Travis Roy
Travis Roy Twenty years ago, Travis Roy became paralyzed from the neck down when he hit the boards 11 seconds into his first college hockey game. Mr. Roy spoke impassionedly to students about setting goals, meeting challenges, showing respect, and the power of love. He established the Travis Roy Foundation in 1997, to help spinal cord injury survivors and to fund research toward developing a cure. He is the author of Eleven Seconds, and he travels the country sharing his story and message with audiences of all ages. “There are times in life...
read moreProfessor Warren McFarlan ’55
Professor Warren McFarlan ’55 Professor Warren McFarlan ’55, who has a long and distinguished career in business education, was the 2015 Hong Kong Lecturer. Professor McFarlan earned his A.B. from Harvard University in 1959, and his M.B.A. and D.B.A. from the Harvard Business School in 1961 and 1965, respectively. He became a full professor at HBS in 1973, and he has held diverse leadership positions at the school since. He is currently a guest professor and co-director of Case Development at the School of Economics and Management,...
read moreProfessor Bonnie Miller
Professor Bonnie Miller Professor Bonnie Miller was this year’s Henry R. Heyburn ’39 Speaker. Professor Miller earned her Ph.D. in history at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of From Liberation to Conquest: The Visual and Popular Cultures of the Spanish-American War of 1898, in which she argues for the importance of visual images in shaping the political debates surrounding the Cuban crisis and the imperial aftermath of the Spanish-American War. At UMass Boston, she teaches courses in visual culture /media studies and American...
read moreLieutenant Ben Pariser ’06
Lieutenant Ben Pariser ’06 Nearly ten years after graduation, Lieutenant Ben Pariser spoke with students as the 2015 Veterans Day Speaker. Mr. Pariser graduated from Brandeis University in 2010, before earning his commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve. From 2011 to 2013, Mr. Pariser served with the 443rd Civil Affairs Battalion as a battalion human resources officer and a civil affairs team chief. In 2013, he was assigned to the Headquarters, United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command,...
read moreCarlos Andrés Gómez
Carlos Andrés Gómez Award-winning poet, actor and author Carlos Andrés Gómez challenged students to be their authentic selves and interrogate stereotypes of manhood. Mr. Gómez was this year’s guest speaker at the Latino Association assembly. He is the author of the coming-of-age memoir Man Up: Reimagining Modern Manhood. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and named Artist of the Year at the 2009 Promoting Outstanding Writers Awards, he co-starred in Spike Lee’s film Inside Man. Mr. Gómez has been featured on NPR, TEDx, Upworthy, MSNBC,...
read moreSteven Tejada
Steven Tejada Actor, writer and educator Steven Tejada performed his monologues for students as this year’s Multiculturalism/Community Development speaker. The stories, which combine comedy, drama and real emotions, are reflections on his personal journeys from the streets of the South Bronx to the boulevards of exclusive worlds. Mr. Tejada has performed and spoken at venues throughout the country. He is currently dean of diversity initiatives at the Noble and Greenough School. He also serves on the board of directors of De La Salle Academy...
read moreTracy K. Smith
Tracy K. Smith As the Bingham Visiting Writer, poet Tracy K. Smith read from her powerful, sometimes haunting, work during the Martin Luther King Assembly. Ms. Smith is the director of Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Ordinary Light, shortlisted this fall for the National Book Award in Nonfiction, and three books of poetry. Her collection Life on Mars won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and was selected as a New York Times Notable Book. Ms. Smith’s Duende won the 2006 James Laughlin...
read moreDaniel Swinton
Daniel Swinton Daniel Swinton challenged students’ notions of what constitutes sexual assault by presenting a court case, and asking them — the jury — how they would rule. Mr. Swinton visited campus as the 2015 Talbot Speaker. Mr. Swinton is managing partner of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, a multidisciplinary risk management consulting firm based in Malvern, Pennsylvania. A specialist in Title IX, bystander intervention, and sexual assault policy and law, he is the author of several peer-reviewed...
read moreLove the Stranger, by Jay Deshpande ’02
Love the Stranger by Jay Deshpande ’02 YesYes Books, November 2015 Through the wide-eyed study of beauty and the eerie stations of the erotic, Love the Stranger maps the body in its struggle with desire and absence. The poems treat love, kinship and loss as instruments of our own awakening — tools that can help us encounter our own mysteriousness and touch new ground. As they peer into childhood memory, the end of an affair, dream dismemberments, and even Kim Kardashian, the lyrics in Love the Stranger guide us toward the truths hidden...
read moreCan China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth, by F. Warren McFarlan ’55
Can China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth by Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby and F. Warren McFarlan ’55 Harvard Business Review Press, February 2014 A lack of accountability, transparency, and ease of operation in China — combined with growing evidence of high-level corruption — has made domestic and foreign businesspeople increasingly wary of the “China model.” These issues are deeply rooted in Chinese history and the country’s political system. The authors contend that the country’s dynamic private...
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