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At this pivotal moment in America's history, join us on Thursday evenings for expert-led discussions with leading thinkers on how best to preserve and strengthen our democracy.

Highlights include:

• Gen Z's Essential Role in Our Shared Future
• America's Foundational Documents
• The Nexus of Education and Democracy
• Media Influence and Free Speech
• Economic and Technological Instability
• The Global Drift into Authoritarianism

Course Description

Almost a century ago, Franklin D. Roosevelt alerted Americans to the impending global conflict pitting democracies founded on individual liberty against rising fascist dictatorships pursuing “final solutions.” Drawing inspiration from John Dewey’s progressive philosophy, FDR emphasized, "In this conflict the part which education plays in each ideology is crucial. Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely." This course examines the building blocks and animating principles of representative democracy. We focus on education as the bedrock of an informed citizenry that champions the principles and freedoms at the heart of American democracy.

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Speakers Schedule & Recordings

Expand the sections below to read a course overview for each week. Recordings of each session will also be posted below.

Speaker Bios

Andrea Bernstein is a Fall 2024 Presidential Fellow at 51��������, teaching the course Campaign Coverage in an Age of Disinformation. A Peabody and duPont Columbia award-winning journalist, Andrea Bernstein is the author of the New York Times best-selling book American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps and the Marriage of Money and Power.  She co-hosted the podcasts "We Don't Talk About Leonard," "Will Be Wild" (which hit #1 on Apple), and "Trump, Inc." She covered the five trials against Donald Trump and his company in New York for NPR, and previously worked at New York Public Radio, where she investigated government and politics, including six presidential elections. She has taught journalism at Hunter College and City College, and trained journalists in Bhutan how to cover that nation's first-ever presidential election. Photo credit: Matthew Septimus.

Casey Bohlen is the Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor in History and Public Discourse at Smith College. He specializes in the history of religion and public life in the modern United States, with broader interests in the history of American social thought, capitalism, and political movements. 

Ciji Dodds’ scholarship exposes hidden structures within the law and how they sustain domestic and international systems of white supremacy. Specifically, she interrogates the degree to which the law retains vestiges of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism. Ciji’s scholarly objectives are to produce a body of work composed of novel legal frameworks and to challenge the legal academy’s traditional understandings of scholarship.

James H. Douglas is an American politician from the state of Vermont. A Republican, he served as the 80th governor of Vermont from 2003 to 2011. He is an executive in residence at . Douglas currently serves on the Governors’ Council of the in Washington, DC.

Anthony Paul Farley is a professor at Albany Law School. He has taught at Rutgers, Texas Southern University, and the University of Kentucky, among others. Farley’s recent essays have appeared in Anti-blackness (Jung & Costa Vargas eds., Duke: 2021), Hamilton & the Law (Tucker ed., Cornell: 2020); The Washington Post (2018), and elsewhere. 

Dr. Richard Haass, a veteran diplomat and  respected international relations scholar, is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) after serving as CFR’s president for twenty years. He is the author of The Bill of Obligations and a senior counselor with Centerview Partners, an international investment banking advisory firm.

Kesha Ram Hinsdale is the first woman of color to serve in the Vermont State Senate and is chair of the Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs Committee. Kesha teaches Structural Inequality and Environmental Justice at Vermont Law & Graduate School.

Svante Myrick is the president of People For the American Way. He is one of the most dynamic young, progressive Black leaders today. Myrick garnered national media attention as the youngest-ever mayor of Ithaca, New York, where he was a leading reformer on drug policy, the environment, and public safety. 

Laurie L. Patton is the 17th president of Middlebury, and the first woman to lead the institution in its 222-year history. Patton joined Middlebury in 2015 after serving as dean of Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and as the Robert F. Durden Professor of Religion. In her inaugural address, Patton described a vision of a Middlebury that would actively engage with the most challenging issues facing society and challenged the community “to have more and better arguments, with greater respect, stronger resilience, and deeper wisdom.”

David Rohde is the national security editor at NBC News and a former executive editor of The New Yorker's website. A two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, he is a former foreign correspondent and investigative reporter for the New York Times, Reuters and the Christian Science Monitor who covered the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bosnia. He is the author of five books, including Where Tyranny Begins: The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War on Democracy, and A Rope and A Prayer: The Story of a Kidnapping, about his capture by the Taliban. His new book was , and he . 

Andrew Weissmann is a Professor of Practice at NYU Law School. He teaches courses in national security and criminal procedure. Andrew served as a lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office (2017–19) and as Chief of the Fraud Section in the Department of Justice (2015–2019). From 2011 to 2013, Weissmann served as the General Counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Andrew is the co-host of the popular podcast Prosecuting Donald Trump and is a frequent legal analyst for NBC/MSNBC. He serves on the board of Just Security and writes frequently for it, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post. His memoir about the Special Counsel investigation, Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation, was a New York Times bestseller.

Student and Alumni Bios

Bennington students and alumni and others will share their experiences in their countries and bring the consequences of failed democracy into sharp focus for participants. 

Abraar Arpon ’26 is an Endeavor Foundation Environmental Action Fellow and Davis Project for Peace honoree. He has been at the forefront of creating websites that enhance accessibility and civic engagement, including MyBallot.info, a comprehensive voter information hub, and AudioCane, which fosters inclusivity in education for visually challenged students.

Paige Colby ‘25 is a senior at 51�������� studying philosophy, gender studies, and education reform. She was previously a member of the Student Council for two years where she served on the College’s Long Term Working Group for Free Expression. She is currently involved on campus as a House Chair, First-Year Forum Co-Leader, and President of Bennington’s Planned Parenthood Generation Action Chapter.

Isabella Ramírez is a rising senior at Columbia University studying sociology. She serves as the 148th Editor in Chief and President of the Columbia Daily Spectator, where she helmed the newspaper’s coverage of protests over the war in Gaza and led a collaboration with New York Magazine. She has worked as a breaking news intern at POLITICO and a social media editor at The Daily Beast. In the fall, Isabella will join NBC News’ politics team as an academic year intern.

Marta Shcharbakova ’23 is a Belarusian, San Francisco-based artist and educator. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at 51�������� in 2023, and is currently working in the New Village School as a music, art and “Classroom Without Walls" teacher in Sausalito, CA.

Samuel De Sousa, a recent 51�������� graduate from Venezuela, has a strong passion for organized civil society, public action, and theater. They are currently working as a production assistant at the Pregones / Puerto Rican Traveling Theater in New York City and interning with the international non-profit organization Partners of the Americas.