Guess who’s coming to lecture
Despite all of its enticing facets, I was reluctant to return to SMU after spending my junior year abroad. I simply did not believe that the Hilltop could ever possibly compete with the everlasting sunshine along the beaches of the French Cote d’Azur where I spent my afternoons studying throughout the SMU South-of-France Program.
The prospects looked even more barren when comparing SMU to the ancient and mysterious Reid Hall, nestled in the Sixth arrondisment of Paris. (To be fair, I will keep Yaxunah, the little Maya village where I passed two months of the summer before last, out of the running. I am not sure if anywhere could compare to Yaxunah.)
But, here I am back at SMU and I realize that there were things I missed; things that all my experiences abroad combined could not provide me with. For one thing, I am so glad to renew the many relationships I left behind, both with friends and professors. Another thing, I miss the Buddha Special and specialty desserts at Cosmic Café#233;. Moreover, I missed the opportunity to attend the Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series.
Until last year, I had not failed to attend a single lecture since I began SMU and I really was saddened about not being able to attend the lectures last year. In fact, my very worst bad day in Paris (perhaps it was my only bad day in Paris) was the day of the Jane Goodall lecture. Now, I am not saying that missing the lecture ruined my day, but I do believe it severely influenced the state of my karma.
The Tate Lectures have been a very important part of my SMU experience. (No, that doesn’t make me a nerd). My first year was a tough one at SMU. I still don’t know what I was expecting from my university experience, but my first semester here was certainly not providing it. Then, I remember listening to Archbishop Desmond Tutu lecture. For those who aren’t familiar with him, he was instrumental, alongside Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Clerk, in negotiating an end to apartheid in South Africa. I have yet to encounter anyone whom I could justly consider his equal. He represents a spirituality and inspiration that I feel is lacking in so many world leaders of our day. And, he was here! He stood in McFarlin Auditorium and imparted knowledge and insight to his audience. I left his lecture slightly more aware of the endless prospects an education at SMU could provide me. From that lecture on, I was sold on the Tate Lecture Programs, even when I wasn’t necessarily sold on the university as a whole.
As a senior, my experiences at SMU have taken me all around the world and back again. I can’t say I ever found that “university experience” I had hoped for as a first year. However, there are “treasures” I have found along the way that have helped me learn and mature. Included among these are the anthropology department, the Richter International Fellowship, the study abroad programs, and not the least of these are the Tate Lectures. Besides providing me with utilitarian satisfaction, the Tate Lecture Programs offer this university much support in many areas.
Last year alone, revenue of the Tate Series provided SMU with over $450,000 in scholarship money and $26,000 to student groups in need of funding. Since I came to SMU, the Tate Lecture Series has brought such names as Walter Cronkite, Julie Andrews, Newt Gingrich, Marvin Hamlisch and F.W. de Clerk. Before that, it enticed Barbara Bush, former President George Bush, Ted Turner, Stephen Hawking and Mikhail Gorbachev to our campus.
Many distinguished citizens of Dallas pay a handsome fee to be present at these lectures. As students at SMU, we all have the chance to attend the lectures, at no cost. What’s more, a few years ago, the wonderful people in the Lecture Programs office established the Student Forum. Held at 4:30 pm in Hughes-Trigg Theater on the day of lectures, the Forum grants students more intimate interaction with the speaker of the day. In 2001, the Tate Series augmented its student outreach with the inception of the Tate Academic Summit.
The summit extends one lecture from each season into a two-day event focused on enticing the participation of the SMU student population.
The first lecture of the 2002-2003 season is this evening. The theme of this lecture, the Linda and Mitch Hart Lecture, is “The Politics of Hatred.”
With David Gergen (Editor-at-large, U.S. News & World Reports, and former presidential adviser) as a moderator, Tom Friedman (Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times) and Bernard Shaw (Emmy Award-winning former principal anchor for CNN) will debate the aforementioned theme. I encourage and invite all of you to take part in today’s Student Forum and tonight’s Lecture.
To attend the forum, please come to the Hughes-Trigg Theater. It begins at 4:30 p.m., but it is a good idea to arrive early. In order to attend the lecture, students need to go to the basement of McFarlin Auditorium at 7:15 pm, with SMU ID in hand.
If you cannot attend today’s events, there are more great lectures for this year. The next lecture is only a few weeks away. Sidney Poitier, a two-time Academy Award-winning actor, will speak on Oct. 1. For more details on Sidney Poitier and the complete 2002-2003 schedule, please visit the Tate Lecture website at www.tateseries.com.
The Tate Lectures have provided me with many fond memories of our university. I hope that you choose to share in this prestigious tradition and actively enhance your intellectual pursuit at SMU.
