GCPL Newsletter, July 2025
In June the GCPL received a funding commitment for a new and exciting initiative taking place next summer, “Garfield West.” We are also busy developing a new alumni group, the Garfield Vanguard. Meanwhile, we hosted an event in June regarding the recent turmoil in the Middle East.
The Garfield West Initiative
We are very pleased to report that the GCPL received confirmation of a generous donation last month of $10,000 to help kick-start one of our new initiatives, known as “Garfield West.” The Garfield West initiative consists of the GCPL organizing – and funding, in part – a weekend spent in Sonoma County, in the heart of California’s wine country. The first such weekend will be hosted a year from now, during the summer of 2026. The program for that weekend will consist of the following:
- Discussions with leading figures from Silicon Valley and California politics, addressing topics of business, politics, and culture.
- Group meals at Sonoma County’s outstanding eateries to further discuss the topics of the weekend.
- An afternoon wine country tour, involving multiple wineries, food establishments, and artistic/cultural venues.
The purpose of hosting the Garfield West weekend is to express the GCPL’s appreciation to those who support our program, especially our donors, our engaged GCPL alumni, the GCPL’s crisis simulation mentors, members of the GCPL’s Steering Committee, and members of the GPA (the Garfield Policy Advisors; a group which assists the GCPL with its programming efforts in Washington, D.C.) Furthermore, we would like to expand the GCPL’s range of educational offerings, insofar as much of our current activity is focused – in terms of the venues we select to visit and the topics we choose to explore – more towards the east coast, specifically Washington D.C. With this new initiative, we will be able to expand the GCPL’s range of contacts, in terms of people involved in west coast business, political, and academic activities.
We hope that this initiative will also serve to expand the GCPL’s capacity for fundraising, by tapping into the extraordinary wealth being generated in California’s tech industry-based economy, as well as serve as a launching pad for further Hiram student recruitment in California.
Developing the Garfield Vanguard
Last summer the GCPL launched the “Garfield Vanguard,” made up of GCPL scholar alumni who wish to remain connected to both the GCPL and to other Garfield scholars. GCPL alumni can join the Vanguard by doing something beneficial for the GCPL after they graduate from Hiram. This can include anything from giving a guest lecture to our GCPL class, to helping us develop relations with a particular high school, to assisting with our programming away from Hiram campus, etc. The purpose of establishing the Vanguard is to create a tight network of interesting, engaged people who are doing valuable work around the world, and who can serve as a network of support/discussion/career-advancement for each other and for the current cohort of students enrolled in the program.
We are pleased to report that the Vanguard initiative is turning out very nicely. Not only has it grown consistently over this last year, but several just-graduated students expressed a determination to join the program. Furthermore, within this last month, we have received expressions of interest from multiple students who graduated in the past – ranging from 1 year ago to 8 years ago – who now want to reconnect with the GCPL via the Vanguard.
Taken together, these impending Vanguard members include people who are working as high school teachers, are enrolled in Master of Public Policy programs, work for NGOs in Europe, work for U.S. government agencies, are pursuing law school education, and who are working in the health care field.
Discussion of the Iran/US/Israel Situation
On June 26, the GCPL hosted a Zoom-based discussion on the recent turmoil in the Middle East. The event was titled “Iran, the US, and Israel: Military Strikes and Nuclear Strategies.” This discussion was led by John Lauder, a member of our GCPL Steering Committee, who has had a career as an arms control negotiator. This discussion was joined by an extraordinary group of GCPL friends and associates – retired and current members of the US armed forces, retired diplomats, international businesspeople, scholars, intelligence officers, and more – who contributed to the conversation as well. The decision to host this event was sparked by an enquiry from one of our GCPL friends, expressing their wish to share ideas with genuinely knowledgeable experts at this time of geopolitical crisis. We were pleased with the attendance at this event, and we were also pleased that, yet again, the GCPL succeeded in providing a forum for people with very different backgrounds and political orientations to share their thoughts in a civil and intelligent fashion.
James Thompson, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
ThompsonJA@Hiram.edu
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