Susan Rice, National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama, opens the 2018 College of the Atlantic Champlain Institute: International Affairs.Susan Rice, National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama, opens the 2018 College of the Atlantic Champlain Institute: International Affairs.Featured 2018 Champlain Institute guests include award-winning journalist Eliza Grizwold, former Acting Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal, former Maine Senator George Mitchell, Fordham University School of Law Center on National Security Director Karen Greenberg, and many others.

“National security, Russia, trade disputes, and other topics in international relations are all over the news and in the fronts of many people’s minds,” said College of the Atlantic President Darron Collins ’92. “I can think of few issues more pressing than the ones our incredible guests will be unpacking during this year’s Institute.”

All Champlain Institute events are free and open to the public, but advance registration is required. Contact COA manager of donor engagement Wes Norton at wnorton@coa.edu for more information; many events are at capacity. Talks will be live streamed on the College’s Facebook page, and a selection of lectures will be broadcast the following week on Maine Public Radio’s Speaking in Maine program.

Talk topics and titles are subject to change.

Cyber security expert Nick Dowling begins the weekday roster the morning of Monday, July 30 with a presentation entitled, “Hacking, Informatsionnaya, and the Grey Zone: How Technology is Shaping a New Global Competition among Great Powers.” Dowling is the CEO of IDS International and served in the Pentagon and the Clinton White House as Director for European Affairs on the NSC Staff where he helped coordinate US policy to end the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Former Acting Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal is part of the 2018 College of the Atlantic Champlain Institute: International Affairs.Former Acting Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal is part of the 2018 College of the Atlantic Champlain Institute: International Affairs.Katyal, who has argued more Supreme Court cases in U.S. history than has any minority attorney, speaks Monday evening.

July 31 begins with Ambassadors Bill Eacho, C. Boyden Gray, and Jim Lowenstein examining relations between the United States and the European Union, and wraps up with Tony Blinken, the co-founder and managing director of WestExec Advisors and holder of senior foreign policy positions in two administration, speaking on, “Walls or Bridges: What will Shape American Greatness in the 21st Century?”

On Aug. 1, Champlain Institute guests will hear from Former United States Navy Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert and from Griswold, whose work on Boko Haram, Pakistan’s Waziristan Agency, and Syrian Refugees has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Harper’s Magazine, among others.

Ted Widmer, senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and Sarah Z. Daly, assistant professor of political science and faculty fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame round out the bill for Aug. 2

Friday, Aug. 3, the last day of the institute, feature a talk by Greenberg on, “Liberty and Security Today,” and the closing event with Mitchell, who presents his expertise on “US-Middle Eastern Relations Past and Future.”