PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Romano Prodi, former prime minister of Italy, will deliver the 81st Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on Monday, March 30, 2009, at 4 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching, De Ciccio Family Auditorium. His lecture, titled “Is there a New Role for Europe in Today's World?,” is free and open to the public.

Prodi twice served as prime minister of Italy and also served as president of the European Commission. He is currently a professor-at-large at Brown, based at the Watson Institute for International Studies.

Prodi was prime minister of Italy from 1996 to 1998 and again from 2006 to 2008. He served as president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2005, during which time the euro was successfully introduced, the European Union was enlarged by 10 new countries, and the treaty establishing a constitution for Europe was signed.

Born in Scandiano, Italy, in 1939, Prodi received his law degree at the Catholic University of Milan and completed postgraduate work at the London School of Economics. He began his academic career at the University of Bologna in 1963, where he served as assistant in political economics and professor of industrial organization and industrial policy until 1999. He has also held research and teaching positions at the Lombard Institute of Economic and Social Studies, Stanford Research Institute, Free University of Trento, and Harvard University.

Prodi entered politics in 1978, when he was appointed Italy’s minister of industry. From 1982 to 1989, he served as chairman of the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction, at the time Italy's largest holding company.

In 1995, Prodi founded the Ulivo — “The Olive Tree” — the center-left coalition, which made him its candidate for prime minister in the 1996 elections. Ulivo won the general elections that year, and the Prodi government remained in office until 1998. In the 2006 parliamentary elections in Italy, Prodi again led the center-left coalition to victory and again became prime minister, serving until May 8, 2008.

Prodi has a law degree from the Catholic University of Milan and completed postgraduate work at the London School of Economics. In 1981, he founded Nomisma Società di Studi Economici, the largest Italian institute of economic studies, and chaired its scientific committee until 1995. He has received several prestigious awards and holds numerous honorary degrees from universities around the world, including a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) from Brown, conferred in 1999. Prodi is currently president of the Foundation for Worldwide Cooperation and chairman of the United Nations-African Union Panel for Peacekeeping in Africa.

Stephen A. Ogden Jr. '60 Memorial Lecture

Since 1965, the Ogden Lectureship has presented the University and its neighboring communities with authoritative and timely addresses about international affairs. The lectureship was established in memory of Stephen A. Ogden Jr., a member of the Brown Class of 1960, who died in 1963 from injuries he suffered in a car accident during his junior year. His family created the series as a tribute to Ogden’s interest in advancing international peace and understanding.

Dozens of heads of state, diplomats, and observers of the international scene have participated in the series, including Queen Noor of Jordan, former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, President of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, media innovator Ted Turner, astronaut Sen. John Glenn, economist Paul Volcker, and Bolivian President Evo Morales.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Office of University Events at (401) 863-2474.