Time Warner CEO named Carleton Vincent Fellow

As chairman and chief executive officer of Time Warner Inc., Gerald M. Levin leads the world’s foremost media and entertainment company. On April 23 and 24, he will visit Carleton College to share his expertise with students as the College’s 1998 Alice Lynch Vincent Fellow. During his stay on campus, Levin will present Carleton’s weekly convocation, host small group discussions, visit classes and lead students in an analysis of Time Warner business practices.

Levin’s convocation address, “The Liberal Imagination and the Enterprise of the Open Mind,” will take place at 10:50 a.m. on Friday, April 24, in Skinner Memorial Chapel. His talk is free and open to the public.

Levin was elected chairman of the board of Time Warner in 1993 and was the leading architect of the Time-Warner merger, as well as the prime mover of Time Warner’s agreement to merge with Turner Broadcasting.

Time Warner now comprises four businesses: entertainment, publishing, cable networks and cable services, with interests in filmed entertainment, television production, broadcasting, recorded music, music publishing, cable television programming, sports franchises, magazines, book publishing and cable television systems.

Over the past several years, Levin’s leadership has enhanced Time Warner’s status as a world-class blue-chip company by building what some perceive as the best management system in the media and entertainment industry. Time Warner has also developed gold-standard brands in every product category and achieved the size, financial strength and strategic plan necessary to bring a superior return to its shareholders.

A strong advocate for liberal arts education, Levin is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Haverford College, where he is a former chair of the board. He received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

On Thursday, April 23, Levin will participate in several events reserved for Carleton students, faculty and staff, including a small group discussion titled “From Haverford to Time Warner: A Conversation with Gerald Levin.” He will join John Schott, Carleton’s James Woodward Strong Professor of the Liberal Arts and coordinator of the College’s media studies concentration program, for lunch with students.

On Thursday afternoon, Levin will assist members of the Carleton Management Partners (CMP) in analyzing a Harvard University case study of Time Warner’s business practices. CMP is a student-run organization that provides support for entrepreneurship and business ventures.

In addition, Levin will visit a religion class, “Issues in Contemporary Religious Thought: The Holocaust,” taught by Associate Professor of Religion Louis Newman, and will be a guest speaker at Carleton’s commemoration of Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Day of Remembrance.

Francis T. “Fay” Vincent, Jr., will join Levin at a reception, dinner and conversation with students, faculty, staff and alumni on Thursday evening. Vincent, a former trustee of Carleton, and his two sisters, Joanna E. Vincent and Barbara J. Vincent, established the Vincent Fellowship in 1995 in honor and memory of their mother, Alice Lynch Vincent.

Carleton’s Vincent Fellows are accomplished individuals of diverse careers and interests whose visits provide Carleton students with an opportunity for several days of conversation, in and out of classroom settings. Past Vincent Fellows include Isaac Stern, Richard Helms, Beverly Sills and Larry Doby.