To the Emory community:
During the past year a number of students, administrators and faculty members have been working with me to find ways to enhance the intellectual life of the Emory campus. Among the many ideas we have discussed is one we have agreed to make a high priority: the establishment of a University Speaker Series.
The Emory University Speaker Series will bring to the campus speakers who will address the most important ideas and issues facing us today and whose perspectives and insights will challenge us intellectually. A guest will do more than deliver a formal speech; we anticipate that he or she will spend a day visiting with smaller groups of students and faculty, engaging them in discussions or leading them in workshops and seminars. At the present time, we have an endowment that will support two speakers each year, but we are actively seeking funds that would permit us in the future to bring four to six speakers each year. We are confident that the series will significantly enrich the academic experience at Emory and will provide a greater sense of intellectual community; we are committed to continuing to develop and expand it.
At the beginning of this academic year, we established a Speaker Series Committee, with representatives from the student body, the faculty and the administration, and this committee has laid the groundwork for a program that will begin during the spring of 1996. We now seek nominations from members of the Emory community for guest speakers. Nominees should be women and men whose prominence has emerged as a result of their ideas and their contributions to our society's intellectual and cultural life.
We invite you to submit nominations, along with any supporting materials you might wish to include, to any member of the Speakers Series Committee: Jeremy Berry (Box 23377), Rudolph Byrd (201B Candler Library), William Fox (209 Administration), Judy Raggi Moore (416 Humanities), Laura Sawyer (Box 22166), or me (408 Administration).
I hope you share our enthusiasm and excitement about the potential of the Emory University Speaker Series. We thank you very much for considering this request and look forward to receiving your nominations.
Bill Chace
President