Be sure to come to UT on Tuesday, Nov. 13 at 2 pm to the Cox Auditorium in 
Alumni Memorial Bldg. We are honored to have Sen. George Mitchell as the 
inaugural speaker of the Baker Distinguished Lecture Series.  The event is free 
and open to the public.  Parking is available at the Vol Hall Garage, 1545 White 
Ave. at a rate of $2/hour.  Please read the following release for more 
information on Sen. Mitchell and this new program.  

KNOXVILLE— Sen. George Mitchell, a long-time statesman and attorney, will be 
at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, on Tuesday, November 13, to deliver 
the inaugural Baker Distinguished Lecture. This new program was established to 
promote the values of Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr., whose longstanding 
commitment to honorable public service has made an indelible mark on US 
history.  

Free and open to the public, the lecture—sponsored by the Howard H. Baker Jr. 
Center for Public Policy, SunTrust Bank, Knoxville News Sentinel and WUOT—will 
begin at 2:00 p.m. in the Cox Auditorium of Alumni Memorial Building. The new 
The Baker Distinguished Lecture Series will bring nationally prominent speakers 
to campus twice a year to speak on issues of national and international 
significance.  The program is particularly important to Sen. Baker.  In 1999 he 
was a speaker at the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University. The Landon 
Lecture  is named for former Kansas Governor, Alfred Landon, who is the late 
father of Sen. Baker’s wife, Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum (Baker).  

Senator Mitchell, a Democrat from Maine, served in the US Senate from 1980 to 
1995 and was majority leader during the final six years of his tenure. He has 
since served as a peace negotiator and in several high-profile investigative 
roles.

In 1995, he founded the Mitchell Institute, which seeks to increase the 
likelihood that young people from every community in Maine will go to college. 
The institute has awarded more than $9 million in scholarships to more than 
2,000 Maine students.

Appointed by President Bill Clinton, Mitchell served as chairman of the peace 
negotiations in Northern Ireland from 1995 to 2001 and also served as chairman 
of an international fact finding committee on violence in the Middle East from 
2000 to 2001.

From 2009 to 2011, he was the Special Envoy for the Middle East, appointed by 
President Barack Obama. 

In 2006, he was asked by the Commissioner of Baseball to lead an investigation 
of the use of performance-enhancing drugs in professional baseball. Earlier this 
year, the NCAA named Mitchell as Penn State’s Athletics Integrity Monitor. 

In the business arena, Mitchell has been director and chairman of the board of 
the Walt Disney Company. He also has served as on the board of directors of 
Federal Express Corp., Xerox Corp., Unilever, Staples Inc., Starwood Hotels and 
Resorts, and the Boston Red Sox baseball team.

He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999. He also has received 
awards and honors including the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Truman 
Institute Peace Prize, the German Peace Prize and the United Nations 
(UNESCO) Peace Prize.

Established in 2003, the Baker Center seeks to further the public’s knowledge of 
the U.S. government and public policy and to encourage civil leadership and 
public service. The Center sponsors programs to encourage informed discussion 
with a special focus on engaging young people in policy issues and public 
service.