Spring Break
President Obama plans to nominate SAIS alumna Anne E. Derse, left, for Ambassador to the Republic of Lithuania.
Photo: Pier Paolo Cito / Associated Press
NEW YORK — The White House announced today that President Obama would nominate two Hopkins degree holders for ambassadorships. If confirmed by the Senate, the two would be the Hopkins alumni to be ambassadors under President Obama.
David Jacobson was an undergraduate at Hopkins and will be nominated for Ambassador to Canada. He currently serves as Special Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel. A lawyer, Jacobson earned a law degree at Georgetown University Law Center. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Jacobson served as Obama’s deputy campaign finance chair. A photo of Jacobson taken by Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times can be found HERE.
Anne Derse holds a master’s degree in International Relations from Johns Hopkins’ SAIS . She has been a member of the Senior Foreign Service since 1981. Since May 2006, Derse has been the Ambassador to the Republic of Azerbaijan. President Obama plans to nominate her for Ambassador to the Republic of Lithuania. She received her undergraduate education at Macalester College.
–Michael Szeto
blogs.jhunewsletter.com
Information about the two from the White House:
David Jacobson, Nominee for Ambassador to Canada
Mr. Jacobson is currently serving as Special Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel. Prior to serving in the White House, Mr. Jacobson spent 30 years gaining expertise in the areas of complex commercial, class action, securities, insurance and business litigation as a partner at the law firm Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal LLP. While working as a partner at Sonnenschien, Mr. Jacobson also founded AtomWorks, an organization to bring together corporate, civic and academic leaders in order to foster nanotechnology in the Midwest. He also served as a member of CEOs for Cities, a national bipartisan alliance of 75 mayors, corporate executives, university presidents and nonprofit leaders organized to advance the economic competitiveness of cities. Mr. Jacobson received a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and was the Administrative Editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. He received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University.
Anne E. Derse, Nominee for Ambassador to the Republic of Lithuania

Anne Derse is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service since 1981 and has served as Ambassador to the Republic of Azerbaijan since May 2006. As Director for Biodefense Policy at the Homeland Security Council (HSC) 2005-2006, Anne Derse helped develop the Implementation Plan for the U.S. National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. Prior to that, She helped establish the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in 2004-2005 as Minister Counselor for Economic Affairs. Ms. Derse worked as Executive Assistant in the Department of State’s Under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs from 2003-2004. As Minister Counselor for Economic Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the European Union (USEU) from 1999 to 2003, she led the USEU team managing U.S.-EU economic relations. She served as U.S. Commissioner on the Tripartite Gold Commission, adjudicating sovereign claims for gold seized by the Nazis and recovered by the Allies after World War II, while assigned as Economic Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Brussels 1997-1999. Ms. Derse helped coordinate United States’ participation in the 1996 APEC Summit as Economic Counselor and Deputy Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines 1995-1997. She served as Special Assistant for Asian Affairs to State’s Under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs from 1993 to 1995. As Finance and Development officer and Deputy Economic Counselor in Korea 1989-1993, she helped establish the Presidents’ Economic Initiative, the Dialogue for Economic Cooperation and Treasury-Ministry of Finance Financial Policy Talks. She also served as trade officer in Singapore 1985-1988, staff assistant to the Counselor of the Department of State 1983-84, and as Vice Consul in Trinidad and Tobago 1981-1983. Ms. Derse received an MA from Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Macalester College.
Johns Hopkins alumnus and Republican Party chairman Michael Steele talks to a group of high school students about his expulsion from Hopkins.
Photo: C-SPAN
LOS ANGELES — Michael Steele has gained a lot of attention early in his tenure as chairman of the Republican National Committee. He has said he wanted to bring hip-hop to the Republican Party, embarrassingly apologized to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and struggled to rebuild his party after electoral defeat.
However, speaking to high school students, Steele struck a serious tone and talked about his experience as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins. The event was part of C-SPAN’s “Students & Leaders” program that gathered several notable Washington professionals to talk to students about their careers, education, and life story.
Steele graduate from Hopkins but not without obstacle. His freshman experience may not have been different from many of ours. (without the expulsion)
“I partied my behind off,” Steele said. “I heard there were classes, and some people told me I really should go. But I was having a good time. I was freshman class president. I knew most of my classmates by the end of my first week of school. I just networked the heck out of that bad boy. I was getting there. I was talking. I was grooving. I was having a ball.”
At the end of his freshman year, Steele received a letter from the university.
“You have failed to perform to the standards of the university and therefore you are invited not to return in the fall,” the letter said.
Steele’s single-mother told him that he would return in September but didn’t say how.
The young Michael Steele met with a University Dean who told Steele he was lazy, inattentive and showed no talent to show intellect. He suggested Steele go to another school because he was “not Hopkins material.”
The Dean scolded Steele further.
“You haven’t shown you can do this or have the desire to do this. You act like you don’t even want this. Your Mama’s threatened you but you haven’t threatened yourself to do this.”
Steele was allowed to come back to Hopkins under one condition. The dean required him to take four four-credit summer school courses at a local university and get an A in each.
The moral of his expulsion, the party chairman told the students, is perseverance. And, “recognizing you have the potential within yourself to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve. Sometimes you just got to push yourself to realize it.”
You can watch the full event Monday, May 25 on C-SPAN at 7 p.m. eastern. The clip of Steele talking about his Hopkins expulsion is HERE
–Michael Szeto
blogs.jhunewsletter.com
Photo: Jae C. Hong / Associated Press
Tara O’Toole, far left, with presidential candidate Barack Obama at a roundtable discussion on nuclear non-proliferation in July 2008.
President Obama nominated Tara O’Toole to serve as under secretary for science and technology in the Department of Homeland Security. O’Toole received a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins and was a fellow in occupational and environmental medicine at the University. She was also a member of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies and was its director from 2001-2003.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, O’Toole participated in a roundtable discussion on nuclear non-proliferation with then-Senator Barack Obama. She currently serves as CEO and director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
–Michael Szeto
blogs.jhunewsletter.com
Robert O. Blake (SAIS ‘84) was nominated to the serve in the State Department, Friday.
Photo: Eranga Ayawardena / Associated Press
President Obama nominated Robert O. Blake to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs. Blake graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in 1984 and is currently the United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Republic of the Maldives. After graduating from SAIS, Blake joined the Foreign Service, working in United States embassies in Tunisia, Algeria, Nigeria and Egypt.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Blake will work with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on matters in the region, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. His appointment comes at the same time Obama and Clinton push a reluctant Congress for an additional $84.4 billion of military funding in Afghanistan. As of now, Blake is expected to be easily confirmed.
Other SAIS alumni in federal agencies include Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner who graduated one year after Blake.
–Michael Szeto
blogs.jhunewsletter.com
Photo: Gerald Herbert / Associated Press
President Obama talked about the stimulus package and his budget at a town hall in Costa Mesa, California.
COSTA MESA, Calif.—President Obama became Candidate Obama during his two-day visit to Southern California. He tried to sell his upcoming bank rescue plan and $3.55 trillion budget and quell the mounting public outrage over AIG. The president made brief opening remarks and took questions from a receptive audience, explaining his strategy to fix the economy and create long term growth.
The president spoke the same day Edward M. Liddy, CEO of American International Group, explained $165 million in executive bonuses before a House Committee in Washington. Obama acknowledged the growing public outrage over the bonuses and told the American people to blame him.
“For everybody in Washington who’s busy scrambling, trying to figure out how to blame somebody else, just go ahead and talk to me, because it’s my job to make sure that we fix these messes, even if I don’t make them,” Obama said at the beginning of his remarks.
Despite the problem with bonuses, Obama reassured the audience that it was appropriate to step in to save AIG and compared the suffering insurance company to a suicide bomber.
“It was the right thing to do to step in. Here’s the problem. It’s almost like they’ve got — they got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger. You don’t want them to blow up, but you got to kind of talk them — ease that finger off the trigger.”
While there may be problems, he promised Americans that he would “rebuild our economy in a way that’s consistent with our values.”
Values that include rewarding “hard work and responsibility, not high-flying finance schemes; an economy that’s built on a strong foundation, but not one that’s propelled by overheated housing markets and maxed-out credit cards.”
California is one of the hardest hit states in the country with a 10.1 percent unemployment rate as of January and a 20 percent drop in housing prices in the last year. The stimulus, according to Obama, would help create and save 396,000 jobs in California’s ailing economy.
This town hall was part of the president’s larger public appeal for his agenda. There will be another town hall in Los Angeles tomorrow where Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will introduce Obama. He will appear on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Thursday, and tape an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, Friday. Obama ends his campaign for political capital with a primetime press conference from the White House, Tuesday, March 24.
–Michael Szeto
blogs.jhunewsletter.com
Photo: Gerald Herbert / Associated Press
President Barack Obama signs an Executive Order on stem cells and a Presidential Memorandum on scientific integrity, Monday.
—————————————
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health professor Peter Agre was on the stage as President Obama’s signed an Executive Order and presidential memorandum at the White House, Monday. The Executive Order removes barriers to research of human stem cells and revokes the Executive Order signed under President George W. Bush and the 2001 Bush Presidential statement that limited federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Obama also signed a memorandum to “restore scientific integrity in government decision making.” The memorandum also requires the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to ensure the integrity of the executive branch’s involvement in scientific work.
Agre is also the director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute and joined the faculty of the School of Public Health in the molecular microbiology and immunology department in 2008. He graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1974 with a medical degree. He received the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Outside of Hopkins, Agre is president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation’s largest scientific organization.
In his remarks before signing the Executive Order, Obama identified Agre and a few other scientists as “an example of the outstanding scientists who we hope will guide us through this process in the years to come.”
–Michael Szeto
blogs.jhunewsletter.com
A transcript of the president’s remarks is after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Photo: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press
———————————-
President Barack Obama nominated a Johns Hopkins graduate to the Treasury Department today. The Obama administration has been criticized for not fully staffing the Treasury Department despite the economic crisis. This morning he announced three people for appoints in the department in an effort to remedy that problem. However, seventeen deputy Treasury Secretary and two undersecretary positions remain empty.
Kim Wallace, who earned his M.S. in business from Johns Hopkins, joins Treasury as the assistant secretary of Treasury, legislative affairs. He is currently the cournselor to the Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, who earned a degree from SAIS.
Wallace joins other Johns Hopkins graduates in the Obama Administration: Shin Inouye, director of specialty media for the White House; Phil Gordon, assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs at the State Department; and Evan Ryan, assistant to the vice president for intergovernmental affairs and public liaison.
-Michael Szeto
blogs.jhunewsletter.com
The White House’s statement after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Photo: Charles Dharapak / Associated Press
The White House announced several key appointments to the U.S. Department of State including SAIS alumnus Phil Gordon and SAIS deputy director and director of research at the Center for Transatlantic Relations Esther Brimmer. The statement from the White House is below.
-Michael Szeto
blogs.jhunewsletter.com
Photo: Steve Ruark/Associated Press
The Walters Art Museum announced a series of cutbacks and layoffs Wednesday.
I reported in December that museums like the Walters Art Museum would soon assess their financial situation in light of the economic crisis. This morning, the Walters announced that it had eliminated sixteen positions, seven of which had been incumbent employees. The museum took several other steps to avoid financial ruin including salary freezes, furloughs, reduced museum hours, and the cancellation of a major exhibition that was planned in conjunction with Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the Getty in Los Angeles.
Gary Vikan, director of the Walters, told me in an interview in November that he anticipated making such cuts given the overall state of the economy. “Hiring freezes [and] salary freezes are typical. We haven’t done that, yet, but I expect that will be part of the menu,” said Vikan in November.
Now it is a reality.
“Despite the challenging financial storm we are currently weathering, we foresee a bright and healthy future for the Walters, but we can only get there by making some tough decisions,” said Vikan in a statement this morning.
Even with these cut backs, the Walters will maintain free admission. “We remain fully committed to maintaining the free access to our permanent collections,” he said.
The Walters endowment has taken a beating, losing 27 percent of its value. This coupled with significant funding cuts from the city, county, and state.
The Walters is not the only museum in Baltimore to lay off employees. Last week, the Maryland Historical Society fired at least one employee.
––Michael Szeto
blogs.jhunewsletter.com
michael.szeto [at] jhu.edu
James McGill, the senior vice president for finance and administration for Johns Hopkins University, is listed as the fifth highest paid university chief financial officer in the country according to a report in the Chronicle for Higher Education. The report analyzed the largest salaries of university employees under the president from 2006 to 2007. During that time, the university paid McGill $610,340. McGill reports directly to outgoing university President Bill Brody. According a university web page, McGill oversees: budgets and financial planning and analysis, controller, facilities management , human resources, internal audits, purchasing, real estate, campus safety and security, and the treasurer. There were several instances of deferred compensation for CFOs on the list.
Former Hopkins provost Steven Knapp, who left to become president of George Washington University in August 2007, earned $571,777 for his work at Johns Hopkins. He ranked sixth in the “chief academic officers” category. Ron Daniels, the incoming Johns Hopkins president, received $604,637 at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Chornicle’s list on top ten highest paid CFOs and academic officers can be found after the jump.
–Michael Szeto
blogs.jhunewsletter.com
michael.szeto [at] jhu.edu
Notes on culture and the news from the writers and editors of The News-Letter
RSS 2.0
