LETTER TO JOHN O. BRENNAN FROM SHIRLEY ANN JACKSON

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06888509
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: October 23, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 3, 2023
• Case Number: F-2017-00113
• Publication Date: September 8, 2016

Approved for Release: 2022/12/27 C06888509
Rensselaer
September 8.2016
Mr. John 0. Brennan
Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Office of Public Affairs
' Washington, DC 20505
Dear Director Brennan:
I was delighted to learn about your planned visit to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
on November 4, 2016, and to interact with members of our community. To help us
make this visit productive, I wanted to share some thoughts about a possible
schedule of events, and to seek your input on what would work best for you in the
relatively short visit.
I have read the contents of your recent remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR) where you described myriad challenges, including: global instability,
opportunities and risks within the digital domain, and in particular, cybersecurity,
nuclear proliferation, and other technological changes that impact national security.
Each one of these areas is of great interest to Rensselaer students and faculty. The
research program at our university is broad-based, and directly addresses Wobal
challenges, including climate change, biotechnology and disease mitigation, and
challenges related to developing resilient infrastructure. Our focus on data
exploration and applications undergirds developments in each of these domains. I
do believe that your ideas in these and related areas would be of great interest to
members of our community. Additionally, your thoughts on collaborative endeavors
to address the most significant challenges of our times resonate well with our own
approach that we have formalized in the construct of the "New Polytechnic."
Based on information provided by your office, we anticipate your arrival at
Rensselaer to be at or just after 4:30 pm on Friday, November 4th. We would be
honored to have you speak at 5:00 pm at our Experimental Media and Performing
Arts Center (EMPAC) on a theme similar to your CFR presentation - with a tie-In to
our focus on technological solutions to global challenges, given our student body
and faculty and their propensity for exploring and addressing the hard problems of
today.
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Following the talk. I envision a short 'fireside chat' where I will engage you in a
conversation that links to several of the themes you will have raised In your talk
This will be followed by a brief Q&A session. If you plan to have other high-level
intelligence community executives traveling with you, we can include them in this
part of the afternoon's events. We will then give you an opportunity to meet some of
our students from various groups across campus, and this will be followed by a tour
of some of our advanced digital research platforms within EMPAC, including our
Cognitive and Immersive Systems Laboratory and our Institute for Data Exploration
and Applications. We will cap off the evening with a dinner for selected guests.
Below is a summary of the planned timeline:
*30-5:00 pm
5:00-5:30 pm
5:30-6:00 pm
6:00-6:45 pm
6:45-7:30 pm
7:30 pm
Arrive at Rensselaer's Experimental Media and Performing
Arts Center
Lecture to Rensselaer community
Fireside Chat/Q&A
Meeting with Rensselaer students
Tour of our Cognitive and lmmersive Systems Laboratory and
our Institute for Data Exploration and Applications
Dinner at EMPAC
We are cognizant of your time and can modify this schedule as needed, including
assuring That the dinner is not protracted.
I personally look forward to welcoming you to Rensselaer.
Very truly yours,
Shirley Ann Jackson,
President
Approved for Release: 2022/12/27 C06888509