LEWISTON — The Bates College Civic Forum series will begin in October with a panel discussion on education reform, followed by a presentation by an expert on health care finance.

In a discussion titled “Wrestling with School Reform in Maine: National Strategies, Local Realities,” national and regional education experts will examine different approaches to reform at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 13, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

Presented in conjunction with the education department at Bates, the panelists will be Glenn Cummings, deputy assistant secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Norm Fruchter, senior policy analyst at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, Brown University; Leon Levesque, superintendent of the Lewiston public school system; and Joan Macri, associate director of LearningWorks at Lewiston-Auburn College, University of Southern Maine.

The following week, Dr. William Hsiao, an economist at the Harvard School of Public Health and architect of Taiwan’s universal health care system, will offer the presentation “Taiwan’s Health Reforms: Lessons for the U.S. and Maine” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18, also in Muskie Archives.

An international expert on health care finance, Hsaio is the K.T. Li Professor of Economics in the Program in Health Care Financing at Harvard. He served as principal adviser to Taiwan’s government as that country reformed its health care system in the 1990s. At Bates, he will share his experiences in Taiwan and the lessons they hold for the U.S. as the nation works to implement statewide and national health care reform law.

Hsaio is the co-author of “Getting Health Reform Right.” While in Maine, Hsiao will testify before the Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on Health Care Reform Opportunities and Implementation. He has been engaged by Vermont’s legislature to design options for a state health care system that includes a single-payer option.

Presented by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, the Bates College office that coordinates projects linking the college and community, the talks are open to the public at no charge. For more information, contact 786-6202 or kcloutie@bates.edu.