Hamilton, Lugar to discuss need for civility in DPU appearance Thursday

Monday, February 12, 2018
Richard Lugar (left), Lee Hamilton.
Courtesy photo

Two of Indiana’s most respected voices in the nation and around the world -- former U.S. Congressman and 1952 DePauw University graduate Lee H. Hamilton, and former U.S. Sen. Richard G. Lugar -- will visit DePauw Thursday, Feb. 15 to discuss today’s political and everyday discourse and what it might take for lawmakers, and their constituents, to embrace civility.

The program will take place at 7 p.m. in Meharry Hall, located within historic East College, and is free and open to the public.

Miranda S. Spivack, a visiting professor of journalism at DePauw who spent many years at the Washington Post, will serve as moderator.

A Democrat, Hamilton is one of foremost experts on Congress and representative democracy. He served Indiana as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1965-99. After leaving Congress, he founded the Center on Congress at Indiana University in 1999 and served as its director until 2015.

A leading figure on foreign policy, intelligence and national security, Hamilton served as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission and co-chaired the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

Hamilton currently serves as a senior adviser to the Indiana University Center on Representative Government, is a distinguished scholar in IU’s School of Global and International Studies, and a professor of practice at IU’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs. A history major at DePauw, he was a standout on the basketball team, earning induction into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame and DePauw Athletic Hall of Fame.

Lugar represented Indiana in the U.S. Senate for six terms -- the longest such tenure in state history. Lugar exercised leadership on issues such as food security, nuclear non-proliferation, energy independence and free trade, and in 1991, he forged a bipartisan partnership with then-Senate Armed Services Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Georgia) to destroy weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. To date, the Nunn-Lugar program has deactivated more than 7,600 nuclear warheads that were once aimed at the U.S.

Before his election to the Senate, Lugar served two terms as mayor of Indianapolis. Today, he is president of The Lugar Center, a non-profit organization focusing on global food security, WMD non-proliferation, aid effectiveness and bipartisan governance. He also serves as a distinguished scholar at the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University and teaches history and political science at the University of Indianapolis.

Both men have presented Ubben Lectures at DePauw -- Lugar in 2004 and Hamilton in 2011 -- and each has received the McNaughton Medal for Public Service as well as honorary doctorates from DePauw.

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