News & Events
Comedian, Economist Ben Stein to Headline 2007 Arnold Symposium
CLINTON - A national icon and a true jack-of-all-trades will take the stage in March as Ben Stein headlines Presbyterian College's annual Arnold Symposium.
Stein - an attorney, author, economist, actor, and even quiz show host - will discuss "Adolescence and the Media" at 11 a.m. Tuesday, March 6, in PC's Belk Auditorium. His lecture is free and open to the public.
Still best known for his appearance as the boring teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and as the host of Comedy Central's "Win Ben Stein’s Money," Stein pairs the world-class wit of a seasoned comedian with the brains of a gifted thinker and analyst.
A native of Washington, D.C., Stein grew up in Silver Spring, Md., and is the son of economist and writer Herbert Stein. An honors graduate of Columbia University with a degree in economics, he graduated as the valedictorian of his class at the Yale Law School, where he helped found the Journal of Law and Social Policy.
He has worked as a poverty lawyer in New Haven, Conn., and Washington, D.C., and served as a trial lawyer in the field of trade regulation at the Federal Trade Commission. In 1973 and 1974, Stein was a speechwriter and attorney for U.S. president Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He also has served as an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C., the University of California at Santa Cruz, and at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.
Stein is a prolific writer - serving as a columnist and editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner and King Features Syndicate. He is a frequent contributor to Barrons, where his articles about the ethics of management buyouts and issues of fraud in the Milken Drexel junk bond scheme drew major national attention. He also has been a regular columnist for Los Angeles Magazine, New York Magazine, E! Online, and The American Spectator - and as a frequent op-ed writer in various other magazines and newspapers.
He also has written sixteen books - seven novels and nine nonfiction books - including A License to Steal, Michael Milken and the Conspiracy to Bilk the Nation, The View from Sunset Boulevard, and How to Ruin Your Life.
People know him best, though, for his appearances in film, on television, and in commercials. His part in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was ranked as one of the 50 most famous scenes in American cinema. From 1997 to 2002, he was host of "Win Ben Stein’s Money," which earned seven Emmy Awards.
The Arnold Symposium is the cornerstone of PC's Russell Program and its yearlong examination of the media and a segment of culture. Nationally renowned media experts visit campus each spring to deliver lectures and to participate in panel discussions and workshops to enlighten and inform audiences. Since its inception in 1986, the Russell Program has brought to campus such luminaries as Bill Moyers, William Bennett, Gen. Wesley Clark, James Dickey, Linda Ellerbee, and Dee Dee Myers.
