William A. Galston, the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, has been named IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law’s 2014 Centennial Visitor. Galston will deliver the 2014 Centennial Lecture, “Can Government Fix What’s Wrong with the Economy?,” at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, April 16, 2014 in the Governor Richard B. Ogilvie Auditorium at the law school.

The lecture is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested. A reception will follow the lecture.

Galston is an expert on domestic policy, political campaigns, and elections. His current research focuses on designing a new social contract and the implications of political polarization.

A former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton and presidential candidates Al Gore and Walter Mondale, Galston was named a Brookings Institution senior fellow in 2006. Prior to that, he served as Saul Stern Professor and acting dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. Galston was founding director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University and still serves on its advisory board.

Galston received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. He is the author of eight books and more than 100 articles in the fields of political theory, public policy, and American politics. A winner of the American Political Science Association’s Hubert H. Humphrey Award, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. Galston writes a weekly column for the “Politics and Ideas” section of the Wall Street Journal.

To RSVP for the lecture or for more information, email Tasha Kincade at tkincade@kentlaw.iit.edu or call 312.906.5006.

The Centennial Visitor lecture series was inaugurated in fall 1987 as part of a yearlong celebration to mark the founding of Chicago College of Law, forerunner of IIT Chicago-Kent, in 1888. Previous lecturers have included the Honorable Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Circuit, the Honorable Stephen M. Schwebel of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow, economist Jagdish Bhagwati, and University of California Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.