Kettering Foundation’s David Mathews To Speak at Samford

Kettering Foundation president and CEO David Mathews will give the 2013 James A. Auchmuty Lecture at Samford University on March 7, at 10 a.m., in Reid Chapel.

He will speak on the topic, “Leadership in the Company of Strangers.” The public is invited.

Mathews, a former U.S. secretary of health, education and welfare and president of the University of Alabama, was named to his Kettering Foundation post in 1981. 

Mathews has written extensively on such subjects as education, political theory, southern history, public policy and international problem solving. His most recent book, “Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy,” focuses on the relationship between the public and public education.

A graduate of the University of Alabama with majors in history and classical Greek, Mathews earned a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in New York. He grew up in Grove Hill.

The James A. Auchmuty Lecture, sponsored by Samford’s Resource Center for Pastoral Excellence, honors the emeritus pastor of Shades Crest Baptist Church, Birmingham. A 1957 Samford graduate, Auchmuty served the church for 27 years.

As part of his Auchmuty lecture visit, Mathews will address a University Fellows class in Samford’s Brooks Hall room 105, March 6, 3 p.m., and will give a brief presentation at a 6 p.m. prayer meeting at Shades Crest Baptist. He also will speak to a 7 a.m. social entrepreneurship class at Samford on March 7.