Widener University Announces 2011-2012 Season of Philadelphia Speakers Series

Michelle Rhee

It was last year's Speakers Series that brought Dr. Ben Carson to the area and he was gracious enough to include a stop at the university to speak to us locally...for free.

This year's speakers were announced today and it includes a very impressive line up that has something for everyone's appeal.

My personal favorite is Michelle Rhee. Her accomplishments in education is legendary, and she's marrying one of my all time favorite NBA basketball players.

Get your tickets early because this event sells out every year.

Chester, Pa.—The Philadelphia Speakers Series presented by Widener University has lined up an impressive list of authors, journalists, activists, leaders and other renowned personalities to participate in its 2011-2012 season. The series, which has consecutively sold-out its previous seven seasons, will close with one of the most trusted figures in broadcasting, Tom Brokaw. The eighth season was announced at yesterday evening’s event featuring political commentator Mark Shields.

Held at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the 2011 -2012 series will begin on Sept. 26, 2011 with distinguished historian Ron Chernow, followed by former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee; former covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson; sustainable food activist Michael Pollan; author and professor Azar Nafisi; former U.S. military commander Stanley McChrystal and legendary broadcast journalist Tom Brokaw.

“We are pleased to once again present a spectacular season of authors, historians and leaders to our Philadelphia audience,” said James T. Harris III, Ed.D., president of Widener University. “Each of the magnificent speakers lined-up for this season will have our subscribers on the edge of their seats with their enthralling and fascinating stories and experiences. What many look forward to most about the evenings with our speakers is the opportunity for follow-up questions after the presentations. The audience has the chance to get the story behind the story and delve into our speakers’ personalities, without the filter of today’s media.”

“Going into its eighth season, the Speakers Series continues to provide the opportunity to experience and learn from some of the most celebrated, captivating and influential personalities of our time,” added Harris. “Widener University is proud to continue to present this opportunity as part of our civic engagement mission.”

Speaking on Sept. 26, Ron Chernow (photo at http://budurl.com/RChernow) has been dubbed “America’s best business biographer” by Fortune Magazine. A National Book Award winner, Chernow has profiled the lives of financial titans such as J.P. Morgan, the Warburgs, John D. Rockefeller and Alexander Hamilton. His first novel, “The House of Morgan,” was voted one of the top 100 non-fiction books published in the twentieth century by The Modern Library Board.  He will discuss his most recent work, “Washington: A Life,” which was released last Fall.

Other speakers include:

* Nov. 7 – Michelle Rhee (photo at http://budurl.com/MRhee), an outspoken advocate for school reform, Rhee founded The New Teacher Project in 1997, which has recruited 23,000 new teachers across the country. Under her leadership as Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, the worst performing school district in the country at the time saw double-digit growth in state reading and math scores among seventh, eighth and tenth graders. Rhee most recently founded StudentsFirst, an organization aiming to raise $1 billion to reform education in the nation.

* Nov. 28 – She was a covert CIA operative and he was the American Ambassador to Africa and Iraq. His 2003 New York Times op-ed piece suggesting the Iraqi nuclear threat had been exaggerated allegedly resulted in the exposure of her identity as a CIA agent working in counter-proliferation. Former American diplomat, Ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife, former covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame Wilson (photo at http://budurl.com/PlameWilson) will illustrate their enthralling story, which was told in the motion picture “Fair Game” starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn.

* Jan. 23, 2012 – Michael Pollan (photo at http://budurl.com/MPollan) has been named as one of the Top 10 New Thought Leaders by Newsweek and was named to the 2010 TIME 100 list. He’s written four New York Times Best-sellers, including his most recent work “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.” For the past 25 years, Pollan has been exploring and writing about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect. He also appeared in the Academy Award nominated documentary, “Food Inc.”

* Feb. 20, 2012 – Azar Nafisi (photo at http://budurl.com/Nafisi) is the highly acclaimed author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” which spent 117 weeks on The New York Times Best-seller list and has been translated into 32 languages. The book paints a vivid portrait of the Islamic revolution in Iran and its effect on Nafisi as a secular woman and professor. Nafisi, who has written articles for The New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, is the executive director of Cultural Conversations at the Foreign Policy Institute of John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

* March 26, 2012 – Stanley McChrystal (photo at http://budurl.com/McChrystal), a former four-star general in the United States army, is widely admired for his candor and leadership skills. His last assignment as Commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan earned him praise as “one of America’s greatest warriors” by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

* April 30, 2012 – One of the most trusted and respected figures in television, legendary journalist Tom Brokaw will discuss his career in broadcast news, which spans nearly five decades and ranges from reporting on the civil rights movement in Atlanta to serving as NBC’s White House correspondent during Watergate. Best known for his more than 20 years as anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, Brokaw has interviewed every president since Lyndon B. Johnson and has traveled the world to cover international stories. The best-selling author of “The Greatest Generation,” Brokaw has received numerous awards, including an Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement and was inducted into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

All of the presentations will take place on Monday nights at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, beginning at 8 p.m. Tickets are sold by subscription only and prices range from $245 to $475 per person. Interested parties are encouraged to contact the ticket office as soon as possible to order their seats. For more information, visit www.PhiladelphiaSpeakersSeries.com or call 215.893.1955.

Presented by Widener University, the series also is sponsored by WHYY Multimedia.