Award-winning author Shane Harris to lecture at graduate student Praxis in Alexandria
Shane Harris, senior writer with Foreign Policy magazine, Future Tense Fellow at the New America Foundation, and award-winning author of "The Watchers," will give a public lecture Friday, Oct. 25. at the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy, 1021 Prince Street, in Old Town Alexandria.
His talk, "The Rise of America’s Surveillance State" will start at 10:30 a.m. Guests attending are asked to RSVP.
“The Watchers,” the story of five men who played central roles in the creation of a vast national security apparatus and the rise of surveillance in America, won the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the Economist named it one of the best books of 2010.
Harris is also winner of the 2010 Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense. He has four times been named a finalist for the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists, which honor the best journalists in America under the age of 35.
Harris’ lecture is being presented in conjunction with Praxis, a one-day job shadowing experience for early career master’s degree students in public administration and policy. Praxis, also referred to as Shadow Day, is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 24. The annual event alternates between Virginia Tech locations in Alexandria and Richmond.
Ten students will participate in Shadow Day, nine from Blacksburg and one from Alexandria. Shadow mentors for the 2013 Praxis include representatives from the White House Office of Management and Budget; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Arlington County; Fairfax County; R Street Institute; the Federation of American Scientists; the Heritage Foundation; and Casey Trees.
“Praxis is a wonderful tradition that knits together our three locations – Blacksburg, Alexandria, and Richmond. It was started by alumni and it is sustained by the hard work of faculty, graduate students, and volunteer mentors,” said Patrick Roberts, associate professor and director of the Center for Public Administration and Policy in the National Capital Region. “We are fortunate to be able to give Blacksburg students a taste of the Washington work environment and public service in the nation’s capital and highlight some of the synergies between theory and practice in public administration and policy.”
