IU To Add Former U.S. Senators Evan Bayh, Dan Coats To Staff

Mitch Legan

Indiana University will add two former U.S. senators from the state to its staff.

IU announced in a news release Wednesday former Sen. and Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh will join the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs as a “distinguished scholar and executive at large.”

Former Sen. and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats will join the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies in a similar position as a “distinguished scholar and ambassador at large.”

“We are extremely pleased to welcome these two prominent Hoosier leaders and look forward to the positive impact they will have on educating our students and further elevating the reputation of the O'Neill School and Hamilton Lugar School,” IU President Michael McRobbie said in the release.

The two will work together on the schools’ new, joint one-year master’s degree program in international affairs.

Bayh, a Democrat, was Indiana governor from 1989 to 1997 and served two terms in the U.S. Senate from 1999 to 2011.

Coats, a Republican, was a U.S. Representative for Indiana from 1981 to 1989. In 1989, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate and served there until 1999, and again from 2011 to 2017. He also served as Director of National Intelligence from 2017 to 2019.

Bayh received his undergraduate degree from Indiana University; Coats is a graduate of the IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law.