About

Our Mission

Cambridge Forum hosts free public discussions designed to inspire and engage, so that people can better explore the varied issues and ideas shaping the changing world. CF broadcasts these events via podcasts, weekly NPR shows and through GBH Forum Network on YouTube to audiences locally, nationally and globally.

Cambridge Forum’s purpose is to advance civil discourse through meaningful conversations with compelling activists & intellectuals across the whole ideas spectrum. In this way, CF fosters community with those who care about the salient issues affecting their lives and distributes these recordings, free of cost.

Cambridge Forum furthers understanding by engaging everyday people with thought leaders in lively conversations. Employing vigorous but respectful dialogue on a wide range of important subjects, CF aims to further public understanding and promote a community of informed citizens. It accomplishes its mission by hosting events on timely topics through live audience discussion and shares the content through a range of free media platforms.

Cambridge Forum’s mission has been devoted to exploration and education, amplifying ideas that impact the world and humanity. CF’s enduring principle is to further democracy, by equipping people with the information they need to make better decisions about subjects affecting their lives, and the future of all life on the planet.

Former Executive Director Mary Stack with Cornel West

About Us

Frédérique Rigoulot brings a rich and varied background to her role as Executive Director of Cambridge Forum. Her professional experience spans journalism, broadcast, podcasting, and digital media production. She has produced and edited hundreds of public talks for GBH Forum Network, launched community news programming at Belmont Media Center, and reported for Midi Libre in France. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the École de Journalisme de Paris and a Master’s in Public Policies and Political Science from Université de Montpellier I.

Cambridge Forum was originally founded by Rev. Herbert Vetter in 1967 as a program of the First Parish (Unitarian Universalist) in Cambridge to provide a safe platform from which to examine the Civil Rights Movement and the war in Vietnam. It brought experts, writers, policymakers, and thinkers face to face with a public audience in a lively and engaged dialogue.  Cambridge Forum was incorporated as a non-profit 501(c)(3) in 1999, to better maintain its mission, financially. It remains deeply committed to its civic engagement, and to fostering the principle that an informed public make wiser and more just decisions. In this way, Cambridge Forum strives to contribute to the vision of democracy as a viable, enduring entity.

Contact Us

Our History

Prof. Matthew Meselson and Rev.Herbert Vetter at a Cambridge Forum on the controversial topic “Should we halt recombinant DNA research?

Cambridge Forum was originally founded by Rev. Herbert Vetter in 1967 as a program of the First Parish (Unitarian Universalist) in Cambridge to provide a safe platform from which to examine salient social issues. The Civil Rights Movement and the war in Vietnam were among the most urgent topics initially discussed. From the beginning, it brought expert scholars, writers, policymakers, and thinkers face-to-face with a public audience in a lively and engaged dialogue.

Over its 50+ year history, Cambridge Forum has presented hundreds of public programs in Harvard Square featuring such speakers as Buckminster Fuller, John Kenneth Galbraith, Marian Wright Edelman, Stephen Jay Gould, Jonathan Kozol, Lani Guinier, Paul Krugman, James Carroll, Rabbi Harold Kushner and hundreds more in respectful and meaningful discussions of potentially divisive contemporary issues. Its programs are free in every sense of the word; they are open to the public without an admission charge and based on the principles of free inquiry and freedom of speech. After laying out the topic for discussion in a brief exposition, speakers respond to the comments, questions, and concerns of the public audience. With its emphasis on dialogue, Cambridge Forum fulfills its mission of fostering civic engagement and participatory democracy and exemplifies its underlying principle that an informed citizenry will make wise decisions promoting a just society.

Board of Directors

• Frederique Rigoulot
  Executive Director
• Dave Brinkman
  President
• Wendy Graham-Coco
  Treasurer and Clerk
• Urs Gauchat
• Andrew Kimble
• David Leveille
• Phillip Martin
• Mary Stack
• Jane Sturtevant
• Tim Weiskel

Our Network

Cambridge Forum broadcasts a weekly radio show via NPR, and GBH Forum Network uploads our programs to YouTube, thus bringing program recordings to an aggregated online audience of 350,000 in the U.S. and around the world. In addition, the programs are available as podcasts on iTunes (or wherever you get your podcasts).

Cambridge Forum is available free to public radio stations nationwide via NPR’s Content Depot. Cambridge Forum currently airs on these public radio stations: