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The Mary Elizabeth Babcock Lectureship in the American Conservative Tradition welcomes the former governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, presenting a lecture, “Challenges and Opportunities in America’s Political Landscape: the 2016 Election and Beyond.”
Bobby Jindal has a well-earned reputation as one of America’s most successful public sector executives and one of the boldest innovators in the health care and education sectors.
Jindal used his two terms as Governor of Louisiana to rebuild and diversify the state’s economy and financial footing in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Jindal’s agenda included top-to-bottom reformation and privatization of the state-run charity hospital and the state’s healthcare payer systems. Fiscally, Jindal reduced the state budget by 26 percent, reduced the state employee headcount by 30,000, and implemented the largest income tax reduction in state history. With a bipartisan consensus, Jindal implemented statewide school choice programs and moved the state from the bottom five in ethics laws to the top five, according to independent analysts.
Jindal’s dramatic rework of Louisiana’s policy structure paid measurable dividends in the form of eight credit upgrades, $60 billion in private capital investment and a ranking in the top ten in the nation for job creation and the highest ever per- capita income ranking in state history.
Despite being the nation’s youngest governor when he was elected in 2007, Jindal had been well prepared to become the state’s CEO, with stints as the head of the state Department of Health and Hospitals, as president of the University of Louisiana System, assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare—all before his 30th birthday.
In the private sector, Jindal advised senior management of Fortune 500 firms as an associate at McKinsey & Co. Jindal analyzed potential acquisition targets, assisted with product launches, and evaluated manufacturing processes versus best practices. Jindal managed teams of clients and consultants and aided health care payer, pharmaceutical, manufacturing and information technology clients.
Denison and Harvard alumna Mary Elizabeth Babcock, who died in June 1998, had a lifelong interest in education, government and politics. She engaged in a wide range of charitable, educational and community interests in Johnstown, Ohio, and throughout Licking and Franklin counties for many years.
In 1981, she established the Mary Elizabeth Babcock Lectureship in the American Conservative Tradition at Denison University. Since then, her generosity has enabled students and community members to hear William F. Buckley Jr., James J. Kilpatrick, George F. Will, Zbigniew Brzezinski, David R. Gergen, Robert D. Novak, Richard L. Thornburgh, Jack Kemp, Robert H. Bork, Robert J. Dole, J.C. Watts, Torie Clarke, Dee Dee Myers and Christine Todd Whitman, Norman J. Ornstein, Thomas E. Mann, Bill Bradley, Newt Gingrich, James Baker, and Jon Huntsman.