BYU lands Brzezinski, Schlesinger, Petraeus as speakers

PROVO — If you're going to talk about changing the world, it makes sense to include the experts in those conversations.

The relatively new Wheatley Institution is doing just that at BYU, bringing a lineup of heavy hitters to campus this semester.

It starts today, when Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, speaks at 7:30 p.m. at BYU's Hinckley Center.

Next month, James Schlesinger, who served as secretary of defense for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, will visit, followed in March by four-star Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command and the leader of the military "surge" in Iraq in 2007.

"The purpose of the Wheatley Institution is to enrich BYU students and faculty with distinguished outside experts coming in and providing ideas and exchanging views," said Amos Jordan, a Wheatley Institution senior fellow and former president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. "These are the kinds of people who will, in fact, enrich the student-faculty experience."

Brzezinski, Schlesinger and Petraeus all agreed to come to BYU at the request of Jordan, who has organized the lectures relying on his professional relationships and his Rolodex.

The institution, now in its third year, is named after Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley, who were pivotal in its creation and continued funding. The institution is privately funded but housed in the Hinckley Center.

As a member of the Board of Overseers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University for nearly 25 years, Jack Wheatley said he wanted to create something similar at BYU.

"The purpose is to bring more scholarly work and research and writing to the campus, not just from church people, but from all walks of life," he said.

Wheatley wants to see the institution become a home base for scholars who will feel comfortable coming to BYU to research and share ideas that will benefit society.

Wheatley had hoped LDS scholar Truman Madsen would be one of the first key contributors and was saddened when Madsen died in May 2009. Rabbi David Rosen, the director of the American Jewish Committee's Department for Interreligious Affairs and a long-time friend of the Madsens, will visit BYU Wednesday, with his speech on religion and peacemaking in the Middle East as the annual Truman G. Madsen Lecture on Eternal Man.

The institution's four main areas of focus are family, education, ethics and international affairs.