Pete Buttigieg to speak at Syracuse University next week
Former United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg will speak at Syracuse University on Oct. 3. Buttigieg will discuss sustainability and leadership at the event, co-hosted by the Maxwell and Whitman schools. Leonardo Eriman | Photo Editor
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Former United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg will speak at Syracuse University on Oct. 3, SU announced Friday.
Buttigieg, hosted by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and the Whitman School of Management, will visit SU as part of the Pontarelli Speaker Series, according to a campus-wide email.
The event, at 1 p.m. in the K.G. Tan Auditorium in the National Veterans Resource Center, will focus on sustainability and leadership. Students, faculty and staff can register on Ticketmaster.
Jay Golden, Pontarelli professor of environmental sustainability and finance and director of SU’s Dynamic Sustainability Lab, will lead the discussion.
SU is requiring students to bring their SUID to next week’s event. The venue will also require clear bags and have metal detecting equipment in use, according to the email.
Buttigieg served as former President Joe Biden’s secretary of transportation from 2021 to 2025. He spent his time in office launching thousands of infrastructure projects across the U.S., expanding consumer airline protections and addressing supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before his stint at the Department of Transportation, Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, where he was elected at age 29 as the city’s first openly gay mayor. He also served in the U.S. Navy as an intelligence officer in the reserves and on active duty in Afghanistan.
He won the Iowa caucuses as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, but eventually dropped out of the race to endorse Biden.
Buttigieg has been the subject of national media attention recently, as he was mentioned in Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ new book, “107 Days,” as a potential running mate during her failed presidential campaign last fall.
The Harvard University and Oxford University alumnus lives in northern Michigan with his husband, Chasten, and their two children. He was a widely-circulated candidate for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, but opted out of the race with 2028 presidential rumors swirling.
Buttigieg has previously spoken at several other colleges, including a conversation at Duke University on Thursday and a viral post-election conversation at Harvard last November.
Buttigieg previously visited the city of Syracuse in 2021. He met with then-Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to discuss Interstate 81.
