On March 22-23 the Museum hosted Churchill Fellows Weekend 2024. Admiral James Stavridis (USN, Ret.) delivered the Enid and R. Crosby Kemper Lecture. This year's event was part of Churchill 2024, a global commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Winston Churchill's birth.
Friday, March 22
1:00-3:00 pm — Museum
VIP Tours of Museum Collections and Exhibitions including Four Freedoms: Real and Imagined
3:15 pm — Church of St. Mary Aldermanbury
Panel Discussion "The Cold War: From 1946 to Today (and Tomorrow?)" with Timothy Riley, Sandra L. and Monroe E. Trout Director and Chief Curator; Tobias Gibson, John Langton Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science; Churchill Fellow Bill Roedy, former Chairman and CEO MTV International
6:00 pm — Museum (registration required)
VIP Reception and Dinner Hosted by Association of Churchill Fellows of Westminster College followed by cordials and special exclusive viewing of "Curator's Choice: Treasures from Museum's Collection."
Saturday, March 23
9:00-10:15 am — Church of St. Mary Aldermanbury
Morning Session
Bomber Command: Churchill's Greatest Triumph
Roddy MacKenzie, author
Winston Churchill on the American Constitution
Gerard Magliocca, Samuel L. Rosen Professor of Law at Indiana University Robert McKinney School of Law
The Legacy of Yalta Today
Catherine Grace Katz, author of Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War
10:30-10:45 am — Church of St. Mary Aldermanbury
"Churchill 2024: 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Sir Winston Churchill" presented by Justin Reash, Executive Director of International Churchill Society
11:00 am-12:00 noon — Church of St. Mary Aldermanbury
Baxter Brown Watson Roundtable Discussion Moderated by Timothy Riley, Sandra L. and Monroe E. Trout Director and Chief Curator "Preserving the Past for Tomorrow" with R. Crosby Kemper III, Roger Porter, and Stephen Poss.
12:30-1:30 pm— Historic Gymnasium (registration required)
Induction of New Churchill Fellows Luncheon*
1:30-2:30 pm— Historic Gymnasium (registration required)
Enid and R. Crosby Kemper Lecture by Admiral James Stavridis, USN, Ret.*
Behind-the-Scenes Tours of America's National Churchill Museum (optional)
*Event will be held in Westminster College's Historic Gymnasium, where Winston Churchill delivered his "The Sinews of Peace" address on March 5, 1946.
Vice Chair, Global Affairs, The Carlyle Group and Chair of the Board of Trustees, the Rockefeller Foundation
A Florida native, Jim Stavridis attended the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, and spent 37 years in the Navy, rising to the rank of 4-star Admiral. Among his many commands were four years as the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, where he oversaw operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, the Balkans, and counter piracy off the coast of Africa. He also commanded US Southern Command in Miami, charged with military operations through Latin America for nearly three years. He was the longest serving Combatant Commander in recent US history. Following his military career, he served for five years as the 12th Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
In the course of his career in the Navy, he served as senior military assistant to the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of Defense. He led the Navy’s premier operational think tank for innovation, Deep Blue, immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Admiral Stavridis was promoted directly from 1-star rank to 3-star rank in 2004.
He won the Battenberg Cup for commanding the top ship in the Atlantic Fleet and the Navy League John Paul Jones Award for Inspirational leadership, along with more than 50 US and international medals and decorations, including 28 from foreign nations. He also commanded a Destroyer Squadron and a Carrier Strike Group, both in combat.
In 2016, he was vetted for Vice President by Secretary Hillary Clinton, and subsequently invited to Trump Tower to discuss a cabinet position with President Donald Trump.
He earned a PhD from The Fletcher School at Tufts, winning the Gullion prize as outstanding student in his class in 1983, as well as academic honors from the National and Naval War Colleges as a distinguished student. He speaks Spanish and French.
Admiral Stavridis has published twelve books on leadership, character, risk, the oceans, maritime affairs, and Latin America, as well as hundreds of articles in leading journals. An active user of social networks, he has tens of thousands of connections on the social networks. His TED talk on 21st century security in 2012 has close to one million views. He tweeted the end of combat operations in the Libyan NATO intervention. Two of his most popular books are “Sailing True North: Ten Admirals and the Voyage of Character” published in 2019 and the novel “2034: A Novel of the Next World War” in 2021, which was a New York Times bestseller and is being published in 22 languages. His most recent book is “To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and The Crucible of Decision.”
Admiral Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and Chief International Security Analyst for NBC News.
He is happily married to Laura, and they have two daughters – one working at Google and the other a Nurse Practitioner and former naval officer, both married to physicians
The Association of Churchill Fellows is an honorary society recognizing leaders in industry, commerce, statecraft, and in the arts and sciences. It is among the key organizations that support America's National Churchill Museum, the only museum in North America that commemorates the life and times of former British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and his legacy of leadership.
We welcome the following class of 2024 to the Association of Churchill Fellows: Roger B. Porter, Alexandra Lindemann Roedy, Admiral James G. Stavridis, Stephen D. Poss, William Reller, James H. Hance, Matthew W. Geekie, and Catherine Grace Katz.
“Leave the past to history especially as I propose to write that history myself.”
