Events

The Sorensen Institute was proud to host its first Legislative Forum for Northern Virginia on Monday evening, April 20. The event was co-hosted by Northern Virginia Community College and sponsored by State Farm. Participants included (left to right in photo) Senator Jill Holtzman Vogel, Delegate David Bulova (PLP 97), Delegate Charniele Herring (PLP 06, CTP 08), Senator Dick Saslaw, Delegate Margi Vanderhye (PLP 06, CTP 05), Delegate Joe May, Delegate Bob Marshall, Delegate Vivian Watts, and Delegate Dave Albo.

This podcast includes the complete audio of the event— an introduction and welcome by NVCC President Robert Templin, moderator Bob Gibson, and the Q&A with audience members. Topics included the budget, transportation, schools, voting rights, redistricting, and much more. Enjoy!

This evening, April 20, the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership will host a town-hall format Legislative Review to discuss the 2009 General Assembly session and issues relevant to the Northern Virginia region.
 
The panel will include ten members of the Virginia General Assembly who represent the Northern Virginia area: Delegates Dave Albo, David Bulova, Charniele Herring, Bob Marshall, Joe May, Ken Plum, Margi Vanderhye, Vivian Watts, and Senators Jill Holtzman Vogel and Richard Saslaw.
 
This event will be FREE and open to the public. It will be held at the Ernst Community Cultural Center at the Annandale Campus of Northern Virginia Community College from 7-9pm. Doors will open at 6:30pm. The event will be co-hosted by NVCC and sponsored by State Farm.
 
Audience members will be asked to join the legislators in a substantive Q&A about the ‘09 General Assembly session and issues relevant to the Northern Virginia region.

Look for a complete podcast of the event later this week. 

John Cosgrove, Lynwood Lewis, Ralph Northam, Phil Hamilton, Paula Miller, John Miller, Glenn Oder

On Monday evening, April 13, the Sorensen Institute was proud to co-host a town-hall format Legislative Review with seven Hampton Roads area legislators. The event was held at the Ferguson Center at Christopher Newport University and co-hosted with CNU's Center for Public Policy. State Farm sponsored this event.

This podcast includes the complete audio of the forum. The members of the panel discussed a variety of public policy issues including transportation, schools, gun control, the budget, and much more. Enjoy!

Tuesday night in Charlottesville!

On Tuesday evening, April 14 from 7-9pm, the Sorensen Institute and Piedmont Virginia Community College will host former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger.

Mr. Eagleburger will deliver a talk, American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future.

This event will be free and open to the public. It will be held at the V. Earl Dickinson Main Stage at PVCC.

Look for a complete podcast of the event here in the Sorensen Newsroom later this week.

Thanks to our sponsors who are helping to make this wonderful evening possible: PVCC, Piedmont Virginia Companies, Inc., State Farm Insurance, Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Central Virginia, Davidson and Kitzman PLC, and Tuel Jewelers.

All of our alumni and friends of Sorensen are encouraged to attend and bring guests. There is no need to RSVP. See you tomorrow night!

You Are Invited!

This coming Monday evening April 13 the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia and the Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University will host a town-hall format Legislative Review session to discuss the 2009 General Assembly session and issues relevant to the Hampton Roads region.

The panel will include seven members of the Virginia General Assembly who represent the Hampton Roads area: Delegates John Cosgrove, Phil Hamilton, Lynwood Lewis, Glenn Oder, Paula Miller and Senators  Ralph Northam and John Miller.

This event will be free and open to the public. It will be held at the Music and Theater Hall, Ferguson Center for the Arts at Christopher Newport University in Newport News from 7-8:30pm. Doors will open at 6:30pm.

Audience members will be asked to join the legislators in a substantive Q&A about the ‘09 General Assembly session and issues relevant to the Hampton Roads region.

Public radio station WHRV will be recording this event in its entirety for broadcast at 12noon on Thursday April 16.

Click here to download a PDF flier of the event.

The Sorensen Institute celebrated its 2009 Gala on the evening of March 20 at the Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City in Arlington. Nearly 250 alumni, board members, and friends of Sorensen turned out to support our mission to improve political leadership and government throughout the Commonwealth. Thanks to their generous investment, we raised $211,000 to support this effort. (photo at right: Democratic candidates for Governor Creigh Deeds and Terry McAuliffe)
     At this memorable event we were proud to honor each of the thirteen members of the Virginia delegation now serving in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in Washington: Senator Jim Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and Congressmen Robb Wittman, Glenn Nye, Bobby Scott, Randy Forbes, Tom Perriello, Bob Goodlatte, Eric Cantor, Jim Moran, Rick Boucher, Frank Wolf, and Gerry Connolly.
     Speakers at the 2009 Gala included Sharon Bulova, Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors; Vivek Kundra, a graduate of the Political Leaders Program Class of 2007 and the nation’s Chief Information Officer having recently been appointed by President Obama; Sean Connaughton, a graduate of the Political Leaders Program Class of 1995, the Corporate Vice President for the American Bureau of Shipping and recently the U.S. Maritime Administrator; and former Congressman Tom Davis, who represented Virginia’s 11th Congressional District for seven terms. Our thanks to everyone who helped to make this an unforgettable evening. (photo: Bob Gibson, former Lieutenant Governor John Hager, and U.S. Congressman Rob Wittman)

Click here to download a PDF copy of the 2009 Gala program.

The Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia will host an Issues Forum with the three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for Governor: Creigh Deeds, Brian Moran, and Terry McAuliffe.

This event will be held in Danville on Tuesday evening April 28 from 7-9pm at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research.

The event will be moderated by Sorensen's Executive Director Bob Gibson and former Danville Mayor Linwood Wright.

A full podcast of the Forum will be made available here in the Sorensen Newsroom following the event.

This Issues Forum will be free and open to the public. It will be co-sponsored by the Danville Register & Bee, and is the next event in the Sorensen Institute's Southside Public Leadership Speakers Series.

Stay tuned to the Newsroom for more details.

Tonight in northern Virginia the alumni and friends of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership will gather to celebrate the 2009 Gala. The black-tie event will honor every member of the Virginia delegation now serving in Washington. Look for audio and photos of the Gala here in the Newsroom next week!

In just a few days, the Sorensen Institute will celebrate its 2009 Gala in Arlington. From the Newsroom Archive comes this historic video from our 2007 Gala in Richmond, at which we were very proud to honor Governor Linwood Holton.

As part of the evening's program, we shared Governor Holton's 1969 campaign commercials. These commercials had been preserved on 16mm film and were brought to our attention shortly before the Gala (many thanks to Michael Belefski). We had just enough time to get them digitized and edited together for the special event. These now historic commercials were shown publicly at Sorensen's 2007 Gala for the first time in almost 40 years.

Holton won the election that year, beating Democratic candidate William C. Battle. Governor Holton served from 1970 to 74, the first Republican in Virginia in the 20th century to hold that high office. You can also click here to watch a video of Holton's remarks from that memorable evening.