Missouri University of Science and Technology will present a lecture by political and social analysts David Brooks and Mark Shields as part of its Remmers Special Artist/Lecturer Series on Thursday, April 7. Brooks and Shields will be the 30th presenters in the series.

The lecture will begin at 7 p.m. in Leach Theatre of Castleman Hall, 10th and Main streets in Rolla. The lecture is free and open to the public, but tickets will be required.

Beginning March 1, tickets will be available to Missouri S&T students with a valid student I.D. Tickets will be available to Missouri S&T faculty and staff beginning Thursday, March 3, with a valid Missouri S&T I.D. Tickets for Missouri S&T students, faculty and staff will be limited to two per I.D. card.

On Monday, March 7, tickets will be made available to the general public. Tickets to the public will be limited to five per person.

Tickets will be available between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. in the Leach Theatre Box Office, located in Castleman Hall. For ticket information, please call 573-341-4219.

David Brooks has a gift for bringing audiences face to face with the spirit of our times with humor, insight and quiet passion. He is a keen observer of the American way of life and a savvy analyst of present-day politics and foreign affairs.

Brooks has written three books of what he calls “comic sociology”– Bobos in Paradise, On Paradise Drive and The Social Animal, which will be published in March. Brooks’ books are descriptions of how we live and “the water we swim in” and are described as witty, entertaining, revealing and insightful.

Brooks, a New York Times columnist, was senior editor at The Weekly Standard, joining the magazine at its inception. He has been a contributing editor at Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly. He worked at The Wall Street Journal for nine years in a range of positions, including op-ed editor. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Forbes, The Washington Post and many other periodicals.

Brooks is a weekly political commentator on “PBS NewsHour,” and is a regular commentator on National Public Radio.

A nationally known columnist and commentator, Mark Shields has worked in Washington through the administrations of nine U.S. Presidents. He was an editorial writer for The Washington Post, where he began writing his column in 1979. That column is now distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate.

Since 1988, Shields has provided weekly political analysis and commentary on national campaigns for the award-winning “PBS NewsHour,” where he has matched wits with David Gergen, The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot and most recently with David Brooks of The Weekly Standard. For 17 years, Shields was moderator and panelist on CNN’s “Capital Gang.” He now is a regular panelist on “Inside Washington,” the weekly public affairs show which is seen on both ABC and PBS.

A native of Weymouth, Mass., and a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Shields served as an enlisted man in the U.S. Marine Corps before going to Washington, where he began working in 1965 for Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire.

In 1968, Shields went to work for Robert F. Kennedy in the New York senator’s presidential campaign, and later held leadership positions in three other presidential campaigns. Over 11 years, Shields helped manage campaigns from the courthouse to the White House in some 38 states.

In addition to attending 17 national party conventions and working on or covering the last 11 presidential elections, Shields has taught American politics and the press at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Public Policy and he was a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy Institute of Politics.

His book about the 1984 presidential campaign, On the Campaign Trail, has been praised as funny, irreverent, and for bringing that race to a magnificent light.

The Remmers Special Artist/Lecturer Series is supported through a fund established by the late Walter E. Remmers, a Rolla graduate, and his late wife, Miriam, to bring renowned speakers and performers to the campus. The first Remmers Lecture was held in 1979 and featured former President Gerald Ford.