FOR MORE INFORMATION

CONTACT:  Susie P. Gonzalez

susie.gonzalez@trinity.edu

Aug. 2, 2006

Trinity University Announces Major Lectures for 2006-2007

SAN ANTONIO – Two former international heads of state and an award-winning filmmaker will visit Trinity University during the 2006-2007 academic year to present keynote lectures to the campus and San Antonio communities. All three lectures will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Laurie Auditorium and are free and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis.

Headlining The Trinity University Distinguished Lecture Series are filmmaker Ken Burns on Nov. 14, 2006, and Gerhard Schröder, former German chancellor, on Feb. 27, 2007. In addition, Vicente Fox, president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, will be the featured speaker March 27, 2007, for The Flora Cameron Lecture on Politics and Public Affairs.

Mr. Burns has been making films for more than 30 years, directing and producing some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made. Historian Stephen Ambrose said of his films, “More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source.” He also has been placed in a distinguished class described as one of the “most influential documentary makers of all time.”

In 1981, Mr. Burns produced and directed his first film for PBS, the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge. During the 1980s he made other award-winning films, including The Shakers, Statue of Liberty, Huey Long, The Congress, Thomas Hart Benton, and Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio. Other works have explored timeless themes such as the Civil War, Major League Baseball, American jazz, while other films have showcased the biographical stories of historical figures including architect Frank Lloyd Wright, explorers Lewis and Clark, former president Thomas Jefferson, and women’s rights advocates Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

In his more recent projects, such as The Civil War and Baseball, Mr. Burns has served as director, producer, co-writer, chief cinematographer, music director, and executive producer. Among his awards are an Emmy, the Clarion Award, the Television Critics Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sports and Special Programming, the People’s Choice Award, the Peabody Award, the Lincoln Prize, and the CINE Golden Eagle Award.  

Mr. Burns graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., in 1975, and went on to be one of the co-founders of Florentine Films.

Mr. Schröder took office as the first of a new generation of vibrant German leaders in 1998. He held office for seven years, overseeing the world’s third largest economy and moving to modernize German’s economy. He increased his country’s influence on a global level not only by taking strong stands on global issues, but also by sending German troops to hotspots around the world, a bold act that required changes to Germany’s Constitution.

His political life began in 1963, when he joined the Social Democrats. In 1978, he became the federal chairman of the party’s Youth Organization. He was first elected to the National Parliament in 1980, and in 1986, he became the prime minister of Germany’s largest federal state, Lower Saxony.

Born into a life of poverty, Mr. Schröder attended high school while working as a sales clerk. He enrolled in a night program at the law school at the University of Göttingen while working days at an ironmonger’s shop.

When he was elected in 2000, Mr. Fox broke the stranglehold that the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party had held on Mexico for seven decades. Described as a charismatic reformer, he is credited with playing a vital role in Mexico’s democratization and with strengthening the country’s economy. During his tenure, he succeeded in controlling inflation and interest rates and in achieving the lowest unemployment rate in all of Latin America.

The second of nine children, Mr. Fox spent much of his childhood on his father’s ranch in Guanajuato. After studying at the Ibero-American University in Mexico City and taking courses administered by the Harvard University Business School, he began driving trucks for the Coca-Cola Company in 1964. He was quickly promoted, becoming the youngest executive ever to be appointed president of Coca-Cola for Mexico and Latin America. Under his leadership, Coca-Cola surpassed Pepsi as Mexico’s top-selling soft drink.  

The Trinity University Distinguished Lecture Series is made possible by an endowment gift from Mr. and Mrs. Walter F. Brown of San Antonio.  The Flora Cameron Lecture on Politics and Public Affairs is made possible by an endowment gift by Flora C. Crichton of San Antonio.

For more information, call the office of public relations at (210) 999-8406.

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© 2006 Trinity University