Champlain Today

"I had to confess as I got off the plane that I've been to Kabul, but I've never been to Burlington," said Thomas Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and columnist for the New York Times, as he took to the podium to address nearly 3,000 college students, faculty, staff, and area residents on September 10.

The people in the crowd applauded, showing their appreciation to Friedman for making his first trip to Vermont, and in return they were treated to a 90-minute address that illustrated why the foreign affairs columnist is regarded as one of America's leading interpreters of world affairs. In anengaging presentation, Friedman described in layman's terms the many different forces at work in the Middle East and in America that affect the terrorism and violence we see today.

On the eve of the anniversary of the tragic 9/11 terrorist attacks, Champlain College and nearby Saint Michael's College brought this world-class speaker to town to speak to students and the community. Friedman's visit launches the new Annual Vermont Global Symposium created by an academic, business and community consortium to discuss world affairs. The Symposium serves as a forum for the presentation of viewpoints on the opportunities and challenges that globalization represents for the world community.

"The general public is affected by globalization in ways that they may not even know," said Symposium Co-Chair Tom Fitzpatrick, the International Business degree program director at Champlain College and director of the Vermont International Business Education Research (VIBER) Center. "Our first speaker, Thomas Friedman, does a beautiful job crystallizing what globalization means to us in the economic, cultural, political and social dimensions."

In between interviews on Good Morning America and the Today Show in New York, Friedman spent the day in Vermont signing his new book Longitudes and Attitudes at Champlain College and delivering the lecture about "The Global Economy and US Foreign Policy after September 11" at Saint Michael's College.

Friedman won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for international reporting from Beirut and his second in 1988 for international reporting from Israel. His books include From Beirut to Jerusalem and The Lexus and the Olive Tree. His New York Times columns on the 9/11 tragedies earned him the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary.

The new Symposium establishes a theme for discussion throughout the year; more lectures will follow on the Champlain campus. "The ideal outcome of the Symposium is to build awareness regarding globalization," said Co- Chair Tom Myers of Champlain's International Business program and the VIBER Center. "That is, to understand what globalization means to each individual and to recognize that we as a society in the United States need to be better versed in the views and opinions of other cultures because we're inextricably intertwined in the global community."