As part of Fanfare, Dr. David Kennedy, a history professor from Stanford University, will be giving a guest lecture entitled “The American Presidency: A truly peculiar institution” under the “Then and Now” lecture series.  
The lecture will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 10, at 11 a.m. in the Pottle Auditorium.
“Kennedy is the author of the textbook, ‘The American Pageant,’ which we currently use in our History 201 and 202 classes,” said Dr. Bill Robison, head of the Department of History and Political Science. “We invited him to come and he agreed after we selected that book.”
Kennedy is considered an expert on many aspects of history due to his work on historical books. In addition to “The American Pageant,” he is the author of “Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger,” which was a Bancroft Prize winner. He also wrote “World War I, Over Here: The First World War and American Society,” which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and “Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945,” which was a Pulitzer Prize winner. Kennedy is also an editor of “The Oxford History of the United States” series.
The focus of the department’s “Then and Now” lecture series is to have guests, experts and faculty speak on how different things have changed throughout history. This lecture will focus on aspects that make the American presidency such an unusual institution.
“The United States is weeks away from a presidential election,” said Robison on the importance of the lecture. “A better understanding of the presidency can only help students and anyone else in the audience to have a better understanding of what to look for in the two candidates as well.”
Admission to the lecture is free and open to the public.
For more information on the “Then and Now” lecture series, contact the Department of History and Political Science.