Our next guests: Jepson, A&S, and Robins host influential speakers
University News
Thought leaders gather
The Jepson School of Leadership Studies hosts two main series, presenting conversations with speakers offering differing perspectives on leadership and other topics.
The 2023-24 Jepson Leadership Forum focuses on the evolving concept of masculinity in an age of rapid changes in gender relations and norms — in the household, the workforce, and government. Speakers will discuss the role of hormones in gender identity and behavior, status competition and violence, challenges facing men resulting from the changing nature of the family and the economy, and the past and future of patriarchy globally.
Series speakers this year include Charles Blow, columnist for The New York Times, CNN commentator, MSNBC political analyst, and author. Blow will speak about Black masculinity in the United States.
Jepson’s McDowell Institute Lecture Series each year examines the problems and prospects of leadership, constitutionalism, political economy, politics, and ethical reasoning.
This year’s speakers include Jason L. Riley, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Riley’s conversation, “Why Thomas Sowell Matters,” explores the work and impact of the conservative American economist, commentator, and author. In 2021, Riley published Maverick, his biography of Sowell.
Getting down to business
The School of Business holds four series throughout the year: the Robins Executive Speaker Series, Full Disclosure at Robins, 1 Million Cups, and C-Suite Conversations.
The Robins Executive Speaker Series invites to campus national and international business leaders, authors, publishers, and athletes, among others, who share their stories of the business world. A group of students are invited to each for a roundtable discussion. The series this year highlights women in business, including Kelly Pope, forensic accountant and professor at DePaul University, and author of Fool Me Once, her examination of financial crimes and whistleblowers.
The school also hosts 1 Million Cups, a national program that connects entrepreneurs and encourages peer learning. The series on Wednesday features Alexander Olesen, founder and CEO, and Graham Smith, founder and CTO of Babylon Farms, the makers of hydroponic micro farms, including one located at the Robins School, which provides greens for Lou’s.
In partnership with the Robins School, NPR One podcast host and journalist-in-residence Roben Farzad records special live episodes of Full Disclosure on campus. Farzad speaks with newsmakers, entrepreneurs, and others in front of a campus audience. Among this year’s speakers is U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who will appear Dec. 1 at the Modlin Center for the Arts.
The school also hosts the C-Suite Conversations series, hosted by management professor Richard Coughlan speaking with business leaders, with students, faculty, and other guests invited to join the discussion.
The humanities at UR
The School of Arts & Sciences hosts the annual Tucker-Boatwright Festival of Literature and the Arts, each year awarded to a different department within the humanities. That department develops public programs around a theme, creating conversations about the role of the humanities on campus and in the UR community.
The 2023-2024 festival, hosted by the Film Studies Program, is titled “Reimagining Community in Cinema,” and explores how community is historically imagined and reimagined in documentary and fiction film from the silent era to the present.
The festival will feature symposia, masterclasses, film screenings, and conversations with filmmakers, and in particular honors contributions of historically marginalized communities. This year’s festival highlights contributions of filmmakers from such communities, bringing to UR work that is rarely available via mainstream distribution venues.
This spring (date to come) the festival begins with a session titled “Re-Imagining Black Cinema: 3 Films by Oscar-Nominated Garrett Bradley.” Bradley is an artist and Oscar-nominated filmmaker, as well as the first Black woman to win the best U.S. Documentary Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival. She’ll join UR student filmmakers the following day for a studio visit to discuss their work.