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Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, and former Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis will join CNN’s John King in Robsham Theater on May 7 for a Clough Colloquium discussion about the leadership challenges they faced in the wake of last year’s Boston Marathon attack.
The event will bring together three leaders who played pivotal roles in the local and state responses to the deadly bombings on Boylston Street that claimed three lives and injured more than 260 people.
“The motivation behind putting an event like this together is that the conversation can range from the leadership demonstrated by these individuals over a long period of time, as well as leadership during a crisis situation, such as the Boston Marathon bombing,” said Brooks Barhydt, associate director of the Carroll School of Management’s Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics, which hosts the event.
The Clough Colloquium begins at 5 p.m. and doors open at 4:30 p.m. with seats available on a first-come basis. There will be overflow seating nearby where the event can be watched on a video feed.
CNN’s King, a Boston native who is the network’s chief national correspondent and a BC parent, will moderate the event.
“John King has hosted presidential debates and is one of the nation’s foremost journalists,” said Barhydt. “We look forward to him leading us through this conversation with Gov. Patrick, Mayor Menino and Commissioner Davis.”
Four days after the bombing and hours after the bombing suspects’ alleged slaying of MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, Patrick ordered residents in Boston and several neighboring communities to “shelter in place” as police combed through a Watertown neighborhood and eventually captured surviving suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is now awaiting trial on terrorism and other charges.
Menino was Boston’s longest serving mayor before announcing he would not seek re-election in 2013. Though confined to a wheelchair at the time of the bombing, Menino immediately checked himself out of a Boston hospital, where he was recovering from a back injury, to join Patrick, Davis and other officials leading the response to the tragic events.
Davis, the city’s 40th police commissioner, oversaw the city’s public safety response and the subsequent investigation. Now a private security consultant, Davis previously served as the chief of police in Lowell.
The Clough Colloquium was established through the generosity of Charles I. Clough ’64 and Gloria L. Clough, MDiv’90, MS’96. The program introduces members of the BC community to persons of high ethical standards who are leaders in their respective fields.
Barhydt said the conversation is sure to resonate across the audience given how many lives were directly or indirectly affected by the deadly attacks, the subsequent shelter-in-place order and widespread media coverage.
“Everybody has been affected by this in one way or another,” said Barhydt. “Everybody who will be there felt the impact of those events. We think this is a great opportunity to hear from these three leaders and learn what was going through their heads as events unfolded.”
For more information about the May 7 Clough Colloquium, see http://www.bc.edu/content/bc/schools/csom/research/leadership/programs/clough.html.