Former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach has recently been named the new director of Harvard University's Institute of Politics.
Mr. Leach has agreed to take a leave from Princeton University, where he is the John L. Weinberg Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School.
Prior to his arrival at Princeton, Leach served 15 terms in Congress as a Republican representative from eastern Iowa. During his congressional career he served as chairman of the House Banking and Financial Services Committee and the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, and was author or co-author of several significant pieces of legislation, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, reforming the financial services industry. He was educated at Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University, and the London School of Economics.
This will be the former Congressman's second appearance on Speaking Freely.

"Hannah Riley Bowles" is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School and on the staff of the Center for Public Leadership. She is engaged in research on negotiation and leadership. She is interested in how people negotiate for resources and opportunities to advance into leadership positions and when gender differences tend to arise in negotiation expectations and performance. She teaches and has conducted case research on leadership in crisis and complex multi-party conflict. Earlier in her career, she was a research associate at Harvard Business School, Strategic Environmental Associates, and Conflict Management Group.
She was a technical advisor to the Minister of Natural Resources, Energy & Mines of Costa Rica and served in 1995 on the Costa Rican delegation to the UN Climate Change negotiations. She was fellow at the Argentinean National Institute of Public Administration, the West German Parliament, and Oxford University's Forestry Institute. Bowles is the faculty director of Women & Power, the Kennedy School's executive program for women leaders from the public, private and non-profit sectors. She won the Kennedy School's 2003 Manuel Carballo Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has a DBA from the Harvard Business School, an MPP from the Kennedy School, and an AB from Smith College.
Whitaker currently serves on several committees in the Iowa House - the
Administration and Rules committee; the Natural Resources committee;
the Public Safety committee; the Transportation committee; and the
Agriculture committee, where he is vice chair. His political experience
includes serving as Assistant Majority Leader of the Iowa House and
serving as Van Buren City Supervisor.

Helen Thomas
Commonly referred to as "The First Lady of the Press," former White House Bureau Chief Helen Thomas is a trailblazer, breaking through barriers for women reporters while covering every President since John F. Kennedy.
For 57 years, Helen also served as White House correspondent for United Press International. She recently left this post and joined Hearst Newspapers as a syndicated columnist.
Dennis Raimondi discusses a wide range of topics with Ms. Thomas from JFK's wit to Richard Nixon's shyness to Bill Clinton's blown chance for greatness to her dismay with the mainstream media to her well-documented friction with the current White House administration.