Government power is overreaching its boundaries into personal liberties, according to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

“The drift of government power should bother every American,” he said at the fourth annual Getzen Lecture on Government Accountability Tuesday. “There is a very grave danger and genuine threat to freedom of the individual.”

Nuclear disarmament, educational reform and solutions to crime anchored Gingrich’s lecture, before a packed audience at the University Chapel.

He offered solutions he believes could solve some of the challenges facing the United States.

“I feel like I have a chance to talk to people who really may well help change the future,” he said.

Gingrich has been a prominent figure in national politics and policies for years.

“He’s a very serious voice on a wide variety of public policies,” said Thomas Lauth, dean of the school of public and international affairs, which sponsored the event.

Gingrich’s political résumé includes working with former President Clinton to balance the federal budget and participating in the “Contract with America” between the Republican party and the American people.

The lecture, entitled “Effective American Policy in a Dangerous World” also included government bureaucracy and the long road GOP took to reclaim a majority in Congress.

“My political science teacher has been talking about how [Gingrich] became the speaker when it turned from Democratic hands to Republican hands,” said Laura Fletcher, a sophomore from Thomasville. “I’m interested in political science and general knowledge of what’s going on.”

Logan Krusac, a freshman from Smyrna who worked on the Bobby Saxon campaign, also attended the speech.

“I think it’s important to hear perspectives from both sides of the aisle,” Krusac said. “I think the part of the lecture that came across strongest to me was the dire need to change education in America.”

During the lecture, Gingrich said the U.S. school system is overrun with bureaucracy and fails to educate students sufficiently.

“We are a nation aggressively preparing for the 1956 Olympics,” Gingrich joked. “We are so out of sequence with our competitors that it’s terrifying.”

Gingrich later criticized the actions of the Bush and Obama administrations for their positions on North Korea and nuclear disarmament. Gingrich said Obama’s engagement in nuclear disarmament talks on the same day North Korea fired a missile was an “embarrassment.” He said Obama could follow the footsteps of either former President Carter or former President Kennedy.

Carter’s legacy was “to live out of touch with reality,” Gingrich said. Kennedy, on the other hand, “learned the world was much tougher” and stepped up his political game.

“[Obama] is, in fact, much closer to Carter than he is to Kennedy,” Gingrich said.

Also on Tuesday, Gingrich gave his last lecture to a University class he taught this semester. The class, taught almost exclusively via video feed, dealt with the balance of power between different governmental branches.