Noted author and New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman '75 joined Professor Chad Bown and P.V. Kannan, Co-founder and CEO of 24/7 Customer, for a lunch discussion with Brandeis IBS students. The spirited Q&A session touched on a variety of topics including the role of democracy and immigration in an increasingly "flat world".

On democracy, Friedman remarked "having an open society, the ability to correct the systems...you will have over time, as the world flattens, more and more of an advantage". Regarding immigration, he said: "I'm for high walls with a really big gate. The single greatest advantage this country has today is its openness". Students enjoyed the event and the opportunity to ask questions of this leading thinker on globalization, who co-taught a course at Brandeis this fall as the Fred and Rita Richman Distinguished Visiting Professor of Economics.

Thomas L. Friedman '75 Noted Author and New York Times Columnist

Thomas L. Friedman '75 is currently the Fred and Rita Richman Distinguished Visiting Professor of Economics at Brandeis University. Professor Friedman is co-teaching an undergraduate course entitled The Economics of Globalization with Professor Chad P. Bown (Economics/IBS) during the fall semester. When not teaching at Brandeis, Friedman is a a world-renowned author and three-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and he is currently a foreign affairs columnist at The New York Times. His most recent book, The World Is Flat (2005 Farrar, Straus & Giroux), was given the first Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

Photos by Eric Strauss