A politician is coming to Georgetown! And no, this time it isn’t one of those drop-ins from the Vice President that we’ve gotten so accustomed to. Instead, as the opening speaker for the U.S./India Higher Education Summit, which takes place at Georgetown on Thursday, October 13, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be speaking in Gaston.

The purpose of the summit, according to its website, is to “provide a platform for government and education leaders from both countries” to discuss their ideas about education and plans for its betterment with a “broad cross-section” of audience members, including academics, administrators, and NGO executives. Other notable speakers Indian Minister of Human Resources Kapil Sibal, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and Indian Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao, who spoke on campus in September. Ribal will be joining Clinton in making the Summit’s opening remarks.

Rao isn’t the only one of the summit’s speakers who is familiar to the Hilltop. Clinton two years ago to discuss Obama’s human rights agenda, and Duncan was here in May 2010 to discuss the role of parents in education.

After Clinton and Ribal’s opening ceremonies, the summit will continue throughout the day, with events including a roundtable and plenary session in Gaston Hall, and a speaker’s luncheon on Healy Lawn. Duncan will make the closing remarks, again joined by Ribal, in Gaston at 5:00 p.m.

For those who can’t make it out of bed and to Healy at the appropriate time—which we’re sure is going to be very, very early—the summit’s events will be broadcast online from Georgetown’s webcast site.

Photos by Max Blodgett

Kicking off the ”Future of Food” conference in Gaston Hall on Wednesday, Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, expressed his disappointment with the Washington Post-sponsored event.

“I wish more food industries were on the panel,” he said. “We want a dialogue, want to find areas of common ground, and, even if you don’t agree with us, you’ll find we serve a good lunch!”

Though Schlosser noticed the conspicuous absence of leading agro-business figures, attendees expressed far more excitement over the sustainability super-stars that were in attendence—most notably, His Royal Highness Prince Charles.

A pioneer in food sustainability, the Prince of Wales delved into the complex challenges facing public health, rural employment, environmental protection, and international food insecurity.

While the audience delighted in Prince Charles’ quip about “making embarrassing speeches about my eldest son during wedding receptions,” he gave the conference an air of seriousness, delivering a sober speech about the perils of continuing our dangerously unstable agricultural model.

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Charles, Prince of Wales, will be speaking at Georgetown University during a brief official visit to the United States, according to his press office.

The prince’s visit to the United States will take place from May 3-5. The Prince of Wales will be the keynote speaker at an on-campus conference on sustainable agriculture, an issue which has long been a keen interest of the prince’s.

The Washington Post will be hosting the conference, titled “The Future of Food,” in Gaston Hall on May 4 from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM. Other speakers will include President John DeGioia and investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation.

The Office of Protocol and Events could not be reached for comment, and it is unknown at this time whether undergraduates will be invited to the event. Rachel Pugh, Georgetown’s director of media relations, declined to comment, writing in an email that details will be shared later in the week.

Updated 4/25/11

President Barack Obama will be speaking tomorrow at Georgetown University to outline his plan for America’s energy security.

Obama will be speaking in McDonough Arena at 11:15 a.m. According to a broadcast email from the University, first-come, first-served tickets may be picked up tonight beginning at 6 p.m. in the Georgetown Athletic Hall of Fame in the Leavey Center.

Obama’s last speech at Georgetown caused great controversy–not for what he said, but because the IHS symbol in Gaston Hall was covered up during the speech.

In an address to a meeting of the National Military Family Association, First Lady Michelle Obama introduced plans for aiding the families of military members who are serving overseas. The conference—“When Parents Deploy:  Understanding the Experience of Military Children and Spouses”—was held at the Georgetown University Conference Center today.

Unveiling President Barack Obama’s call for the National Security Staff to lead a review that will, “develop a coordinated Federal-government wide approach to supporting and engaging military families,” according to the White House press release, she emphasized that as America asks more of its military, their families have a right to ask more of the American people.

The plan aims to make the federal government more friendly to the needs of military families by identifying their priorities, examining which policies do and do not work, and finding ways in which military experience can be used to better the U.S.

The First Lady started by recalling NMFA’s slogan, “Together we’re stronger,” and said that the American people all need to work together to help military families.  “With just one percent of our population—our troops—doing 100 percent of the fighting, our military families are being tested like never before.  [America] need[s] to give their families 100 percent support.”

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On Wednesday night, the Lohrfink Auditorium was packed with people who had come to see Karl Rove, the Former Deputy Chief of Staff under the Bush Administration. Rove, who has just published a book called Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, spoke about domestic and foreign policy from the Bush Era through the Obama Administration in a lecture followed by a question and answer session.

Although some had worried there would be disruptions like the protest that broke out at the General David Petraeus event earlier this year, things were calm save for one shout from the audience. The Lecture Fund, which hosted Rove, controlled the questions he was asked, which were collected from their website before the event, and written on index cards from the audience.

Rove began by discussing his predictions for the upcoming election cycle. He viewed the position that the Congressional Democrats were in as similar to the one they were in during the years 1993 and 1994 when Clinton attempted to pass a national healthcare bill. He believed that the public’s expectations had gone unfulfilled, and that those who had elected Barack Obama did not think he was qualified when they voted for him.

He then addressed the recent rise of the Tea Party movement. He described Tea Party members as people who had never paid attention to politics before, and did not know much about it, but really loved the country. He said that one woman who had inspired him told him that she rarely voted, and yet she was a part of the tea party movement because she was angry about what was going on in Washington.

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On Monday night, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista came to Georgetown to screen Nine Days that Changed the World, the documentary film that portrays Pope John Paul II’s nine-day trip to Communist Poland in June 1979. The event, hosted by the Catholic Student Association and co-sponsored by the College Republicans, was protester-free, despite the worries that some students waiting in line expressed that the event would be a repeat of the disrupted General David Petraeus event.

Newt and Callista Gingrich narrate the movie, which documents how Pope John Paul’s visit transformed Poland and led to the eventual overthrow of communism. According to its website, the film “is a story of human liberation, revealing the extraordinary power of Pope John Paul II’s worldwide message of freedom through faith.”

Still, protests seemed to be on everyone’s mind, with Kevin Preskenis, the chief of staff of the College Republicans, obliquely referring to the Petraeus protest and calling this screening a “chance for all of us to unite as a Catholic university,” in his introductory remarks. Co-president of the Catholic Student Association Melinda Reyes welcomed the audience to the “non-partisan event.”

In his remarks, Newt Gingrich urged those who enjoy the film to promote it both by word of mouth and social networking sites so it will reach a wider audience.

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Because the event with General Petraeus went so well, this April, Georgetown will play host to two big-name conservatives: Karl Rove, brought to you by Lecture Fund, and Newt Gingrich, who is coming to campus as part of his premier tour for his new movie, Nine Days that Changed the World.

These Republican heavy-hitters will visit Georgetown within just two days of each other. Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House, will be here on Monday, April 19, and Rove, who was former President George W. Bush’s adviser, is coming on April 21.

According to Student Activities Commission minutes, Rove’s typical speaking fee is $35,000, but Lecture Fund bargained him down to $8,000. SAC allocated them $8,500 for fees, security, and additional costs in a 5-3-3 vote in early February.

Alicia Melvin, an event coordinator for the April 19 movie screening, confirmed that Gingrich would be present at the screening, which is being sponsored by the Catholic Students Association and co-sponsored by the Georgetown College Republicans.

The screening will take place at at 7 p.m. in the ICC Auditorium. Rove will speak at an unknown time in the Lohrfink Auditorium in the Hariri Building.