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Roger Kimball is Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books. He is an art critic for National Review and writes a regular column for PJ Media at Roger’s Rules. Mr. Kimball lectures widely and has appeared on national radio and television programs as well as the BBC.

Mr. Kimball’s latest book is The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia. He is also the author of The Rape of the Masters, Lives of the Mind: The Use and Abuse of Intelligence from Hegel to Wodehouse, and Art’s Prospect: The Challenge of Tradition in an Age of Celebrity. Other titles by Mr. Kimball include The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America and Experiments Against Reality: The Fate of Culture in the Postmodern Age. Mr. Kimball is also the author of Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education.

Mr. Kimball is a frequent contributor to many publications here and in England, including The New Criterion, The Times Literary Supplement, Modern Painters, Literary Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Public Interest, Commentary, The Spectator, The New York Times Book Review, The Sunday Telegraph, The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, National Review, and The National Interest. 

Mr. Kimball has served on the Board of Advisors of the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History, the Board of Visitors and Governors of St. John’s College, Annapolis and Santa Fe, and Transaction Publishers. He currently serves on the board of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. 

L. Brent Bozell III

L. Brent Bozell III is the Founder and President of the Media Research Center, the largest media watchdog organization in America. Since its launch in 1987, the MRC has developed the largest video archive in the world; the popular NewsBusters.org blog site; the CNSNews.com internet news service; the Business and Media Institute; the Culture and Media Institute; and in April of 2014 launched MRC Latino. In 2010, Mr. Bozell founded ForAmerica, an organization committed to restoring America to its founding principles. In 1998, Mr. Bozell founded and was the first president of the Parents Television Council, the largest group in America dedicated to a restoring responsibility to Hollywood. He founded the Conservative Victory Committee PAC in 1987. Before founding the MRC, Mr. Bozell was the finance director and later the president of the National Conservative Political Action Committee.

Mr. Bozell's bi-weekly column is syndicated by Creators Syndicate to over 50 media outlets nationwide. His writings have also appeared in numerous other outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Review, and USA Today. He is the author of numerous books, including And That's the Way It Is(n't) (with Brent Baker), Weapons of Mass Distortion, and Whitewash (with Tim Graham). His most recent book, Collusion: How the Media Stole the 2012 Election (with Tim Graham), was a national bestseller. Mr. Bozell serves on numerous boards of public policy, religious and artistic organizations. He received his B.A. in History from the University of Dallas.

Prof. Donald Kagan

Donald Kagan is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Classics and History at Yale University, where he has taught for more than forty years. A former dean of Yale College, Professor Kagan earned his master’s degree in classics from Brown University and his doctoral degree in history from Ohio State University in 1958. Before coming to Yale in 1969, Kagan taught at Pennsylvania State University and Cornell University. From 1988-93, Kagan served as a member of the National Council on the Humanities.

His many publications include On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, The Peloponnesian War, and Thucydides: The Reinvention of History. He was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Bush in 2002, and in 2005 delivered the 34th Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual and public achievement in the humanities. 

John Spagnola '79

John Spagnola graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Political Science. He played three years of varsity football, was two-time All-Ivy First Team, and finished his career as the all-time leading receiver with 88 receptions and 1554 yards. Drafted in the 9th round by the New England Patriots, Mr. Spagnola was released at the end of training camp and picked up by the Philadelphia Eagles in time for the season opener. Mr. Spagnola spent the majority of his pro career in Philadelphia, playing for nine seasons, eight active and starting for five seasons. In 1988, Mr. Spagnola played a year with the Seattle Seahawks and finished his career with the Green Bay Packers in 1989. During his career, he also served as a player representative and executive vice president of the NFL Players Association.

After his playing days ended, Mr. Spagnola pursued a career in broadcasting, working for ABC Sports and covering college football. For eight seasons he served as a color analyst, sideline reporter and studio analyst. He also started an investment consulting business in 1992. This company was later sold to the PFM Group where Mr. Spagnola serves as a Managing Director. Mr. Spagnola has taught courses on managing public funds for the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, St. Rose of Lima Parish, and the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.

Richard West '60

Richard R. West is Dean Emeritus of New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. During his deanship, the School received Mr. Stern’s naming gift, then one of the largest benefactions in the history of management education in the United States, increased the number of endowed professorships threefold, and  constructed the  state of the art Henry Kaufman Management Education Center at NYU’s Washington Square campus. When Dean West stepped down, NYU named the School’s deanship in his honor.

Prior to joining NYU, Richard R. West was Dean of Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School, where he also held the Leverone Finance Chair. His other academic appointments included serving as Dean of the University of Oregon’s School of Business and Associate Dean  of Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of  Management. He has also held senior visiting appointments at the University of Alberta and Yale University, as well as major fellowships sponsored by the Carnegie, Ford and Woodrow Wilson Foundations.

Dean West’s teaching and research interests lie in the areas of securities markets, investment banking, accounting and corporate governance. He is the author (or co-author) of 3 books and more than 50 refereed articles, including one that received the Graham & Dodd Award. In addition, he has been a contributor of numerous “op/ed” articles, letters to the editor, and book reviews in places such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Financial Times.

Throughout his academic career Dean West maintained an active practice as a consultant, director, expert witness and private investor. He has been a director of more than a dozen New York Stock Exchange listed companies, where he frequently served as chair of the audit and/or compensation committees. His current directorships include Vornado Realty Trust and Alexander’s Inc.

Dean West has served on the Accounting Education Change Commission, the boards of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), the College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF), the National Council on Economic Education, and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, where he was the Chairman.

Dean West received his BA (1960), summa cum laude, from Yale University and his MBA (1963) and PhD (1964) from the University of Chicago.  He also holds the MA (Hon) from Dartmouth College (1980).

Michael Franc '79

Mike Franc recently accepted a dual appointment as a Research Fellow and Director of Washington, D.C. Programs at The Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank and research institution located at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Franc’s mission is to connect Hoover’s scholars and their academic work with the many audiences in Washington, as well as writing and commenting on policy developments in Washington. Prior to joining Hoover, Franc served as Policy Director and Counsel for House Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Prior to that, for nearly 20 years Franc was Vice President for Government Studies at the Heritage Foundation, where he oversaw all Capitol Hill outreach for the think tank, was quoted widely in the print and broadcast media, and was a regular contributor to National Review Online and other publications. He also served as Communications Director for former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), and put in two stints in the Executive Branch, at the Department of Education and the Office of National Drug Control Policy. A native of New York City, Franc received his undergraduate degree in History from Yale University and his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. He has four children, two dogs, and seven fish. 

Terry Holcombe '64

Terry Holcombe graduated from Yale College in 1964. From 1975 to 1998, he served Yale in various capacities, working directly for Presidents Brewster, Gray, Giamatti, Schmidt, Lamar, and Levin. He oversaw three successful capital campaigns during his 20 years as Vice President for Development and Alumni Affairs. He was awarded the Yale Medal in  2011. He has also been Vice President at Columbia University. Prior to his work at Yale, he was the Executive Director of ACCION, the first microfinance program in Latin America. His consulting activities after Yale have reached from the American University in Cairo to several Ivy League colleges, and have also included charities such as the Special Olympics International and Save the Children. He holds an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, an honorary MA from Yale, and an honorary PhD from Muskingum University.

William F. B. O'Reilly

Bill O’Reilly is a New York-based political and corporate communications strategist and a twice-weekly columnist for Newsday. He is a founding partner at The November Team. 

Bill has run strategic communications campaigns in dozens of states around the country and has served as a spokesman for myriad conservative candidates and causes in his 30-year career. He regularly appears on local and national television and radio to share political insights, and he co-hosts a weekly FIOS1 public affairs program called "Newsbreakers." 

Bill was a partner at O’Reilly Strategic Communications, which he sold in 2008, and a press officer in the New York State Senate and the New York City Council. He is a former board member of the American Association of Political Consultants. 

Lauren Noble '11

Lauren Noble is the founder and executive director of the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale, which she started as a senior in college. She graduated from Yale University in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in history. From 2011 to 2012, Noble worked as a research analyst and communications writer for Governor Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. There, she drafted press releases and op-eds for national and regional publications. 

She is the recipient of the National Association of Scholars' 2013 Barry R. Gross Memorial Award for academic reform. Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, and other outlets. 

James Piereson

James Piereson is president of the William E. Simon Foundation, a private, New York City grant-making foundation. Piereson is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York where he is director of the Center for the American University and chairman of the selection committee for the Veritas Fund, which allocates grants to programs on college and university campuses. Piereson was executive director and trustee of the John M. Olin Foundation from 1985 to 2005 when the foundation closed its doors. Before joining the John. M. Olin Foundation, he served on the political science faculties of several prominent universities, including Iowa State University (1974), Indiana University (1975), and the University of Pennsylvania (1976–82), where he taught courses on US government and political thought. 

Piereson is also trustee of the William E. Simon Foundation and  serves on the boards of several other tax-exempt institutions, including the Pinkerton Foundation, the Thomas W. Smith Foundation, the Center for Individual Rights, the Philanthropy Roundtable, the Foundation for Cultural Review (chairman), the American Spectator Foundation, the Hoover Institution, Donors Trust, and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He is a member of the selection committee for the Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in the Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering, and is chairman of the selection committee for the Hayek Book Prize. He is also a member of the Grant Advisory Committee of the Searle Freedom Trust and of the publication committees of City Journal and National Affairs. Piereson is likewise a member of the executive advisory committee of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester, of the board of visitors of the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, and of the advisory council of the Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom at Claremont McKenna College.

He is the author of Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism (Encounter Books, 2007) and, with J. Sullivan and G. Marcus, of Political Tolerance and American Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 1982). He is the editor of The Pursuit of Liberty: Can the Ideals That Made America Great Provide a Model for the World (Encounter Books, 2008). He has also published articles and reviews in numerous journals, including Commentary, Philanthropy, The American Spectator, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and National Review.

Hon. James L. Buckley '44

Emeritus Director

James L. Buckley served as a United States Senator for the state of New York and as a judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge Buckley also served as an under secretary of State and, later, as President of Radio Free Europe during the Reagan administration. He was the lead petitioner in the landmark Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo, which shaped modern campaign finance law. Judge Buckley is the author of three books, most recently Freedom at Risk: Reflections on Politics, Liberty, and the State. He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.