Rick Kaplan, former president of CNN-US, will be the visiting Lombard lecturer. He is teaching a module--a six-week half credit course--called "Do American Media Meet the Needs of a Modern Democracy?" that will be open to college students.

Kaplan's course will discuss current issues facing the media, such as the effects of media mergers on the industry and whether there are diminished rules for reporting sources of late. Guest speakers at his lectures will include Ted Koppel of ABC News, Gerald Levin, CEO of AOL Time Warner and Andrew Hayward, President of CBS News.

Timothy E. Cook, Dickinson Professor of Political Science at Williams College, will teach "Media Strategies and Governance" and "The Politics of Sexual Diversity: Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Politics in the U.S. and Beyond." Cook was the visiting Lombard Professor of the Shorenstein Center in 1989-1990.

Michael Waldman, who has written or edited nearly 2000 presidential speeches, including four State of the Union addresses and Clinton's acceptance speech for the 1996 Democratic Convention, will teach a module on "Speeches and Speechwriting:: Beyond the Bully Pulpit."

Waldman was a fellow at the Institute of Politics in 1999.

The Shorenstein spring fellows and visiting faculty are enthusiastic about their new positions, Lieberman said, "It's really a wonderful opportunity to take three or four months off and tackle a research project."

Kaplan said, "I'm really honored that they asked me to do this. It's been exciting to develop this course because it really gets you thinking about what you are doing in a much deeper way. Hopefully, at the end of this class, we'll have ideas on how to improve the whole industry."