The Hoover Institution hosted its fiftieth retreat, beginning on Sunday, October 21, 2012, and ending on Tuesday, October 23, 2012. On Sunday, the Honorable Bob McDonnell, governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia since January 2010 who also currently chairs the Republican Governors’ Association, the Southern Growth Policies Board, and the Southern Regional Education Board, gave the before-dinner remarks. His topics included job creation, economic development, our current debt crisis, and deficit spending. He also touched on two competing visions in the world; the first, which he calls an “entitlement society” with more guarantees, more taxes, more spending, and more regulation as a way to promote success; the second, an “opportunity society” which individuals can work hard, dream big, and use all their talents to be successful with limited government interference.

“A Century of Change: China 1911–2011,” the Hoover Institution's current exhibit, will be open extended hours from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm on Monday, October 10, 2011—the centennial anniversary of the Chinese Revolution of 1911.

The Hoover Institution’s annual postdoctoral W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellows have been named for the 2008–9 academic year.

STANFORD—A symposium to facilitate technology, manufacturing, and trade exchange between US and Polish entities took place in Hoover Institution’s Stauffer Auditorium on December 6 and 7. Participants included Polish leaders of industry and academia as well as government officials who were joined by Silicon Valley executives interested in exploring market opportunities and establishing business relationships with Poland.

On Thursday, May 3, 2012, David Brady, deputy director and Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, hosted a conference titled “Global Hotspots: Briefings from Insiders” featuring special guests from different countries. To begin, Oliver “Buck” Revell from the FBI gave remarks titled “The Most Significant Threats to the American People.” His Excellency M. K. Narayanan, past head of India Security, discussed “India’s Worries, Capabilities, Military and Intelligence Cooperation with the United States.” Joseph Felter, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and former national security affairs fellow (2008–9), gave a talk during the luncheon.

Sidney Drell is one of five recipients of the Heinz Family Foundation's $250,000 Heinz Awards for his efforts to limit 'the threat of nuclear annihilation while assuring our nation's adequate defense.

“NAFTA at Twenty,” a conference on the twentieth anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement, was hosted by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University on December 9, 2013. The conference brought those who negotiated NAFTA for Canada, the United States and Mexico together with leading scholars who have studied NAFTA’s effects.

In December 2015, the Hoover Institution celebrated the ninety-fifth birthday of George P. Shultz, former secretary of state, secretary of labor, and secretary of the Treasury; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient; and the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution. 

The Hoover Institution hosted its annual Board of Overseers’ summer meeting during July 9–11, 2013.

The program began on Tuesday evening with before-dinner remarks by Paul D. Clement, a partner at Bancroft PLLC. Clement served as the forty-third solicitor general of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. He has argued more than sixty-five cases before the US Supreme Court. During Clement’s speech, titled “Federalism in the Roberts Court,” he talked about the revitalization of federalism in the Rehnquist court “imposing some limits on the federal government’s power vis-a-vis the states.”