2012-2013 Schedule

A University Lecture Celebrating Diversity

Mae Jemison, M.D.

Exploring the Frontiers of Science and Human Potential

September 5 | 7PM | Wright Auditorium

On June 4, 1987, Mae Jemison, M.D., became the first African American woman admitted into the astronaut training program. After more than a year of training, she became an astronaut with the title of science mission specialist, a job which would make her responsible for conducting crew related scientific experiments on the space shuttle. On September 12, 1992, Dr. Jemison flew into space with six other astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS47, becoming the first African American woman to travel in space. Altogether, she spent over 190 hours in space before returning to Earth on September 20. [MORE]

The Premier Lecture

Louise Leakey, PhD

Secrets in the Sand: Revelations Into How We Became Humans

October 2 | 7PM | Wright Auditorium

Louise Leakey is the third generation of her family to dig for humanity's past in East Africa. In 2001, Leakey and her mother, Meave, found a previously unknown hominid, the 3.5-million-year-old Kenyanthropus platyops, at Lake Turkana — the same region where her father, Richard, discovered the "Turkana Boy" fossil, and near Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge, where her grandparents, Louise and Mary Leakey, discovered the bones of Homo habilis. [MORE]

The 2012 Space Lecture

Colonel Eileen M. Collins

Leadership Lessons from Apollo to Discovery

November 13 | 7pm | Wright Auditorium

Eileen M. Collins is a retired American astronaut and a retired U. S. Air Force Colonel. A former military instructor and test pilot, Collins was the first female pilot and first female commander of a Space Shuttle. She has been awarded several medals honoring her accomplishments in space. Collins has logged 38 days, 8 hours, and 10 minutes in uter space. [MORE]

Jarvis Lecture on Christianity and Culture

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine

Strange Bedfellows: The Bible, American Politics, and Homosexuality

March 5 | 7pm | Wright Auditorium

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies, and Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and College of Arts and Sciences.  Holding the BA from Smith College, the MA and PhD from Duke University, and numerous honorary doctorates, Dr.Professor Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies and has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Bible Association, and the Association for Jewish Studies. [MORE]

Thomas Harriot Lecture

Dr. Daniel Richter

Native Peoples and the Battle of Nooherooka

March 21 | 7pm | Hendrix Theatre (See Campus Map)