Thursday, September 8, 2011

What Students Need to Know about 9/11: Ten Years Later

Two Webcasts Designed for Secondary School Students

by the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Wachman Center

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, what should our students know about the events of that tragic day, and what are they to make of the demise of Osama bin Laden, the rise of home-grown terrorist threats in the United States, and the emergence of Al Qaeda "franchises" in Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere?

The Foreign Policy Research Institute's Wachman Center invites teachers to sign up their classrooms to participate in an online webcast on Thursday, September 8, in which students will be able to pose their own questions to our experts live online. Two sessions will be webcast.

Teachers may sign up their classrooms to view either or both webcasts live online by following the registration instructions below. Individual teachers or students may also sign up to register for the webcast.

All questions not answered during the session will be answered by email shortly thereafter.

Questions may be submitted online during the webcast or in advance by emailing: questions@fpri.org

The sessions will feature interviews with leading experts, including --

Lawrence Husick is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Center on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism where he concentrates on the study of terrorist tactics and counterterrorism strategies, with a particular focus on technology leverage as a defining characteristic of the modern terrorist. He is also co-director of the FPRI Wachman Center's Program on Teaching Innovation and an adjunct professor in the Organizational Dynamics Master's Program of the University of Pennsylvania and at the Whiting Graduate School of Engineering of the Johns Hopkins University. His computer-related experience includes his work as co-founder and principal system architect of Infonautics Corporation (now HighBeam Research), which offers the Electric Library and Encyclopedia.com on the World Wide Web, for which he has been awarded five U.S. patents.

Jan Ting is a professor of law at Temple University, where he teaches courses on national security, taxation, and immigration law, and has published articles in those areas. He has commentary or appeared in various media, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, National Public Radio, PBS Newshour, ABC Nightline, and the NBC Today Show, Dateline, and Evening News programs. He has also testified before Congress and the 9/11 Comission. Professor Ting is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Center for Immigration Studies, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He received a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Jack Thomas Tomarchio, a Senior Fellow in FPRI's Center on Terrorism and Counterterrorism, is the President of Agoge Group, LLC. In 2005 he was appointed the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis; in 2007 he was promoted to Deputy Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Operations. In his work at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Mr. Tomarchio was the primary senior official in charge of the intelligence directorate's partnership with state and local governments to build a domestic intelligence sharing network. He also worked closely with other components of the federal intelligence community. He began his career as an attorney in the U.S. Army, where he served as a paratrooper with the 82d Airborne Division. He served in the Grenada invasion in 1983 and also served as counsel to a multinational peacekeeping force in the Sinai, Arab Republic of Egypt. Leaving active duty in 1985, Mr. Tomarchio became a litigator for two national law firms in Philadelphia. In 1991, Mr. Tomarchio was recalled to active duty and served in the Persian Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. He currently serves as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. Mr. Tomarchio is a television commentator, writer and speaker on national security issues and has testified before both houses of Congress on homeland security and intelligence matters.

Edward Turzanski, a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He served with the U.S. Government in the field of intelligence (Soviet, Eastern European, Central Asian and Middle East Affairs) throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Mr. Turzanski is the National Security and Intelligence Analyst for Comcast's CN-8 Channel; and he has appeared on numerous national television and radio stations including Fox News Network, CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio in Wisconsin and New Hampshire, Canadian Broadcast Corporation news, Turkish National Television from Istanbul, South African National radio, Australian National Radio, WLS in Chicago, KAIRO in Seattle, and KERN in Bakersfield, California. In additional to his academic positions, Mr. Turzanski is the Assistant Vice President for Government and Community Relations at La Salle University.

Moderated by Alan Luxenberg, Founder and Director of FPRI's Wachman Center, which is devoted to fostering civic and international literacy in the community and in the classroom.

Additional resources for teacher and students

Audios and videos of these sessions.