David Boren - Definition and Overview

David Lyle Boren (born April 21, 1941) was a United States Senator from Oklahoma from 1979 to 1994. Previously, he served as Governor of Oklahoma from 1975 to 1979. He is currently President of the University of Oklahoma.

Boren served on the Finance and Agriculture Committees and was also the longest-serving chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence while in the Senate. Boren authored the National Security Education Act of 1991, which established the National Security Education Program.

Boren is a graduate of Yale University (1963), and a member of the secret society Skull and Bones. He was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and earned a master degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University in England (1965).

In 1968, he received a law degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. He has served since 1998 as a member of the Yale University Board of Trustees. His university experience also includes four years on the faculty of Oklahoma Baptist University, where he was Chairman of the Department of Political Science and Chairman of the Division of Social Sciences.

He is the son of former Congressman Lyle Boren. His son Dan Boren was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2004.