News & Events 2002-2003

Former Faculty Member, David Biette, Speaks at Blair

David Biette, former Blair Academy teacher, spoke to faculty and students on April 8, 2003 as part of the Society of Skeptics lecture series on whether or not North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has benefited the US economy. NAFTA is a pact that calls for the gradual removal of tariffs and other trade barriers on most goods produced and sold in North America. NAFTA became effective in Canada, Mexico, and the United States on January 1, 1994.

David Biette is Director of the Canada Institute, a program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. The Wilson Center is the living, national memorial to President Wilson established by Congress in 1968; it establishes and maintains a neutral forum for free, open, and informed dialogue in a nonpartisan setting.

Prior to joining the Wilson Center in October 2001, Biette was executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, a national not-for-profit multidisciplinary academic professional association dedicated to the promotion of Canadian studies in the United States. From 1986 to 1992, he served as a political-economic officer at the Canadian Consulate General in New York City, where he was a policy analyst for environment, political, energy, native affairs, and transportation portfolios for the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York City.

Biette has held teaching appointments at the Johns Hopkins Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, Blair Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey, the Université de Clermont-Ferrand in France, and Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He has an M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, a diplôme de hautes études de lettres et civilisation from the Centre international d'études françaises, Université de Nice (France), and a B.A. from Bowdoin College. He spent his junior year abroad at the Université Paul-Valéry in Montpellier, France.

Biette lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife, Ann Timmons, a playwright and performer, and their two children, Nora and Leo. He has been involved with numerous volunteer activities in the local community.

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