Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY – Hofstra University will mark the 100th full day of the Obama administration with a lecture by Newsweek Senior Editor and NBC News Correspondent Jonathan Alter on "FDR and President Obama: Their First 100 Days" on Thursday, April 30, from 2:20-3:45 p.m. in the Monroe Lecture Center Theater, California Avenue, South Campus.

Mr. Alter is an award-winning columnist, television analyst and author who has covered seven presidential campaigns for Newsweek. He frequently interviews American presidents and other world leaders, regularly breaks news and has authored more than 50 Newsweek cover stories on everything from shrinking confidence in the American news media, to Bill Clinton's first interview after leaving the presidency, to Mr. Alter's personal story of living with cancer.

This event is part of a weeklong examination at Hofstra of the "First 100 Days" of the Obama Administration that also includes a panel discussion earlier in the day on Thursday, April 30 featuring Meena Bose, Ph.D., the Peter S. Kalikow Chair in Presidential Studies at Hofstra University; James M. Klurfeld, professor of journalism at Stony Brook University and former vice president and editor of the editorial pages at Newsday; political strategist and CNN commentator Edward J. Rollins; and Martin Schram, journalist, editor and author. That panel will take place from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in room 246, East Library Wing, Joan and Donald A. Axinn library, South Campus.

All of the “First 100 Days” events are part of Define '09: New Challenges, New Solutions, a yearlong series of programs designed to examine the new presidential administration, its policies and initiatives, the challenges we currently face and ways of addressing our country's most pressing issues. All Define ’09 programs are free and open to the public. For a full list of Define ’09 events go to hofstra.edu/define09.

 

Since 1991, Mr. Alter has written a widely acclaimed Newsweek column that examines politics, media and social and global issues. For more than a decade, he has worked as a contributing correspondent to NBC News. His 2006 book, "The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope", was a national best-seller that received fresh attention when the White House announced that it had been read by President Barack Obama and much of his team. Mr. Alter is also the author of "Between The Lines: A View inside American Politics, People and Culture", a collection of his Newsweek columns published in August 2008. He is the originator and creative force in writing Newsweek’s “Conventional Wisdom Watch,” which uses up, down and sideways arrows to measure and lampoon the news. As a senior editor, he helps shape the magazine’s overall news coverage.

In 2004, he wrote the first cover story on President Obama in a national magazine. Beyond politics and media, he has written extensively over the years about the issues such as economy, education, terrorism, anti-Semitism, at-risk children and national service. Among his exclusives in the 2008 campaign season were that Barack Obama would seek the presidency (October, 2006), and that Sen. Edward Kennedy was likely to endorse Obama. (January, 2008).

In his role at NBC News, Mr. Alter has appeared on all NBC broadcasts including TODAY, NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, NBC News specials, MSNBC and CNBC. He appears twice weekly on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. On Election Night, 2000, he went on the air to break the story about confusing “butterfly ballots” in Palm Beach County, Florida that shaped the outcome of the election.

Mr. Alter has earned more than a dozen awards for his political and media columns, including multiple National Headliner Awards, American Bar Association awards, Women in Communications awards and the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business Reporting. He was part of the teams of Newsweek reporters and editors awarded the prestigious National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 1993, 2002, 2004. In 1997 he was the Ferris Visiting Professor of Press and Politics at Princeton University and in 2009 he held the John Rhodes Chair at Arizona State University.

Mr. Alter joined Newsweek as an associate editor in the Nation section in March 1983, and became media critic the following year. He was named a senior writer in February 1987 and a senior editor in September 1991. For two years prior to joining Newsweek, Alter was an editor at The Washington Monthly. He has also freelanced articles for such publications as The New Republic, Esquire, Slate, PARADE and The New York Times. A Chicago native, he received his B.A. in history with honors from Harvard in 1979. Besides The Defining Moment and Between the Lines, he is the author of Selecting a President and the coeditor of Inside the System.

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students can choose from more than 145 undergraduate and more than 160 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business; engineering; communication; education, health and human services;  and honors studies, as well as a School of Law. With a student-faculty ratio of 14-to-1, our professors teach small classes averaging 22 students that emphasize interaction, critical thinking and analysis. Hofstra offers a faculty whose highest priority is teaching excellence. The University also provides excellent facilities with state-of-the-art technology, extensive library resources and internship programs that match students’ interests and abilities with appropriate companies and organizations.