UNE announces Jean Becker as 2021 George and Barbara Bush Lecturer

The University of New England has announced that its 11th Annual George and Barbara Bush Distinguished Lecture will feature Jean Becker, longtime chief of staff to President George H. W. Bush and author of the new book, “The Man I Knew.”

The lecture will be held Thursday, Sept. 30, at 5 p.m. at the Harold Alfond Forum on UNE’s Biddeford Campus. The event is free and open to the public. Masks are required indoors on UNE campuses regardless of vaccination status.

Becker served as President Bush’s chief of staff for nearly 25 years, from March 1994 until his death in November 2018. She took a leave of absence in 1999 to edit and research “All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings.”

Previously, Becker served as deputy press secretary to First Lady Barbara Bush from 1989 to 1992 and helped Mrs. Bush with the editing and research for her books “Barbara Bush, A Memoir” and “Reflections.” A former journalist, she is also a member of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board and the C-Change Cancer Board, and she is an ad hoc member of the advisory boards of The George Bush Presidential Library and The George Bush School of Government and Public Service.

The George and Barbara Bush Distinguished Lecture Series is an annual event honoring the legacy of President and Mrs. Bush as political and community leaders.