Everclass – Recapping the Midterms with Drake Alumni Experts
After all the hoopla, the billions of dollars in campaign spending, the attack ads, the gaffes, the quirky personalities, the shifting winds of political fortune, what are we to make of the 2022 midterm elections? Join fellow alumni and friends to hear from esteemed political veterans Sara Fagen, BN ’97, and Shari Yost Gold, AS ’92 as they share their thoughts and reflections on the results of this wild ride in American Politics. The panel will be moderated by Professor Rachel Paine Caufield, co-chair of the Department of Political Science.
Speakers:
Sara Fagen: Sara Fagen serves as the CEO of Tunnl, a leading analytics and technology company that partners with advertising and communications professionals to more effectively reach and measure target audiences across paid and earned media platforms. Fagen co-founded Tunnl in 2013.
Prior to taking the helm at Tunnl, Fagen served as a partner at DDC Public Affairs in Washington D.C., where she helped clients solve some of their toughest public affairs and political challenges. Sara became a Partner at DDC in 2011 after the company acquired BlueFront Strategies, an issue advocacy firm she founded. In 2014, Fagen helped lead the sale of DDC to Omnicom Group Inc. (OMC). Sara is also a founder of Resonate Insights, a disruptive real-time consumer intelligence platform that brings together real-time survey data and insights on over 230 million consumers and online behavioral data all in one platform.
Before branching out as an entrepreneur, Fagen had a successful career in government and campaign politics. Sara served as White House Political Director for President George W. Bush. During her years in the White House, Fagen was involved in helping enact some of President Bush’s most significant legislative accomplishments. Fagen also played a key role in the President’s 2004 re-election campaign, in which she served as a senior strategist directing opinion research and paid media. After the campaign, the Wall Street Journal called her a “data whiz,” saying, “As a top strategist for the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election efforts, Fagen helped perfect political micro-targeting.”
Fagen’s commentary can be seen on NBC News, where she is a contributor.
Shari Yost Gold: Shari Yost Gold currently serves as a Senior Advisor for Invariant GR and President of Yost Gold Consulting. Political and public affairs strategist Shari Yost Gold is a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs and leading non-profits. She leverages decades of Washington expertise and an extraordinary network to design high-impact public affairs initiatives expanding influence, increasing brand and executive visibility, and creating opportunities for clients.
Shari held executive management positions in federal political campaigns in each election cycle since 1996, most recently working alongside Vice President Kamala Harris through multiple campaigns, beginning when she was California Attorney General through the 2020 presidential election. Shari was also a strategist for former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s 2020 presidential bid.
Shari helped launch the Black Economic Alliance, designing its inaugural national development and major giving programs. Before founding her own consulting firm in 2003, she was vice president of government affairs at Cablevision and Madison Square Garden and Finance Director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Shari graduated from Drake University. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two teenage children.
Rachel Paine Caufield: Professor and Co-Executive Director of the Center for Public Democracy, Rachel Paine Caufield earned her Ph.D. at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., specializing in American politics and political science methodology, and her B.A. at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, majoring in Political Science and Mathematics. She joined the Department of Political Science at Drake in 2001, and teaches courses on American politics, with special attention to political institutions (Congress and the Legislative Process, Judicial Politics, and the American Presidency).
Professor Caufield loves the big marble buildings in Washington, D.C., but she has also become an avid devotee of the Iowa caucuses. In 2016, she published The Iowa Caucus with Arcadia Press. For the past three presidential campaign cycles, she has organized efforts to get students involved in the caucuses, has coordinated candidate visits to campus, and led the campus effort to host national presidential debates forums. For three years, she served as the Associate Director for Citizen Engagement at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement, working to bring students and the community together to create a more vigorous and meaningful public dialogue.
Professor Caufield has been recognized as the Honors Teacher of the Year (2005), and the Madelyn M. Levitt Teacher of the Year (2010). In 2012, she received the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Engagement Award. In 2014, she was named the Dean and Sue Wright Outstanding Teacher of the Year in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Session Details:
Where: Microsoft Teams
When: Tuesday, November 29
Time: 6:00 – 7:30 pm (CDT)
Registration: Please register via this link. If you have issues with registration, clear your cache or try opening on a different browser. If you continue to have issues, contact courtney.conrad@drake.edu.
Questions? Contact Courtney Conrad, Assistant Director of Regional Engagement at courtney.conrad@drake.edu or by phone at 515-271-3378.