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SEN. LUGAR TO DISCUSS CLINTON FOREIGN POLICY
IN INAUGURAL BONSER LECTURE AT IU
EDITORS: A news conference with Sen. Lugar has been tentatively arranged after his speech at 3:15 p.m. on Feb. 18. No credentials will be required for media covering Lugar's speech, but those with special needs may wish to contact George Vlahakis, IU Office of Communications and Marketing, phone 812-855-3911.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the longest-serving U.S. senator in Indiana history and a former presidential candidate, will present the inaugural Charles F. Bonser Distinguished Lecture in Public Policy at Indiana University on Feb. 18.
Lugar's lecture, "A Critical Review of Clinton Foreign Policy," will begin at 1:30 p.m. in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana Memorial Union on the Bloomington campus. The public is invited to attend free of charge.
The new lecture series is funded by a gift from Charles Bonser, founder and dean emeritus of the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and his wife, Nancy. The lecture series is cosponsored by SPEA and the Kelley School of Business, which each matched the Bonsers' gift to launch the series.
The Bonser Lectures are intended to inform the IU community about public affairs issues and to continue the university's involvement in important and current discussions nationally and internationally.
Lugar, valedictorian of his high school and college classes, also was co-president of the student body at Denison University in Ohio with his future wife, Charlene, whom he married in 1956. After earning a bachelor of arts degree from Denison University, he earned a master of arts degree from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
After serving in the U.S. Navy between 1957 and 1960, Lugar managed his family's 604-acre Marion County farm and its food machinery manufacturing business in Indianapolis, before beginning a political career. He successfully ran for mayor of Indianapolis in 1968 and served two terms. Then he launched a successful run for the U.S. Senate in 1976. As Indianapolis mayor, he envisioned the unification of the city and surrounding Marion County into one government. Unigov, as Lugar's plan was called, set the city on a 30-year period of economic growth.
Since his election to the Senate, Lugar has been instrumental in Senate ratification of treaties that reduce the world's use, production and stockpiling of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In 1991, he forged a bipartisan partnership with then-Senate Armed Services Chairman Sam Nunn (R-Ga.) to eliminate weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. As a result, three former Soviet republics have become nuclear-free and more than 4,700 nuclear warheads have been deactivated.
In 1996, Lugar and Nunn were joined by Sen. Pete Domenici (D-N.M.) in creating a program to combat the use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorists. As chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Lugar championed the 1996 federal farm program reforms, which ended a system of federal subsidies and production controls that had existed for decades.
He broke all previous statewide U.S. Senate election records with his re-election in 1994 to a fourth term, and became the longest-serving U.S. senator in Indiana history. In 1996, Lugar ran for the Republican presidential nomination.
Bonser, IU associate business dean from 1969 to 1972, was asked by then-IU President John Ryan in 1971 to explore plans for a new School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He was appointed the school's first dean in 1972.
During Bonser's 17-year tenure as SPEA dean, the school developed into one of the largest and most highly rated public affairs schools in the nation. The school currently has about 200 faculty and staff and about 3,000 students on five IU campuses. Bonser's association with IU goes back to the early 1960s, when he earned a master of business administration degree, joined the IU business faculty and then completed a doctorate in business. Then-IU President Thomas Ehrlich presented Bonser with a presidential citation upon his retirement from SPEA's deanship. Bonser retired from active service at IU in 1997.
Bonser has held a number of governmental and public service posts, including director of the Indiana State Tax and Financing Policy Commission, director of the Intergovernmental Personnel Program for the State of Indiana, and special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. He has been a consultant or adviser to the Brookings Institution, the U.S. Civil Service Commission, Indiana governors and lieutenant governors, and several foreign governments.
(George Vlahakis, Office of Communications and Marketing, 812-855-0846, gvlahaki@indiana.edu)