2009-2010 Scheduled Speakers
Kofi Annan
Undergraduate Student Choice Speaker
Secretary-General of the United Nations, 1997-2006; Nobel Peace Prize Recipient
Wednesday, September 16, 8 pm
Alumni Arena, UB’s North (Amherst) Campus
Kofi Annan served as United Nations Secretary-General from 1997-2006. During his tenure, he made his mark as an advocate for human rights, the rule of law, and the revitalization of the UN.
Annan took his first UN job in 1992 with the World Health Organization in Geneva and went on to hold an array of leadership posts. When elected to the Secretary-Generalship in 1997, Annan became the first Secretary-General to come directly from the UN staff, and the first from a black African nation to hold the position.
As Secretary-General, Annan worked to bolster the UN's relationship with businesses and civil society groups, sponsoring a Global Compact initiative to promote corporate social responsibility. He was instrumental in laying out the Millennium Development Goals, a strategy to meet the needs of the world's poorest by 2015. In 2005, Annan succeeded in persuading the United Nations to establish the Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council, new intergovernmental bodies dedicated to global peace and welfare. Annan was also a chief proponent of the creation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
In December 2001, Annan and the United Nations received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Most recently, Kofi Annan was appointed to the Board of Directors of the United Nations' Foundation. The Foundation's mission is to build public-private partnerships that address the world's most pressing problems.
Annan is also currently, Chairman of the Board of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a broad-based partnership for pro-poor, pro-environment policies to revitalize agriculture for Africa's small-scale farmers. In the balance of his time, he is a member of the Africa Progress Panel, is Chancellor of the University of Ghana, and has launched the Global Humanitarian Forum.
Named in his honor in recognition of his contributions to world peace and security, The Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre delivers courses to military and civilian personnel involved in Peace Support Operations throughout the world to lead original and challenging research into the causes and subsequent management of conflict and the promotion of peace.
Lecture Sponsor:
Undergraduate Student Association
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- www.un.org/sg/annan.shtml
- http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2001/annan-bio.html
- http://www.harrywalker.com/KofiAnnan
Tony Blair
Graduate Student Choice Speaker
Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1997 – 2007
Wednesday, October 7, 8 pm
Alumni Arena, UB’s North (Amherst) Campus
Tony Blair served as prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from May 1997 to June 2007. He was also the leader of Britain's Labor Party (1994 to 2007) and the member of parliament for Sedgefield, England (1983 to 2007). He is currently serving as the Middle East Quartet representative. The Quartet is made up of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.
During his ten years as prime minister, Blair transformed Britain's public services through a program of investment and reform in schools and hospitals, resulting in more children achieving better school results and more people receiving faster access to health care, with improved survival rates for cancer and coronary heart disease. In the US, Blair received widespread recognition for his support for America after the tragedy of 9/11.
As a strong advocate of a values-based, activist and multilateralist foreign policy with action on issues like climate change, global poverty, Africa and the Middle East Peace Process, his efforts have culminated in the development of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The Foundation is committed to promoting respect and understanding of all major religions. Blair is widely credited for his contribution to the Northern Ireland Peace Process by helping to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement and deliver a power-sharing government.
Lecture Sponsor:
Graduate Student Association
Hodgson Russ Attorneys
Contributing Lecture Sponsor:
Nichols School
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Steve Lopez
Author of The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, and The Redemptive Power of Music - the 2009 UB Reads selection; LA Times Columnist
Wednesday, October 28, 8 pm (lecture)
Alumni Arena, UB’s North (Amherst) Campus
Additionally, UB will host a Community Resource & Engagement Fair prior to the lecture (6:30 pm – 8:30 pm) and immediately following the lecture, 1st Floor of Alumni Arena: More information (343KB).
Steve Lopez joined the staff of the Los Angeles Times in May 2001 after four years at Time Inc., where he wrote for Time, Sports Illustrated, Life and Entertainment Weekly. Prior to Time Inc., Lopez was a columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Jose Mercury News and the Oakland Tribune. His work has won numerous national journalism awards for column writing and magazine reporting.
Lopez is the author of the 2009 UB Reads selection – The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, and The Redemptive Power of Music – a non-fiction book based on a series of columns which Lopez wrote about his friendship with a homeless musician.
While on his way to work one day, Lopez was distracted by beautiful strains of music, and discovered a homeless man, Nathaniel Ayers, playing a 2-string violin. Intrigued, Lopez learned that the man had once been a promising student at Julliard who had succumbed to pressures, including schizophrenia. Lopez became determined to help Ayers reestablish himself and realize the potential of his talent. The Soloist describes their journey toward that goal, marked by triumphs and disappointments, and how they each grew through their friendship.
A movie, The Soloist, based on Lopez’s book, starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr., was recently released. Lopez, is also the author of three novels.
Lecture Sponsor: Tickets:
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Cornel West
Scholar; Political Activist; Best-Selling Author
34th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Event
Friday, February 5, 8 pm
Center for the Arts, UB’s North (Amherst) Campus
One of America's most provocative public intellectuals, Cornel West has been a champion for racial justice since childhood. His writing, speaking, and teaching weave together the traditions of the black Baptist Church, progressive politics, and jazz. The New York Times has praised his "ferocious moral vision".
Currently the Class of 1943 Professor at Princeton University, West has received more than 20 honorary degrees. He burst onto the national scene in 1993 with his best-selling book, Race Matters, a searing analysis of racism in American democracy. Race Matters has become a contemporary classic, selling more than a half a million copies to date. West has published numerous books since, including Democracy Matters, in which he analyzed the arrested development of democracy both in America and in the crisis-ridden Middle East. In Hope on a Tightrope, West offered courageous commentary on issues that affect the lives of all Americans. Themes include Race, Leadership, Faith, Family, Philosophy, and Love and Service. His most recent book is titled, Brother West: Living and Loving Outloud, A Memoir.
West earned two bachelor's degrees from Harvard in three years, magna cum laude. Martin Kilson, one of his professors there, describes West as "the most intellectually aggressive and highly cerebral student I have taught." After earning his Ph.D. at Princeton, he became a professor of religion and director of the Afro-American Studies program there. West has also taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Paris.
West has produced three albums. His latest CD, Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations is a collection of socially conscious music featuring collaborations with Prince, Outkast, Jill Scott, Talib Kweli and KRS-ONE.
West co-starred in the documentary film, STAND: What Do You STAND For? He also offers commentary on The Tavis Smiley Show from PRI.
Lecture Sponsor:
Minority Faculty and Staff Association
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Margaret Atwood
Best-Selling Author
Wednesday, March 3, 8 pm
Center for the Arts, UB’s North (Amherst) Campus
Throughout her years of writing, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and many honorary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman, The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride, The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000, and Moral Disorder and Other Stories. Atwood's newest novel, The Year of the Flood is scheduled for release in September 2009.
Her recent work in non-fiction includes, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, a timely analysis of the topic of debt as an enduring theme in religion, culture and history.
Atwood has been said to have an uncanny knack for writing books that anticipate the preoccupations of the public. Acclaimed for her talent for portraying both personal problems and those of universal concern, Atwood's work has been published in more than thirty-five languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian.
Margaret Atwood is a Joint Honourary President of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International.
Born in Ottawa, Atwood grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Astrophysicist; Host of PBS’s NOVA scienceNOW; F.P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium, American Museum of Natural History; Best-Selling Author
Wednesday, March 31, 8 pm
Alumni Arena, UB’s North (Amherst) Campus
Neil deGrasse Tyson is the host of PBS's NOVA scienceNOW, which is an accessible look at the frontier of all the science that shapes the understanding of our place in the universe. Tyson first appeared on PBS in 2004, hosting a NOVA 4-part mini-series, Origins.
Tyson's professional interests include star formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure of our Milky Way. He obtains his data from the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as from telescopes in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and the Andes Mountains of Chile.
In 2001, Tyson was appointed by President Bush to serve on a commission that studied the Future of the US Aerospace Industry. In 2004, Tyson was once again appointed by the President to serve on the Moon, Mars, and Beyond Commission. This group navigated a path by which the new space vision can become a successful part of the American agenda. And in 2006, the head of NASA appointed Tyson to serve on its prestigious Advisory Council, which will help guide NASA through its perennial need to fit its ambitious vision into its restricted budget.
In addition to dozens of professional publications, Tyson is a monthly essayist for Natural History magazine under the title Universe. And among Tyson's nine books is his memoir The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, co-written with Donald Goldsmith, Death By Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries, which was a New York Times bestseller, and The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet, chronicling his experience at the center of the controversy over Pluto's planetary status.
Tyson is the first occupant of the Frederick P. Rose Directorship of the Hayden Planetarium, part of the American Museum of Natural History.
A product of the public school system through high school, Tyson earned his BA in Physics from Harvard and his PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia. He is the recipient of nine honorary doctorates and the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal. His contributions to the public appreciation of the cosmos have been recognized by the International Astronomical Union in their official naming of asteroid 13123 Tyson.
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Bill Maher
Political Satirist; Host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher; Best-Selling Author
Saturday, April 24, 8 pm
Alumni Arena, UB’s North (Amherst) Campus
Whether skewering Republicans, Democrats, the mass media or Hollywood, Bill Maher is one of the most perceptive and hilarious satirists at work today. He delivers a blend of social commentary and humor.
Maher first gained fame as the host of ABC's Politically Incorrect. He is now the host of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, featuring the popular New Rules segment as well as insightful interviews and rousing panel discussions with guests such as Pat Buchanan, Arianna Huffington and Michael Moore. Reviewing the week's events in a thought-provoking and comedic way, the show has received multiple emmy nominations and nominations from the Writer's Guild of America.
In 2008, Maher appeared in Religulous. Described by the NY Times as a facetiously funny documentary, the controversial film follows Maher around the globe, as he discusses organized religion with Christians, Jews and Muslims.
Maher who began his career as a stand-up comedian, is the author of four best-sellers: True Story, Does Anybody Have a Problem with That?; Politically Incorrect's Greatest Hits; When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden and most recently, New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer.
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