Buzz McClain

An audience of about 120 got an advance peek at a new HBO documentary depicting the last months of the Obama administration’s foreign policy team last Thursday at Founders Hall auditorium in Arlington. The film, “The Final Year,” was followed by an hour-long panel discussion featuring three key members of the administration and moderated by Ellen Laipson, the director of the Center for Security Policy Studies at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

Schar School of Policy and Government political science professor Toni-Michelle C. Travis is the 2018 recipient of the Jack Wood Award for Town and Gown Relations. Travis was presented with the legacy award for her longtime voluntary leadership in fostering relations with the surrounding community.

Members of the George Mason University community will get an advance look at a new documentary that examines the political and personal intrigue of the Obama administration’s last year in office when the Center for Security Policy Studies hosts a screening of HBO’s “The Final Year.” The 90-minute film, directed by Greg Barker, will screen Thursday, May 10, at Mason’s Founders Hall auditorium in Arlington at 6 p.m.

“The last major trade war was launched by two Republican lawmakers, Smoot and Hawley, in the 1930s, spurring the Great Depression and World War II. It also ended the reign of Republican presidents with the election of President Roosevelt and his new era of reciprocal trade agreements.”

Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) made his debut as Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government Wednesday afternoon. McAuliffe was guest lecturer for Assistant Professor Justin Gest’s 500-level class Theory and Practice of Public Policy in a classroom on Mason’s Arlington Campus.

The idea for the final program of the first year of the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and International Security’s “Truth Tellers in the Bunker” series was to do something a little more light-hearted than the previous, very serious programs that examined the timely theme.