Miller Center at UVA Announces the Milstein Symposium: Ideas for a New American Century
January 15th, 2013Howard Milstein has contributed $2.26 million to the University of Virginia’s Miller Center to launch the Milstein Symposium: Ideas for a New American Century. The Milstein Symposium will continue the Center’s innovative work advancing original, consensus-based approaches to some of the most pressing challenges facing the United States. It will also emphasize the importance of political history in policymaking, relying on the Miller Center’s award-winning scholars and unique resources on the presidency.
Three Milstein Symposium programs will be held annually for the next five years. Each Symposium will bring together a group of leading scholars and stakeholders who will share ideas and build consensus around recommendations to resolve an important issue. Based on deliberations of this group and other experts, a report will be produced and presented on the Miller Center Forum, a weekly series that airs on PBS stations across the country.
There is no shortage of industry studies, academic papers, and blue ribbon commissions. However, the failure to integrate the ideas these groups generate has made sound — yet practical — solutions difficult to identify, particularly in today’s political climate. By connecting leading scholars with distinguished members of the public and private sectors, and framing each topic in a historical context, the Milstein Symposium will introduce innovative, bipartisan ideas into the conversation on issues vital to the nation’s future.
“The Miller Center has a proven track record of bringing together people with diverse points of view to develop innovative solutions to the complex challenges facing our nation. Thanks to Howard Milstein’s generosity, we can do more of this important work. And with partisanship in Washington at an all-time high, it could not come at a better time,” said Gerald Baliles, director and CEO of the Miller Center.
Mr. Milstein said, “We support institutions and leaders of excellence in areas of our interest. The Miller Center and Jerry Baliles hit our sweet spot.”
Mr. Milstein has a long history of involvement in the Charlottesville area and Virginia. In leadership roles on the Board of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, he worked with Dan Jordan and played a crucial role in developing the new Visitor Center at Monticello, where all visitors view the introductory film he funded in the Howard and Abby Milstein Theater. He has served as the Chair of the Howard and Georgeanna Jones for Reproductive Medicine Foundation in Norfolk for nearly two decades and on the Board of the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., for more than ten years.
SOURCE: Miller Center at the University of Virginia
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