Next week, on Wednesday, October 26, GAP is set to host the third stop of our American Whistleblower Tour: Essential Voices for Accountability at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
The Brandeis stop features a panel discussion, Enron: A Case Study in Whistleblowing and American Journalism, with Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins and noted journalist Alison Bass. GAP Tour Director Dana Gold will moderate the discussion.
Sherron Watkins was Vice President of Corporate Development at Enron. She is considered by many to be the whistleblower who helped to uncover the Enron scandal in 2001, as she alerted then-CEO Ken Lay to accounting irregularities within the company, warning him that Enron ‘might implode in a wave of accounting scandals.’ She later testified before congressional committees investigating Enron’s demise. Watkins was named one of Time Magazine’s 2002 Persons of the Year.
Alison Bass is an award-winning investigative journalist and the author of Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and A Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial, the true story of two women who exposed the deception behind the making of a blockbuster drug. She was a longtime medical and science writer for The Boston Globe. She now teaches journalism at Mount Holyoke College and Brandeis University.
The panel starts at 7pm at Mandel Center Auditorium G03 on the Brandeis campus.
Leading up to the panel, Watkins will meet with accounting classes, and participate in in-depth discussions with students and faculty members from the Brandeis International Business School. In addition to that school, this Tour stop is co-sponsored by the Journalism Program, the American Studies Program, the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, and the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism.
The stop is the third of our Tour, which is set to visit at least eight other campuses in the 2011-2012 school year. The Tour kicked off last month at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and hosted its second stop earlier this week at the University of Texas at Austin. Each stop has been a rousing success!
Heather Hoffman is the American Whistleblower Tour Coordinator for the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.