NEWT GINGRICH TO SPEAK AT FIRST UNIVERSITY OF MOBILE SCHOLARSHIP BANQUET

Apr 11th, 2005

MOBILE, Ala. - Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, will be the keynote speaker at the University of Mobile's first UM Scholarship Banquet.

The event will be held Thursday, Oct. 13, 2005 at the Mobile Convention Center. The gala event also will feature special performances by students in the university's Center for Performing Arts. Banquet tables of eight and sponsorships are available starting at $1,000, and individual tickets are $125 per person. For reservations, contact the UM Development Office at (251) 442-2226. Information about the UM Scholarship  Banquet is available on the university's website at www.umobile.edu.

Dr. Mark Foley, president of the University of Mobile, said the university's goal is to raise $200,000 to fund academic scholarships. The university's merit-based awards provide students with scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $6,000 annually for tuition, room and board. He said school officials hope to make the scholarship banquet an annual event that also will offer an opportunity to showcase the university and its students.

"We are delighted to have the opportunity to bring a national political figure such as Mr. Gingrich to this region," Foley said. "We are looking forward to a memorable evening."

Gingrich, who has been mentioned in past months as a possible presidential candidate, is well known as the architect of the Contract with America that led the Republican Party to victory in 1994 by capturing the majority in the United States House for the first time in 40 years. Under his leadership, Congress passed welfare reform, passed the first balanced budget in a generation, and restored funding to strengthen defense and intelligence capabilities, in addition to passing the first tax cuts in 16 years.
He has published nine books, including the best sellers Contract with America and To Renew America.  His most recent book is Winning the Future, in which he lays out a plan for America's greatness, including how to win the war on terror, re-establish God in American public life, reform Social Security, restore patriotism, and make American health care the global standard for excellence and accessibility. Other books include Saving Lives & Saving Money, Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War, and Grant Comes East, co-authored with William Fortschen.

Gingrich serves as a member of the Defense Policy Board and is the longest-serving teacher of the Joint War Fighting course for Major Generals.  He also teaches officers from all five services as a distinguished visiting scholar and professor at the National Defense University.  He serves on the terrorism task force for the Council on Foreign Relations, is an editorial board member of the Johns Hopkins University journal, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, and is an advisory board member of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
In 1999, Gingrich was appointed to the United States Commission on National Security/21st Century, the Hart/Rudman Commission to examine U.S. national security challenges as far out as 2025.  The report concluded that the No. 1 threat to the United States was the likelihood over the next 25 years of a weapon of mass destruction being used against one or more major cities unless our defense and intelligence structures underwent a massive transformation.  That report was published six months before September 11.

Gingrich is credited with the idea contained in the report of a Homeland Security agency with a Secretary to serve on the Cabinet level, because of his work on the Commission.  President George W. Bush has since created the Department of Homeland Security.

Gingrich is CEO of the Gingrich Group, a communications and consulting firm that specializes in transformational change, with offices in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.  He serves as a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.; a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California; the honorary chairman of the NanoBusiness Alliance; and as an advisory board member for the Museum of the Rockies.  He is also a news and political analyst for the Fox News channel.

The American Diabetes Association awarded Gingrich their highest non-medical award, the March of Dimes named him their 1995 Georgia Citizen of the Year, and today he serves as a board member of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. A former environmental studies professor, he is widely recognized for his commitment to the environment and to the advancement of a new, common sense environmentalism.  In 1998, the Georgia Wildlife Federation named him Legislative Conservationist of the Year.