2009-2010 Chancellor's Distinguished Speaker Series

The Chancellor’s Distinguished Speakers Series is an opportunity for the public to experience world-renown speakers on their hometown regional university campus.  All events are in Seabrook Auditorium, and are free and open to the public.  Past participants have been the world’s first black female rabbi, Alysa Stanton, civil rights activist Julian Bond, actor Edward James Olmos, NFL Coach Herman Edwards, activist Anita Hill and General Russel Honore’.  The 2008-2009 series was dedicated to the 2008 election and included a roundtable discussion with Roland Martin and Michael Steele, and a post-election presentation by Donna Brazile. 

The theme for this year's series is An Era of Change. 

Rabbi Alysa Stanton

September 8, 2009 Seabrook Auditorium 7:00 p.m.

Growing up in a black, Pentecostal family in Cleveland, Alysa Stanton never imagined the day when she would be preparing to be ordained as a rabbi. That day came June 6, 2009 when she was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, becoming the first African-American female rabbi in the world.

Rabbi Stanton and her daughter Shana, 14, moved to Greenville, North Carolina this summer. There Stanton took her place behind the pulpit at Congregation Bayt Shalom, a 60-family congregation which is both conservative and reform. Rabbi Stanton has served congregations in Ohio, North Dakota, W. Virginia, Alabama, Michigan, and Colorado. 

Before studying to become a rabbi, Stanton was a psychotherapist in Denver, Colo., specializing in grief and trauma. A first responder after the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, Stanton believes that her experience counseling and communicating will be an asset in her new role as the leader of a congregation.

Rabbi Stanton believes that it is a new era for changing, strengthening and deepening our faith in humanity, regardless of one’s religious creed or spiritual practice. She also believes that this is a time where hope needs to be embraced with all of our might. She is honored to be a visual presence of the ‘new face’ of Judaism. Rabbi Stanton has committed her life to being a rabbi of the people, a rabbi of hope. She is accepting questions at rabbistanton@gmail.com.

Tim Reid presents his new documentary

"Blacks in the Military"

October 7, 2009 Seabrook Auditorium 6:00 p.m.

Tim Reid, an accomplished actor, writer, director and producer, co-founded New Millennium Studios alongside partner and wife Daphne Maxwell Reid in 1997. New Millennium Studios (NMS) is a partnership between the Reids, Mark Warner and Armada/Hoffler, as well as the culmination of a lifelong dream for the husband and wife team.  New Millennium Studios is Virginia's first and only full-service studio complex.  Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Reid graduated from Norfolk State University in 1968 with a University in 1968 with a B.S. in Business /Marketing and launched his career as a marketing representative for DuPont. However, he soon set his sights on the world of Showbiz and set off on a national road tour with comedian Tom Dreesen. After an international tour with Della Reese, he settled in Hollywood and began his television career. For more information about Tim Reid please visit http://www.timreidproductions.com/biography.htm.

The New Face of Race: A Roundtable Discussion

January 21, 2010 Seabrook Auditorium 6:00 p.m.

Panelists from diverse backgrouonds will discuss the issue of race as it relates to politics, education, and civil rights.  Confirmed panelists are:

A native of Queens, New York, Dr. Derrick Darby is the author of Rights, Race, and Recognition (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason, co edited with Tommie Shelby (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 2005). He is currently an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Kansas. His areas of specialization are Social and Political Philosophy and African American Philosophy.  He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh and his B.A. in Philosophy from Colgate University.

For more information about Dr. Darby, please visit http://www.philosophy.ku.edu/People/Faculty/Darby.shtml.

Dr. Ada M. Fisher was born in Durham, NC and is a product of the public schools of Durham (Hillside High School graduate). Dr. Fisher attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  She was one of only seventeen blacks out of a class with 52 black students admitted in her year who finished the college.  For her service to the university and her civic activism, she was inducted into the UNC-G Golden Chain Honorary Society in 1986.

Dr. Fisher was the first black woman and only the 6th African American to attend and graduate from the University of Wisconsin at Madison Medical School.   From Wisconsin, Dr. Fisher went on to train at one of the earliest and most prestigious residencies in her field, The Family Medicine Program, an affiliate of the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY.   While doing her residency, Dr. Fisher used her certification in secondary education as a volunteer high school teacher.

As a skilled manager and administrator with 25 years experience practicing medicine through various interlocking disciplines, Dr. Fisher has a license to practice medicine in Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, New York, and Tennessee and retired from the VAMC-Salisbury in 2000. She remains active in the medical profession as an independent medical examiner and as an advisor for those seeking disability and compensation assessments.

Dr. Fisher has endowed eight scholarships at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, authored several books, is a gifted poet, and a tireless mentor for young people. She is the North Carolina Republican Party’s first African American National Committeewoman and is currently running for election in North Carolina House District 77.

For more information about Dr. Fisher, please visit http://www.dradamfisher.org.

Gene Nichol is professor of law and Director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina. He teaches courses in constitutional law, federal courts, civil rights and election law.

From 2005-2008, Nichol was the 26th president of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Nichol was Burton Craige professor and dean of the law school at the University of North Carolina from 1999-2005. He served as law dean at the University of Colorado from 1988-1995; and as James Gould Cutler Professor and Director of the Institute of Bill of Rights Law at William & Mary from 1985-1988. Nichol has also taught at Oxford, Exeter, Florida and West Virginia. He founded the Byron White Center of Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado (1990) and the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina (2001).

Nichol attended Oklahoma State University, where he received a degree in philosophy (1973) and played varsity football. He obtained his J.D. from the University of Texas, graduating Order of the Coif, in 1976. He is married to Glenn George. They have three daughters: Jesse (21), Jennifer (20), and Soren (15).

For more information about Gene Nichol, please visit http://www.law.unc.edu/faculty/directory/details.aspx?cid=1001.

Dr. David C. Driskell, Artist and Scholar

February 16, 2010 Seabrook Auditorium 6:00 p.m.

Born in 1931 into a family of Georgia sharecroppers, David C. Driskell is today a renowned painter and collector of art, as well as one of the leading authorities on the subject of African American art and the black artist in American society. His paintings can be found in major museums and private collections worldwide.  His contributions to scholarship in the history of art include many books and more than 40 catalogues for exhibitions he has curated.  His essays on the subject of African American art have appeared in major publications throughout the world.  In establishing the Driskell Center, the University of Maryland has proudly taken up Driskell’s challenge to “grow the field.”

Prof. Driskell studied at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and received his undergraduate degree in art at Howard University (1955) and a Masters in Fine Arts degree from Catholic University (1962).   He joined the faculty of the Department of Art at the University of Maryland in 1977 and served as its Chair from 1978-1983.  He has been a practicing artist since the 1950s and his works are in major museums throughout the world, including the National Gallery of Art, the High Museum of Art, and Yale University Art Gallery, to name a few. 

In 1976, Driskell curated the groundbreaking exhibit “Two Centuries of Black American Art: 1750-1950” which laid the foundation for the field of African American Art History.  Since 1977, Prof. Driskell has served as cultural advisor to Camille O. and William H. Cosby and as the curator of the Cosby Collection of Fine Arts.  In 2000, in a White House Ceremony, Prof. Driskell received the National Humanities Medal from President Bill Clinton.  In 2007, he was elected as a National Academician by the National Academy.

For more information about Dr. David C. Driskell, please visit  http://www.driskellcenter.umd.edu/index.php.

For more information contact: edickens@uncfsu.edu or 910-672-2101.