An exciting, fact-filled discussion of the current political environment relations between the President and Congress and most importantly, the 2008 presidential contest.

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Saturday, October 13, 2007
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Alumni Hall
211 Emmet Street South
Charlottesville, VA 22903

“Politics is a good thing!” … is the slogan of Dr. Larry J. Sabato. According to the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Sabato is “probably the most quoted college professor in the land,” and he is dubbed by Fox News Channel as “America’s favorite political scientist.” As founder and director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, Dr. Sabato bridges the gap between the ivory tower and the real world on issues of critical importance to American democracy and the challenges facing our political process.

The Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, Dr. Sabato is at home both in the classroom and in the anchor booth. He is just one of a dozen “University Professors” at U.Va and is a former Rhodes Scholar and Danforth Fellow. After he received his B.A. in government from the University of Virginia as a Phi Beta Kappa in 1974, he did a year’s graduate study in public policy at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Upon receipt of the Rhodes scholarship in 1975, he left Princeton to begin study at Queen’s College, Oxford University. In less than two years he received his doctorate in politics from Oxford and was invited to become an instructor for students in the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE) program. In January 1978 he was elected Lecturer in Politics at New College, Oxford. He joined the faculty at the University of Virginia in September 1978.

Dr. Sabato’s latest book is A MORE PERFECT CONSTITUTION: 23 Proposals to Revitalize our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country (Walker & Co., 2007).

Dr. Sabato has served on many national and state commissions, including the National Commission for the Renewal of American Democracy, the U.S. Senate Campaign Finance Reform Panel, the Governor’s Commission on Campaign Finance Reform, Government Accountability, and Ethics, and the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education. Far more importantly, however, he has had the privilege to teach approximately 13,000 students during his career.

Dr. Sabato is the recipient of more than two-dozen major scholarships, grants, and academic awards, including a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, the Outstanding Young Teacher Award from the University of Virginia, and Outstanding Professor Award from the Virginia State Council of Higher Education, the U.Va. Outstanding Professor Award of 2000, and inclusion among the “Top-Ten-All-Time Favorite Teachers” by UVa’s Alumni Association. His visiting appointments include that of Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution and Thomas Jefferson Visiting Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge University, England. In 2002, the University of Virginia conferred upon Dr. Sabato its highest honor, The Thomas Jefferson Award, given annually to one individual since 1955.

At the University of Virginia Center for Politics (www.centerforpolitics.org), founded in 1998, Dr. Sabato brings his years of academic study together with an equally long career as both a political practitioner and commentator on local, state and national elections. The Center represents Dr. Sabato’s mission: to improve civic education and the political process, and in doing so make government more relevant, more accessible and more meaningful for the average American. The Center has a dedicated staff of over a dozen, and its signature program, the National Youth Leadership Initiative, currently involves over 800,000 middle and high school students in all 50 states. In six years, Sabato has raised over $7 million in public and private funds to support the Center’s many programs, conferences, and publications.

Larry J. Sabato has been making national media appearances since the 1970s. Both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post have noted that Dr. Sabato is the most cited college professor in any field in the United States by national and regional news organizations, electronic and print.