Maureen Dowd will speak November 17 as a President’s Office Speaker, according to information posted on the Athenaeum website.

Living up to its reputation, the Athenaeum is bringing us two very ideologically opposed speakers.  In a recent column of Dowd’s, she criticizes Rove’s tactics:

“Actually, that sounds more like W.

Most CMCers don’t know how the Athenaeum program started, or that CMCers used to hire typists for their senior theses, but one alumnus-in-residence remembers.

It was a leisurely, rainy and blustery Friday afternoon when I stepped inside CMC’s Claremont Boulevard building. After insisting that I help myself to some flower-shaped pieces of fruit, John Faranda, perhaps one of the most known CMC personalities, ushered me into his office.

New York Times columnist and conservative pundit David Brooks gave a speech at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum tonight. The speech was followed by an extended question-answer session, in the main dining room filled to capacity with CMC students, faculty and a number of guests.

“Being a conservative columnist at the New York Times is like being Chief Rabbi at Mecca,” joked Brooks about working for a newspaper that many believe to have liberal-leaning ideologies.

A former official in the Nixon, Ford, Clinton and Reagan Administrations, David Gergen describes himself as an independent. Last Tuesday, February 12th at the Athenaeum, Mr. Gergen gave his view of both the Republican and Democratic candidates for President, and the direction that the country is going over the next four years.

Mr. Gergen began with a talk about the presidential race and the fresh results from Maryland, Virginia, and D.C.

On Wednesday, January 20^th, four Claremont McKenna College professors from different fields of expertise participated in an Athenaeum panel to discuss one of the most burning concerns of the 21^st century – global warming. CMC’s Emily Meinhardt (’10) moderated the panel, which offered us a wealth of valuable insights from their respective disciplines of chemistry, philosophy, government and economics as to the responsibilities and challenges we face in tackling the issue.

• Dr.