Dr. William D. Lutz
Director, 21st Century Disclosure Initiative
Securities and Exchange Commission
Bill Lutz is director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's 21st Century Disclosure Initiative, established by Chairman Christopher Cox in June 2008 to fundamentally rethink financial disclosure. In January 2009, the Initiative produced a report describing a modernized disclosure system and recommending future Commission action for a transition to the new system. Download the very readable report (PDF document) at:
http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/disclosureinitiative/report.pdf
Lutz is a Professor Emeritus of English at Rutgers University. He holds a Ph.D. in English and a Doctor of Law degree. His undergraduate degree is from Marquette University. An expert on plain English, Lutz helped prepare the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Plain English Handbook in 1998. He has also worked with numerous corporations and government agencies on language and plain language in legal proceedings.
A well-published expert, Lutz was the editor of the Quarterly Review of Doublespeak and is the author or co-author of seventeen books, including Doublespeak Defined; The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyone's Saying Anymore; Doublespeak: From Revenue Enhancement to Terminal Living; and The Cambridge Thesaurus of American English. His articles on language have appeared in numerous publications.
We are very pleased to have Dr. Lutz on our campus and able to spend time with the AIM students. Thank you to Dr. Marq Stankowski for his work in bringing this distinguished guest to Marquette.
