Being a good leader means making the best decision possible even when you don't have all the information you'd like. That's the situation St. Francis College alumnus Thomas Von Essen '72 found himself in on September 11, 2001 as he surveyed the devastation after the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, he told a rapt audience on November 3 at St. Francis College.

In 2008, when Barack Obama became the first African-American president of the United States, he reiterated his promise to Americans of "Change we can believe in." The author of a new book about the president, Dinesh Sharma, told the audience at St. Francis College on October 28 that by understanding Obama's multicultural upbringing and the events and individuals that fundamentally shaped his character, Americans can gain valuable insight into exactly what type of change Obama plans to implement for America's future.

According to the Center for Women's Business Research "10.1 million firms are owned by women (50% or more), employing more than 13 million people, and generating $1.9 trillion in sales as of 2008." Women face a number of obstacles in the workplace but through mentorship, leadership, networking and work-life balance, women are not only staying in business, they are breaking through the glass ceiling. These strategies were the focus of a panel discussion featuring extraordinary women leaders across various industries, an event hosted by the St. Francis College Women's Center on October 26 in the St. Francis Genovesi Center.

He was born in Ethiopia and immigrated to the United States when he was two, but Walt Whitman Writer Series speaker Dinaw Mengestu says despite obvious physical, ethnic and geographic differences, it is what all people have in common that makes literature such an effective way to communicate and educate.

Born in a World War II work camp to parents who were slave laborers under the Nazis, John Guzlowski shared a series of deeply personal and powerfully shocking poems about his parents and their experiences as Polish Catholic victims of the Nazis on October 11 in St. Francis College's Founders Hall.

ead your column, but now your headline has to include catchy keywords to register with search engine optimization program or your work will get lost in the wilderness of the internet. The competing ideas served as the background for the panel discussion based on the book Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns hosted by St. Francis College and the Manhattan Institute on October 11 in the College's Founders Hall.

St. Francis College and the Manhattan Institute co-hosted the forum Young Voters and the 2012 Election featuring Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, authors of Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America on October 4 in the College's Founders Hall. Winograd and Hais explored the ideology of the millennial generation and their increasing political influence, comparing Millennials to older generations, and examining their possible impact on the 2012 presidential election.

The correlation between 9/11 and the 2011 Arab Spring and the idea of Amoral Moralism were the topics of a two part lecture by St. Francis College Professors Yassin El-Ayouty and Gerald J. Galgan marking the tenth anniversary of the attacks in the College's Maroney Forum for Arts, Culture & Education on September 19.

A celebration of the privileged rang out at the opening night gala of the 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival as Jonathan Dee, author of The Privileges (Random House), was announced as the second winner of the $50,000 St. Francis College Literary Award at the Brooklyn Book Festival 2011 Gala Mingle and Awards Ceremony held at The Green Building on September 17.

St. Francis College Constitution Law Professor Frank Sorrentino marked the 224th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution at St. Francis College on Thursday, September 15 with a Constitution Day talk devoted to the man often referred to as the Father of the Constitution, James Madison.