Buchanan will address immigration issues in the United States. Sponsored by the Bates College Republicans, this event is open to the public at no cost.

Buchanan began her political career as the national treasurer of former President Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1984. In 1981, Reagan appointed her as treasurer of the United States. At age 32, she was the youngest person to hold that position since its establishment in 1775.

From 1996 into 1999, Buchanan co-anchored “Equal Time,” a political talk show on CNBC and later MSNBC.

Buchanan is now president of The American Cause, an educational foundation dedicated to advancing conservative issues, and is co-chair of a political action committee that opposes amnesty for illegal aliens.

Buchanan has a master’s degree in mathematics from McGill University. In 1981, she received an honorary doctor of  law degree from Samford University in Birmingham, Ala.

Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly gives a talk titled Feminism vs. Conservatism: The Great Debate at Bates College at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

Sponsored by the Bates College Republicans, the event is open to the public at no cost.

“Mrs. Schlafly’s talk will focus on the failures of feminism and the importance of the traditional family unit,” said Jonathan Browher, first vice president of the Bates College Republicans and a junior from Meredith, N.H. “She’ll challenge the perpetuated myth that the promotion of women’s rights is incompatible with the conservative movement.”

“With Schlafly’s expertise on women’s issues, the Bates community will have the opportunity to hear some novel ideas and insights about the state of the feminist movement today.”

Phyllis Schlafly has been a national leader of the conservative movement since the publication of her best-selling 1964 book, A Choice Not An Echo (Pere Marquette Press, 1964). She has been a prominent foe of abortion since 1972, when she started the national volunteer organization now called Eagle Forum. In a 10-year battle, Schlafly led the successful national opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.

An articulate opponent of what she terms the radical feminist movement, Schlafly appears in debate on college campuses more frequently than any other conservative. She was named one of the 100 most important women of the 20th century by the Ladies’ Home Journal.

Schlafly’s monthly newsletter, The Phyllis Schlafly Report, is now in its 38th year. Her syndicated column appears in 100 newspapers, her radio commentaries are heard daily on 460 stations and her radio talk show on education called Phyllis Schlafly Live is heard weekly on 45 stations.

Schlafly is the author or editor of 20 books on subjects as varied as family and feminism, nuclear strategy, education, child care and phonics. Her most recent book, Feminist Fantasies (Spence Publishing, 2003), is a collection of essays on feminism in the media, workplace, home and the military.

Schlafly is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington University, received a doctorate in law from Washington University Law School and received her master’s in political science from Harvard University.

Nathaniel Walton ’08, president of the Bates College Republicans, was elected state chairman of the Maine College Republicans on July 16.

Walton, of Marblehead, Mass., was unanimously elected by the statewide organization’s executive board during a meeting in Bucksport. He succeeds Daniel Schuberth, a rising senior at Bowdoin College, who was elected national secretary of the College Republican National Committee in June.

“I am honored to lead the nation’s finest state college Republican federation into what will surely be an exciting future for the Republican Party in Maine,” Walton said. “We remain determined to continue energizing an interest in politics among young people in Maine and helping to elect Republican candidates to office at the local, state and national levels.”

“I am proud to lead a team of officers who are committed to bringing conservative principles to college campuses and delivering great Republican victories in Maine in the months and years to come.”

Walton previously served as communications director of the Maine College Republicans and was elected president of the Bates Republicans during his first year at the college. His accomplishments in the latter capacity include organizing a lecture by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and introducing an “Academic Bill of Rights” passed by the Bates student government.

Active in student government at Bates, he became president of the Class of 2008 during his first year.

“I am pleased to see the Maine College Republicans look to Nate’s proven leadership to ensure the continued success of their organization,” said Maine Republican Party Chairman Randy Bumps, a member of the Bates class of 1995.

Boasting a membership of more than 2,000 students on 23 campuses, the Maine College Republicans gained earned national prominence last November when the organization was recognized as the “Best State Federation in America” for 2004 by the College Republican National Committee. The organization produces Maine’s only statewide conservative student publication, The Pachyderm Press, and is the first state college Republican organization with a board of governors. Board members include Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

For more information on the Maine College Republicans, please visit the organization’s Web site.

Scott E. Rutter, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who led his battalion in the capture of Baghdad’s airport in 2003, will discuss his Iraq experiences and make a case for the war at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10, in Chase Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

Sponsored by the Bates College Republicans, the college’s Representative Assembly and the Young America’s Foundation, the lecture is open to the public at no cost.

As a lieutenant colonel, Rutter commanded some 150 tanks and other fighting vehicles and more than 850 soldiers in a battalion of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq. At Bates, he will relate his personal experiences in Iraq and explain his belief that the U.S. military mission there is essential to fighting global terrorism.

Rutter’s battalion led the capture of Baghdad International Airport, and he went on to direct the security and stabilization mission in Baghdad’s central business and financial district. “He likes to get close to the fight, so close that his soldiers sometimes worry about his safety,” wrote Michael Corkery, a Providence Journal reporter embedded with Rutter’s battalion. “He insists on traveling into battle with the lead company.”

Rutter earlier received a Bronze Star for valor for his service as a rifle company commander in Operation Desert Storm.

A Philadelphia native, Rutter was a military graduate of Campbell University, Buies Creek, N.C. His Regular Army service included stints with the 101st Airborne Division and 1st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One”).

An instructor at the United States Army Infantry School during the 1990s, Rutter was appointed chief of tactics for the school in 1995. He later served in Korea. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and has a master of science degree in management from St. Mary’s College.

Hoover Institute Fellow and best-selling author Dinesh D’Souza, known for his challenges to the politically liberal academic establishment, speaks at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, in the Benjamin Mays Center, 95 Russell St.

A book signing and reception will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

D’Souza has argued that, more than any other country, America allows people the chance to “write the script to their own lives.” Born and raised outside Bombay, India, as an American immigrant D’Souza realizes the advantages of individual freedom in U.S. culture. This ideal is explicitly expressed in his book What’s So Great About America (Regnery Publishing, 2002), which examines various critiques of America, including the “Islamic critique” and the “multicultural critique.” It makes the case for an intelligent patriotism, based on an understanding of what makes America unique in the world.

Ben Stein, host of television’s Win Ben Stein’s Money, described the book as “convincing, eye-opening and ultimately uplifting. Buy it, and consider yourself lucky.”

“I’m so excited about the opportunity to host Dinesh D’Souza at Bates,” said first-year student Oliver Wolf of Pittsburgh, Pa., vice president of the Bates College Republicans and a major organizer of the event.

“This event is very much an effort for Bates to respect a different form of diversity — diversity of political thought,” says Wolf. “I see no better person in this effort for Bates than D’Souza, who is such a leading and articulate conservative speaker on campuses across the country.” As a Young America’s Foundation speaker, D’Souza has spoken at top universities and colleges across the country including Chicago, Colby, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke and Stanford.

D’Souza graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1983 and served as senior domestic policy analyst at the White House during the Reagan Administration, from 1987 to 1988. His articles on culture and politics have appeared in Vanity Fair, Forbes, Harper’s, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has appeared on such television programs as This Week With David Brinkley, Nightline, Crossfire, Firing Line, Good Morning America and Politically Incorrect.

D’Souza wrote The New York Times best seller Illiberal Education (1991), described by The Wall Street Journal as “a brisk, hard-hitting journalistic tour through the political land mines embedded these days in higher education.” He is also the author of The End of Racism (1995), Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader (1997), The Virtue of Prosperity: Finding Values in an Age of Techno Affluence (2000) and Letters to a Young Conservative (2002).

Introducing D’Souza at the lecture will be professor emeritus of political science Douglas Hodgkin. A Lewiston native, Hodgkin is active in the Republican Party and has held party positions at the local, regional and national levels. A member of the Lewiston, Androscoggin and 2nd District Republican committees, Hodgkin has chaired the Lewiston Caucus and served on the 2002 Maine state platform committee.

D’Souza’s Bates appearance is sponsored by the Bates College Republicans and co-sponsored by the Muskie Lecture Series and the offices of the president and the deans of students and faculty. Co-sponsors include the departments of political science, history, anthropology, sociology and the following organizations: Young America’s Foundation, the Bates Representative Assembly, Bates Libertarians and the Bates Economics Society.