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Journalist John Dickerson to speak in Fisher Distinguished Lecture Series March 9

Lamar University welcomes reporter, correspondent and news anchor John Dickerson as the 13th speaker in the Judge Joe J. Fisher Distinguished Lecture Series on Mon. March 9 from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the University Theatre.

The free public lecture will be moderated and allow questions from the audience. A public reception will followJohn Dickerson the presentation. Dickerson will also be available earlier in the day in a lecture and question and answer session for LU students.

“We are very excited to have a speaker with such an interesting journey, and I look forward to learning about what The Washington Post refers to as his ‘Dickersonian style,’ said Dean Terrebonne, chief of staff and acting chair of the university’s Judge Joe J. Fisher Distinguished Lecture Series committee. “The Fisher Lecture Series enables LU to present world-class speakers to our students and the greater Southeast Texas community. Judge Fisher’s legacy carries on in part through the value of this lecture series to the people of Southeast Texas.”

The Judge Joe J. Fisher Distinguished Lecture Series was created in 1986 to honor Judge Fisher’s many contributions to Southeast Texas and Lamar University. The people of the community established the series to benefit Lamar students and to honor the longtime federal judge who died June 19, 2000.

Past lecturers in the Fisher series are former President Gerald Ford, Larry McMurtry, Vladimir Sakharov, Stephen Jay Gould, Linda Ellerbee, Antonin Scalia, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, James Watson, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Jon Huntsman and Itzhak Perlman.

Dickerson is a correspondent for 60 Minutes. Previously, Dickerson was a co-host of CBS This Morning.  Prior to that, he was CBS News' chief Washington correspondent and anchor of Face The Nation. Dickerson is also a contributor to Slate 's Political Gabfest and a contributing editor to The Atlantic.

Dickerson joined CBS News in April 2009 as an analyst and contributor.  He worked as the network's political director and has been moderator of Face the Nation since June 2015. During the 2016 presidential campaign he moderated CBS News ' two presidential debates and as host of Face the Nation, interviewed each of the major candidates multiple times.

Dickerson has been a reporter in Washington since 1995, covering the White House, Congress and economics. Most recently he was Slate Magazine's chief political correspondent winning the Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. A 2010 long-form series on risk profiled current Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Before Slate, Dickerson covered politics for 12 years for Time magazine. During his last four years, he was the magazine's White House correspondent, covering the presidency of George W. Bush. He has covered six presidential campaigns and hosts a twice-monthly podcast, Whistlestop, which chronicles great moments in presidential history.

A native Washingtonian, he graduated with distinction from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor's degree in English and a specialty in American Studies. His mother, Nancy Dickerson, was CBS News' first female correspondent. Dickerson is the author of On Her Trail (Simon and Schuster), a book about his mother. He is also the author of the New York Times best-seller Whistlestop: My Favorite Stories from Presidential Campaign History (Twelve Books). Dickerson is author of the upcoming book “The Hardest Job” due out June 9, 2020 (Random House). Known for his active use of social media, Dickerson has more than 2.22 million Twitter followers.