November 22, 2010

Contact:   Stacey Schmeidel, 704/894-2798

Former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle

Davidson, N.C. -- Tom Daschle, former U.S. Senator from South Dakota and former Senate Majority Leader, will deliver the 2010 Joseph H. and John M. Wearn Lecture at Davidson College on Wednesday, Dec. 1. The event, which will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Duke Family Performance Hall, is open to the public at no charge. No tickets are required.

Daschle was a member of the U.S. Senate for almost 20 years, serving as Senate Majority Leader from 2001 to 2003, and Senate Minority Leader from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, he joined with former majority leaders to create the Bipartisan Policy Center, an organization dedicated to finding common ground on pressing public policy challenges. He is the author of Getting It Done: How Obama and Congress Finally Broke the Stalemate to Make Way for Health Care Reform and co-wrote the 2008 book Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.

Daschle has served as the distinguished fellow at the Center for American Progress, special policy adviser for the law firm Alston & Bird and is currently a senior policy adviser at the law firm DLA Piper. He serves on the board of the Center for American Progress and the National Democratic Institute, and is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. He is a member of the Health Policy and Management Executive Council at the Harvard School of Public Health as well as a member of the Global Policy Advisory Council for the Health Worker Migration Initiative.

Daschle graduated from South Dakota State University in 1969 and served in the United States Air Force as an intelligence officer in the Strategic Air Command until mid-1972.

For more information about Daschle's appearance at Davidson, call 704-894-2248.

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,920 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Through The Davidson Trust, the college became the first liberal arts institution in the nation to replace loans with grants in all financial aid packages, giving all students the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Davidson competes in NCAA athletics at the Division I level, and a longstanding Honor Code is central to student life at the college.