Bob Woodward to Deliver Blackburn Lecture at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Bob Woodward, the influential Washington Post associate editor, author and investigative reporter, will speak at 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22, in Sellers Auditorium at the Bryant Conference Center on The University of Alabama campus.

The event is free and open to the public.

Woodward is the speaker in the Gloria and John L. Blackburn Academic Symposium Lecture under the auspices of UA’s Blackburn Institute. His visit will include meetings with the Blackburn Fellows.

A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Woodward provides a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of government, politics and political leadership. Since 1971, Woodward has worked for The Washington Post, where he is an associate editor.

He and Carl Bernstein were the main reporters on the Watergate scandal for which the Post won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Woodward was the lead reporter for the Post’s articles on the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which won the National Affairs Pulitzer Prize in 2002.

Woodward has written or co-written 17 books, all of which have been national non-fiction best sellers. His most recent book, “The Price of Politics” (September, 2012), is based on 18 months of reporting and is an intimate, documented examination of how President Obama and the highest profile Republican and Democratic leaders in the U.S. Congress attempted to restore the American economy and improve the federal government’s fiscal condition.

Woodward was born March 26, 1943, in Illinois. He graduated from Yale University in 1965 and served five years as a communications officer in the U.S. Navy before beginning his journalism career at the Montgomery County (Maryland) Sentinel, where he was a reporter for one year before joining the Post.

In addition to the lecture, Woodward will meet with Fellows of the Blackburn Institute, a UA program that seeks to develop a network of leaders who have a clear understanding of the challenges that face the state of Alabama. About 25 Blackburn Fellows are chosen each year from among the finest undergraduate and graduate students at UA.

Housed within the Division of Student Affairs at The University of Alabama and funded through contributions from private donors, the Blackburn Institute is widely considered to be one of the most dynamic leadership development organizations in the country.