Bernanke to speak at USI

The University of Southern Indiana will present "A Conversation with Ben Bernanke," former chairman of the Federal Reserve, at 6 p.m. Monday, March 23, 2015, at the Physical Activities Center (PAC). Dr. Ben S. Bernanke will be the second speaker in the University's Romain College of Business Innovative Speaker Series. The inaugural speaker was T. Boone Pickens, legendary entrepreneur and philanthropist, who spoke in spring 2013.

This marks the first time Bernanke has spoken to a university audience since he joined the speaking circuit. The event is free and open to the public, and is part of a year of events planned for USI's 50th anniversary in 2015. Overflow seating with a live feed will be provided should PAC seating run out. 

As chairman of the Federal Reserve System under two presidents-George W. Bush and Barack Obama-Bernanke was front and center during a tumultuous period of economic history. As chairman, he faced some of the most critical economic and financial challenges since the Great Depression, helping to lead the government's response to the 2008-2009 financial crisis and subsequent recession.

Bernanke is a Distinguished Fellow in Residence at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institute. From February 2006 through January 2014, he was chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System. He also served as chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the system's principal monetary policymaking body.

Before his appointment as chairman, Bernanke was chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, from June 2005 to January 2006, at which time he had already served the Federal Reserve System in several roles. He was a member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2002 to 2005.

From 1994 to 1996, Bernanke was the Class of 1926 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He was the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and chair of the Economics Department at the university from 1996 to 2002. He had been a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton since 1985.

Before arriving at Princeton, Bernanke was an associate professor of economics (1983-85) and an assistant professor of economics (1979-83) at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. His teaching career also included serving as a visiting professor of economics at New York University (1993) and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1989-90).

Bernanke has published numerous articles on a wide variety of economic issues, including monetary policy and macroeconomics, and is the author of several scholarly books and two textbooks. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Sloan Fellowship, and is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as the director of the Monetary Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and as a member of the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee. In July 2001, he was appointed editor of the American Economic Review. His work with civic and professional groups includes having served two terms as a member of the Montgomery Township (New Jersey) Board of Education.

Bernanke was born in December 1953 in Augusta, Georgia, and grew up in Dillon, South Carolina. He received a bachelor's degree in economics in 1975 from Harvard University (summa cum laude) and a doctorate in economics in 1979 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"A Conversation with Ben Bernanke" is hosted by the USI Romain College of Business and the USI Foundation.

A special thanks to those who made this program possible: Carl Chapman, chairman, president and CEO of Vectren Corporation; Greg Donaldson, CIO and senior portfolio manager of Donaldson Capital Management; JP Engelbrecht, CEO of South Central Communications; Kevin Hammett '90, president and CEO of Regency Properties; Mike Hull, president and senior portfolio manager of Donaldson Capital Management; Bob Jones, president and CEO of Old National Bank; Robert Koch II, chairman of Koch Enterprisis, Inc.; Tim Mahoney, instructor in economics in the Romain College of Business; Chris Melton '72, president of Field and Main Bank; Ron Romain '73, president and CEO of United Companies; Mark Schroeder, chairman and CEO of German American Bancorp; and Linda White, president and CEO of Deaconess Health System.