AP FILE PHOTO BY ED ANDRIESKI U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder

ORONO, Maine — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will deliver the William S. Cohen Lecture at 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 23, at the Collins Center for the Arts.

The event is free and open to the public.

Cohen, the Bangor native who represented Maine in Congress for 24 years and served as secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, will make introductory remarks before Holder’s lecture.

The Cohen lecture series is organized by UMaine’s William S. Cohen Center for International Policy and Commerce, established in 1997.

The lecture series was established to bring to UMaine a distinguished speaker with informed perspectives on matters related to international policy and commerce.

Tickets to the event are available first come, first served. Those interested in attending should contact the box office at 581-1755 or 800-MCA-TIXX. Box office hours are 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Holder joined President Barack Obama’s Cabinet at the beginning of the president’s term earlier this year.

A New York City native, he became an associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in 1988.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated him to serve as U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., a post he held for four years until becoming deputy attorney general.

Cohen, who is a former UMaine business faculty member, donated his collection of papers chronicling his congressional career to UMaine’s Fogler Library when the center was established. In January 2001, Cohen gave the papers from his tenure as secretary of defense to the university.

Cohen delivered the first lecture in the series in March 1998.