The Daily Campus

Issue date: 4/29/09 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Erin Odell New York Times columnist Roger Cohen speaks to students Tuesday night.

Having been the deputy foreign editor and acting foreign editor for The New York Times, a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and currently serving as an Op-Ed columnist for both The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, Roger Cohen's reputation most certainly precedes him.

A crowd began forming outside the Student Union Theater more than 30 minutes before the famed journalist was scheduled to begin his lecture at 7 p.m. Tuesday night. After the doors were opened, a student knocked on the side door of the stage to request an autograph on a printout of one of his articles. Handshakes and introductions from various members of an extremely diverse audience followed shortly after.

The well-respected columnist was brought to UConn through The New York Times Readership Program sponsored by the Undergraduate Government Academic Affairs committee.

"This is just one of the fantastic things we can do through this program," said Kay Bloomberg, chairperson of the committee.

"Typically, schools do not get the opportunity to host an Op-Ed columnist such as Cohen, especially one as renowned as him, so when out representatives mentioned that he was available we were all over it," said Duncan Craig, the vice chair of the Academic Affairs committee.

Bloomberg noted in an interview after the lecture that it is the sheer size of UConn's readership program that earned the committee the opportunity to host the London-born journalist without cost. The majority of the committee's budget, over $14,000 per semester, goes toward the more than 500 free New York Times newspapers on campus, which would otherwise leave little-to-no money for bringing in lecturers.

Cohen's speech focused on his areas of expertise and experience - international politics and relations, specifically between the United States and Iran.

"As we have seen in recent years, the Middle East is an area that, while quite far away geographically, can affect us all quite intimately," Cohen said.

Cohen referred to the relationship between the United States and Iran as "the most abominable relationship with another country that the United States has ever had." He credited both a lack of communication and the flawed views of the Iranians for this strained relationship.

Continued...

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