Ben Stein next speaker in 2009-10 Distinguished Speaker Series

Ben Stein next speaker in 2009-10 Distinguished Speaker Series

Ben Stein

University Park, Pa. -- Ben Stein, author, economist and pop culture icon, is the third speaker in Penn State’s 2009-10 Student Programming Association Distinguished Speaker Series. Stein will speak at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 3, in Eisenhower Auditorium at Penn State's University Park campus.

The event is free and open to the public but tickets are required for admittance. Tickets will be available for students -- two issued per I.D. -- on Wednesday, Jan. 20, and available to faculty, staff and the general public on Wednesday, Jan. 27, based on availability.

Stein, who graduated from Yale Law School in 1970, has worked as an economist at the U.S. Department of Commerce; a poverty lawyer in New Haven, Conn., and Washington, D.C.; a trial lawyer specializing in trade and regulation at the Federal Trade Commission; and an adjunct instructor at American University in Washington, D.C., the University of California at Santa Cruz and Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. From 1973 to 1974 he was a White House speechwriter and lawyer for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He has been a columnist and editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal, syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and King Features Syndicates and frequent contributor to the financial magazine Barron's, where his articles about the ethics of management buyouts and issues of fraud in the Milken Drexel junk bond scheme drew major national attention.

Author or co-author of 30 books, Stein has written seven novels, largely about life in Los Angeles, and 21 nonfiction books, about finance and related ethical and social issues, as well as the political and social content of mass culture. He is also a widely recognized actor in movies, TV and commercials. From 1997 to 2002, he was the host of the Comedy Central quiz show "Win Ben Stein's Money," which won seven Emmy Awards.

Tickets are available at the following locations and times:

Eisenhower Auditorium, corner of Shortlidge and Eisenhower roads, weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; HUB-Robeson Center, on Pollock Road, weekdays 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Bryce Jordan Center, corner of University Drive and Curtin Road, weekdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., all on the University Park campus; and the Penn State Downtown Theatre Center, 146 S. Allen St., State College, weekdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

For more information about the Distinguished Speaker Series and the Student Programming Association, visit http://www.spa.psu.edu/dss.html.