CBS Correspondent Dan Rather to Present Cohen Lecture at UMaine
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
Note: a photo of Dan Rather is available upon request.
ORONO, Me. — Dan Rather, the CBS News correspondent who served as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News for nearly a quarter century, will visit the University of Maine on Tuesday, Nov. 1 to deliver a William S. Cohen Lecture. The talk is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. in the Maine Center for the Arts.
Cohen, the Bangor native who represented Maine in Congress for 24 years and served as Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration, will also participate in the event, making introductory remarks before Rather”s lecture.
“Dan Rather is one of the giant figures of modern American journalism, and we are pleased that he will visit UMaine next month,” says UMaine President Robert A. Kennedy. “Because of the nature of his role during more than four decades in network news, Dan Rather has reported on as many historic
and fundamentally significant worldwide events as any journalist ever has. His insights on world events are both timely and informed, and our students, faculty members, staff members and people from the community will benefit from the opportunity to hear his perspectives.”
Rather is a Texas native who joined CBS News in 1962, serving first as chief of the network’s Southwest Bureau in Dallas. His early assignments included coverage of the John F. Kennedy assassination and Martin Luther King’s civil rights crusade. Rather has served as CBS News bureau chief in London and Saigon, and was White House correspondent during the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Since moving to the CBS Evening News in 1981, he has been on the scene at innumerable national and international news events, and has secured some of the most important television interviews of that time. Rather has received nearly every possible broadcast journalism award, including a Peabody Award and several Emmys.
The lecture series is a function of UMaine’s William S. Cohen Center for International Policy and Commerce, established within UMaine’s College of Business, Public Policy and Health in 1997. Cohen, who is a former faculty member in the College, donated his collection of papers chronicling his Congressional career to UMaine’s Fogler Library when the center was established. In January of 2001, Cohen gave the papers from his time as Secretary of Defense to the university.
Cohen delivered the first lecture in the series in March of 1998; Madeleine Albright, then Secretary of State, followed in October of 1999; retired U.S. Senator and former astronaut John Glenn delivered the Cohen Lecture in May of 2001. Two years later, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney presented the most recent Cohen Lecture.
The Cohen Lecture was established to bring to UMaine a distinguished speaker with informed perspectives on matters related to international policy and commerce.
Free tickets to the event are available. Those interested in attending should contact the Maine Center for the Arts Box Office at 581-1755 or 1-800-MCA-TIXX.