Hon. Joseph M. Ferguson `82, Inspector General for the City of Chicago, will deliver the Lake Forest College annual Ruth Winter Lecture. The title of his talk is “Redefining Local Transparency in Local Government in a New Gilded Age.”
Ferguson received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Lake Forest College in 1982, and went on to earn his J.D. from Northwestern University Law School in 1990. He spent 15 years working in the United States Attorney's Office (USAO) for the Northern District of Illinois. While working on employment discrimination, civil rights, environmental law and government program fraud cases, Ferguson received the Department of Justice's Director's Award for his work in asset forfeiture. He has also worked in the Criminal Division of the USAO, prosecuting public corruption, mail/wire fraud, tax, healthcare and government program frauds, terrorist financing, drug and labor racketeering cases.
Ferguson was appointed by Mayor Daley to be Chicago's Inspector General in 2009. He will discuss his experiences as watchdog for the City of Chicago, including rooting out corruption and urging increased transparency in local government.
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The Ruth Winter Lecture series is named in honor of the late Ruth Winter, who was a dynamic director of student activities at Lake Forest College for many years. During her tenure, Ms. Winter was instrumental in bringing many prominent speakers to the College, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Katherine Hepburn, and Dag Hammarskjold. In the spirit of Ruth Winter, this annual lecture features a speaker who is politically, socially and culturally engaged in his or her community.
