Senator Lugar Speaks at Holloway Hall March 14

SALISBURY, MD---Salisbury University’s Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement (PACE) announces that Richard Lugar, Republican Senator from Indiana, is speaking in SU’s Holloway Hall Auditorium Friday, March 14, at 2 p.m.

Senator Lugar’s lecture, titled “The Changing World,” will address issues in foreign affairs, particularly the volatile situation in the Middle East and terrorism. “I cannot imagine a voice more distinguished and reasonable than Richard Lugar’s,” said Dr. Harry Basehart, PACE’s co-director. “In his 27 years in the Senate, he has been a leader in foreign policy issues, from his championing the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 to the Nunn-Lugar program that has dismantled nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads. For the last three years he has been a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.”

Richard Green Lugar was born in Indianapolis on April 4, 1932. He graduated from Denison University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University where he met Paul Sarbanes and struck up a life-long friendship with the future senator from Maryland.

After serving in the Navy, he returned to his hometown and was elected mayor of Indianapolis. During his two terms, he developed a city-county unification plan, known as Unigov, which was credited with revitalizing the downtown area and initiating an unprecedented economic growth for the region.

He was elected to his first term in the Senate in 1976 and, in his last three elections, he has won by a record breaking, two-thirds majority. During his Senate tenure, he has made his mark in the arena of foreign affairs and currently holds the chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee. Characterized in a recent New York Times editorial as “one of the G.O.P.’s most seasoned and sensible foreign policy hands,” the editors praised him for his “thoughtful views on issues…his solidly internationalist outlook… his bipartisan legislative style.” His ownership of his family farm in Marion County has made him particularly attentive to the challenges and needs of rural communities.

Senator Lugar is the second speaker in the Paul S. Sarbanes Lecture Series, established last year as a joint partnership between the senior senator from Maryland and Salisbury University’s PACE Institute. Senator Sarbanes gave the inaugural address in the Fall semester. “We are thrilled to have a speaker of Senator Lugar’s stature coming to campus,” said President Janet Dudley-Eshbach. “It’s further indication of our University’s distinguished and growing reputation.”

“The purpose of our lecture series,” said Dr. Francis Kane, co-director of PACE, is to offer our students the opportunity to hear politicians whose lives of devotion to the public good can offset their often negative image of politics.” “People may not realize it,” Kane continued, “that, long before the phrase ‘compassionate conservative’ became fashionable, Senator Lugar quietly lived it. He has been a consistent advocate of school lunches and literacy, scholarships for minority students, pre-natal care for the poor and support for fighting birth defects.”

At the lecture, Senator Paul S. Sarbanes is introducing his long time colleague. Though on separate sides of the aisle both men have great mutual respect for each others’ principles and dedication to the public good.

“I am extremely pleased and honored that my long-time friend and colleague, Dick Lugar, has agreed to participate in PACE’s lecture series,” said Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (D-MD). “Having known him since our days at Oxford, I have grown to respect his opinion and value our discussions, even when we disagree, on foreign policy issues. He brings to Salisbury University and the University community a major understanding and insight of the foreign policy issues facing our country today. It will indeed be a pleasure for me to introduce him to my hometown community.”

Senator Lugar’s talk is free and the public is cordially invited. For more information, call PACE at 410-677-5045.