Ray Suarez
Broadcast journalist Mr. Ray Suarez wove together evidence, from quotes and video clips, that demonstrates the complex relationship between religion and politics in this country. Mr. Suarez is senior correspondent on the “PBS NewsHour” and author of The Holy Vote. He visited with students and faculty in November as the Class of 1952 Endowment for Religious Understanding Speaker. “We have come to a crazy place in our national life. Politicians are using religion as a marker or a quick reference meant to signal to voters, ‘I am like you. Vote for me!’ It’s identity politics, pure...
Read MoreRick Moody
American novelist and short-story writer Rick Moody was this fall’s Bingham Visiting Reader. Best known for his highly acclaimed novels, The Ice Storm and Garden State, Mr. Moody read to students his short story “Boys,” from his 2001 collection, Demonology, and answered questions about his approach to the writing process. “Boys enter the house. Boys enter the house. Boys, and with them the ideas of boys (ideas leaden, reductive, inflexible) enter the house.” —opening line from Rick Moody’s “Boys”
Read MoreAmy Louis Wood
Professor Amy Wood, author of Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890–1940, delivered the eighth Henry R. Heyburn Lecture in History in January. With students, she examined visual representations of lynching and the construction of white supremacy in the Jim Crow era. She specializes in American cultural history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the history of the U.S. South. Professor Wood teaches at Illinois State University. “This history of lynching and racial violence has had an enormous effect on our criminal justice system today, where we...
Read MoreBen Vereen
Tony Award–winning performer and humanitarian, Mr. Ben Vereen, joined Milton students this fall in class and in performance. He has acted in film, in television and onstage in shows including Roots, Pippin, Wicked, Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Muppets and Grey’s Anatomy. For his humanitarian contributions, he has received Israel’s Cultural and Humanitarian Awards, three NAACP Image Awards, and an Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award. “If you define your gravity, you can’t be held down. You are about excellence, and the only person holding you back is you. Stay hungry. Stay...
Read MoreErick Tseng ’97 Joins Board of Trustees
Erick Tseng ’97 is head of mobile products for Facebook since May 2010, after having been a lead product manager at Google for four years. His team at Google launched the Android platform and led development of the Nexus One phone. Erick completed a dual bachelor’s and master’s degree program in computer science and electrical engineering at M.I.T., where he was the president of his class. Erick earned his M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.
Read MoreClaire Hughes Johnson ’90 Joins Board of Trustees
Claire Hughes Johnson ’90 is vice president of the global online sales division of Google. She was a speaker at Google’s 2010 National Economic Impact conference in Washington, D.C. and was a panelist at the 2011 New York Times Small Business Summit. Daughter of the late Guy Hughes (English department), Claire has hosted events for Milton and served on her 20th Reunion committee. Claire graduated from Brown University and earned her M.B.A. from Yale University.
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