UAA Polaris lecture series welcomes Dr. Matthew Spalding

Expert talks about the George Washington and his role in the founding of the United States
UAA will end its highly regarded Spring 2007 Polaris lecture series when it hosts Dr. Matthew Spalding for an evening event entitled, "The Command of Our Own Fortunes: George Washington and the Challenge of Founding." This free lecture will be held on Thursday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m. in UAA/APU Consortium Library, room 307.

Spalding, director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies, will address issues such as the founding of the United States and how our first president, George Washington, played a role in it. Without him, America would neither have won nor established its independence; Washington was the catalyst without whom the American founding would have failed. What was it about Washington, the least educated and the most action-oriented of the Founding generation, that made him-and not Jefferson, not Madison, not Hamilton-the Father of his Country? What does Washington teach us about democratic statesmanship and the future of self-government?

Dr. Spalding received his Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School. An Adjunct Fellow with the Claremont Institute, he has taught American government at George Mason University, the Catholic University of America, Claremont McKenna College and Hillsdale College. He is the co-author of A Sacred Union of Citizens: Washington's Farewell Address and the American Character, the editor of The Founders ' Almanac: A Practical Guide to the Notable Events, Greatest Leaders & Most Eloquent Words of the American Founding and the executive editor of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution. He is on the Board of Academic Advisors at Mount Vernon Estate.

The Polaris lectures, named for the North Star on Alaska's flag, address a wide range of subjects in the liberal arts. Organized by the UAA Democracy Forum with assistance from the University Honors Forty-Ninth State Fellows Program, the Office of Community Partnerships, the Polaris Society, the Alaska Humanities Forum, and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the Polaris lecture series began in the 1980s to commemorate the bicentenary of the American Constitution.