As the United States takes another step toward determining who will be on the ballot in November this week, Strauss Center Director of Studies Francis J. Gavin will be Washington, D.C., working with the nation’s brightest emerging leaders to develop innovative solutions to pressing global challenges the next president will face.

Gavin is the director of “The Next Generation Project: U.S. Global Policy and the Future of International Institutions” a nonpartisan initiative to bring together emerging talent, ranging from age 30 to 45, to discuss the global challenges of the 21st century. This Thursday through Saturday, 70 young leaders from around the country in business, government, law, technology, religion, the military, agriculture, international institutions, academia and the media, will meet in Washington. The Washington meeting culminates almost two years of discussions held across the country in regions of emerging economic and political importance. The Project’s findings and recommendations will be presented to the presidential candidates and their advisers.

Central to the Project has been identifying Next Generation Fellows ““ representing a spectrum of views, interests and backgrounds ““ and bringing them together to discuss global issues. Fellows assess whether the current national security, multilateral and international institutions are sufficient to meet the challenges of the future and explore innovative responses to an era of rapid globalization. The Project aims to build new policy networks, generate creative ideas and help shape discussion on these issues.

“This is a new world we are living in, and we need innovative approaches to meet the complex challenges the U.S. and the world face,” Gavin said. “This Assembly will build upon the creative thinking and solutions produced by diverse talent from around the country. It is our hope is that these fresh perspectives will drive the political debates about the future of America’s role in the world.”

Strauss Center Governing Board Member and Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs Dean James B. Steinberg is a member of the Project’s Senior Advisory Committee and gave the keynote address during the Project’s launch in June 2006 at the LBJ Library. “This Project has tapped extraordinarily talented young leaders to meet the pressing global challenges with creativity, civility and energy,” said Steinberg. “We are thrilled that the LBJ school has had such a crucial role in the Project’s success, as its efforts mirror the values and ideas we seek to teach our students, particularly in our new global policy studies curriculum.”

Strauss Center Governing Board Member and LBJ Centennial Chair in National Policy Admiral Bob Inman chairs the Project’s senior advisory council.

“In the grand tradition of The American Assembly, The Next Generation Project has reached broadly across the country to identify talented young women and men,” Admiral Inman said. “I expect the Washington meeting to add frosting to the cake. I believe the Project will have a long-lasting impact on how the country thinks about its largest challenges.”

Speakers at the Assembly will include:

• Richard W. Fisher, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas;
• Diana Farrell, Director, McKinsey Global Institute;
• Donald M. Kerr, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence;
• Jane Holl Lute, Assistant Secretary General, Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations;
• LTC John A. Nagl, U.S. Army, author, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam; and
• Sonal Shah, Google Development, Google.org.

The full list of Fellows, the reports from the four previous Next Generation Project meetings, held in Dallas, San Diego, Denver and Chicago, and additional information about the initiative can be found on the Project’s dedicated web site, www.nextgenerationproject.org.

The Next Generation Project is sponsored by The American Assembly. The American Assembly is affiliated with Columbia University. President Dwight D. Eisenhower founded the Assembly in 1950 as one of this country’s first nonpartisan, national public affairs forums.

• Next Generation Project Final Report