Former U.S. Education Secretary, Arne Duncan (right), sits next to President Obama (left). PHOTO COURTESY OF DEPAUW UNIVERSITY
Arne Duncan, former U.S. Education Secretary under President Obama, will speak on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium in the Green Center for Performing Arts as part of the Ubben Lecture Series.
Arne Duncan served as the Secretary of Education from 2009 until early this year. Before he was the Secretary of Education, he was the superintendent of Chicago Public Schools.
“I think the great thing about Arne Duncan is that he just left the White House at the end of the year, and he really hasn’t been on the speaker circuit, so we are getting a fresh message from someone who has been at a prominent position for a while now,” said Ken Owen, Executive Director of Media Relations. “It’s been many years since we have had an education secretary.”
Owen typically looks for potential lecturers who are new to speaking to large crowds and whose messages are relevant to life here at DePauw.
“I think Duncan is a timely speaker, and I think he is someone who challenges both Republicans and Democrats to reconsider their long held views and to really focus on the needs of students,” Owen said.
While this Ubben Lecture may, at a first glance, appear to only focus on and appeal to education and political science majors, Owen believes Duncan’s involvement with education has potential to impact both students and professors alike.
“I think we have many students who want to go into lives in public service or be influential change makers and I think he is a great role model as somebody who, from a young age, decided that he wanted to make a change in the world and then did it,” Owen said. “I’m hoping we get a lot of educational leaders from around the state to come, spend time at DePauw and hear him. I think it reinforces the fact that the Ubben Lecture really opens the doors to the world and brings in viewpoints we don’t always hear on campus.”
Students are looking forward to the event.
“I would go see him because I grew up under him being Secretary of Education and the policies he implemented affected my experiences in the public school system,” said first-year Kiara Goodwine.
First-year Regan Giesting agrees.
“It’d be interesting to get the perspective of someone who had the responsibility to maintain the reputation of America’s education system," she said. "I think it’d be cool to hear his point of view to about the whole education crisis with teachers and their pay.”
Owen thinks this is a talk that many students might take an interest in because the prioritization of education within our government directly affects college-aged people.
“I think having a discussion about education, about how we prioritize education, what is happening in this country now, and what will happen if we don’t make education a priority is extremely timely,” Owen said. “With Arne Duncan you have someone who is a change agent and someone who is really working both at the grassroots level and the top levels of government to make the world a better place. ...I think there’ll be some great take-aways for students who themselves want to be change agents.”
While this is most likely the last Ubben Lecture of the year, Owen reached out to the U.S. presidential campaigns to see if any of the candidates would like to hold a rally on DePauw’s campus.
“I don’t know if that would happen, but that invitation is out there,” Owen said.
If this were to happen, there would be very little notice or turn around time, but the student body would be informed in a timely manner, according to Owen.