WHAT University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer will speak to the Portland Rotary Club about the present state of morality and ethics in leadership, using the notorious political ideas of Niccolo Machiavelli to explore this subject. As part of his presentation, Frohnmayer will ask luncheon attendees to take an ethics test.

WHERE Ballroom and Chamber Room, Governor Hotel, 611 S.W. 10th Ave.

What if history’s most infamous political consultant were alive today and influencing the next U.S. presidential election? That’s the question to be explored by UO President Dave Frohnmayer in his speech to the Portland Rotary Club, "Machiavelli and the Problem of Leadership."

"Can you be a leader, without being unethical and immoral in your tactics?" Frohnmayer asks. "Or is leadership an inevitable way of losing one’s soul?"

Frohnmayer will explore these questions by looking at the political ideas of Niccolo Machiavelli, which after nearly five centuries exert influence and teach important lessons about politics today. Frohnmayer warns that Machiavelli’s cynical advice is disturbingly modern–that leaders must deceive, but never appear deceptive; that they must strike enemies, and even allies, with early ferocity when it serves their advantage; and that conventional morality is not a virtue, but is in fact a vice, if it does not advance their cause.

A native Oregonian, Frohnmayer is the 15th president of the University of Oregon, the state’s 122-year-old center for liberal arts, science and professional studies. He assumed the presidency on July 1, 1994, and he believes it is possible to be an honest leader.

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