Five programs will be open to students and the community at large, including two Conversations on Social Justice
[NEW ALBANY, OH, September 4, 2020] – Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, The New Albany Community Foundation announced its 2020-2021 season of The New Albany Lecture Series to be presented virtually and open to everyone to participate. The lecture series is a collection of compelling forums featuring some of the country’s most influential thought leaders.
Pre-registration for these events is required and may be accessed at newalbanyfoundation.org. Generous sponsors and Foundation donors allow the Foundation to provide community access to these important conversations.
New in 2020, The Foundation will present two Conversations on Social Justice. Recent events have raised difficult questions and sparked reflection and dialogue across the country and in our community. This presents a unique opportunity to come together to seek greater understanding about the challenges we face. Launching the season on September 16, NBC4 Anchor Darlene Hill will interview Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Then on October 21, Professor Ibram X. Kendi, best-selling author and Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, will be joined by Michelle Alexander, Civil Rights Lawyer, advocate, legal scholar and award-winning author for what promises to be a stimulating discussion.
“We’re pleased to add the important Conversations on Social Justice to the season, along with civil discourse, health and mental health speakers,” said Craig Mohre, President of The New Albany Community Foundation. “The Foundation is committed to promoting lifelong learning and to provide a platform for community dialogue on important matters. These conversations will provide students and residents across central Ohio with opportunities to do both and we’re grateful to the many donors and sponsors who make these extraordinary programs possible.”
The 2020-2021 New Albany Lecture Series season features the following:
For the third consecutive year, the Foundation will present the New Albany Center for Civil Discourse & Debate program, which features different, often opposing views on timely, relevant issues, but in a civil, constructive manner. The center was established by New Albany residents, Barbara and Phil Derrow. This year’s presentation will feature a lively discussion with the Director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, David Axelrod and former Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, moderated by NBC4 Anchor and Host of NBC4’s The Spectrum, Colleen Marshall.
“Through this program, we hope to begin to rebuild a culture of civil discourse, civil argument and debate where people can actually share different points of view,” said Phil Derrow, Founder, New Albany Center for Civil Discourse & Debate. “We can disagree without being disagreeable. Our goal is to help reinvigorate a spirit of being able to make your case and still see the person you are disagreeing with as a friend.”
In February of 2021, The New Albany Lecture Series, in collaboration with Healthy New Albany, will feature explorer and National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner. Buettner is an award-winning journalist and producer, and a New York Times bestselling author. He discovered the five places in the world – dubbed Blue Zones -where people live the longest, healthiest lives.
Additionally, the Foundation, in collaboration with The Well-Being Connection, will continue its focus on mental health by presenting Margaret Trudeau, bestselling author and mental health advocate on May 4. In 2015, the Foundation hosted its first mental health conversation featuring actress and author, Mariel Hemingway. Her appearance stimulated productive dialogue among students as well as adults and the Foundation has continued to carry the conversations forward with other inspiring presenters including Patrick Kennedy, Elizabeth Vargas, Glenn Close and this season’s appearance by Margaret Trudeau.
These lectures are made possible by the generous support from:
- The Barbara W. & Philip R. Derrow Family Foundation
- The Donna & Nick Akins Fund
- The Karen & Irving Dennis Family Fund
- The Ben W. Hale Jr. Memorial Fund
- The Redgrave Family Fund
- The Ryan Family Fund
- The Lynne & Steve Smith Family Fund
- The Leslie H. Wexner New Albany Lecture Series Fund
- Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
- Alliance Data
- Battelle
- CAS
- Conway Charitable Lead Annuity Trust, Beatrice Wolper, Trustee
- Turner Construction
- Anonymous Donors
- American Electric Power
- AT&T
- Bob Boyd Lincoln
- Easton Community Foundation
- Encova Insurance
- Fifth Third Bank
- Huntington
- KeyBanc Capital Markets
- Messer Construction
- Mount Carmel
- Nationwide Children’s Hospital
- NAI Ohio Equities
- The Ohio State University
- Park National Bank
- Southeastern Equipment Co, Inc.
- TRC Companies, Inc.
Updated as of October 19, 2020
The Foundation also announced that acclaimed author, past CEO of the Aspen Institute and now Distinguished Fellow, Walter Isaacson will be the featured speaker at the 2020 Remarkable Evening benefit. Proceeds from the benefit support the Foundation’s annual grants to area not-for-profit organizations as well as transformational community projects. The event will be held virtually on December 8, 2020 and will include the announcement of The Jeanne and John G. McCoy Community Service Award, as well as a celebration of The New Albany Community Foundation’s 25th anniversary. Sponsors for the 2020 Remarkable Evening include:
Founded in 1995 by forward thinking community leaders to advance the aspirations of the community in perpetuity, The New Albany Community Foundation invests in programs and initiatives that enrich the community in the areas of lifelong learning, health and wellness, the arts and a sustainable environment. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than $13 million in grants to area non-profit organizations that enrich lives.
The New Albany Lecture Series Speaker Bios:
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is an intellectual who speaks to the complex dynamics of the American experience. His most well-known books, Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul, and In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, take a wide look at black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States, and the challenges our democracy face. He is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In his writings, the country’s complexities, vulnerabilities, and the opportunities for hope come into full view. Hope that is, in one of his favorite quotes from W.E.B Du Bois, “not hopeless, but a bit unhopeful.”
He is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies, a program he first became involved with shaping as a doctoral candidate in Religion at Princeton. He is the former president of the American Academy of Religion. His books on religion and philosophy include An Uncommon Faith: A Pragmatic Approach to the Study of African American Religion, African American Religion: A Very Short Introduction and Exodus! Religion, Race and Nation in Early 19th Century Black America, which was awarded the Modern Language Association’s William Sanders Scarborough Book Prize. Glaude is also the author of two edited volumes, and many influential articles about religion for academic journals. He has also written for the likes of The New York Times and Time Magazine.
Known to be a convener of conversations and debates, Glaude takes care to engage fellow citizens of all ages and backgrounds – from young activists, to fellow academics, journalists and commentators, and followers on Twitter in dialogue about the direction of the nation. His scholarship and his sense of himself as a public intellectual are driven by a commitment to think carefully with others in public.
Glaude’s most recent book, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, was released on June 30, 2020. Of Baldwin, Glaude writes, “Baldwin’s writing does not bear witness to the glory of America. It reveals the country’s sins, and the illusion of innocence that blinds us to the reality of others. Baldwin’s vision requires a confrontation with our history (with slavery, Jim Crow segregation, with whiteness) to overcome its hold on us. Not to posit the greatness of America, but to establish the ground upon which to imagine the country anew.”
Some like to describe Glaude as the quintessential Morehouse man, having left his home in Moss Point, Mississippi at age 16 to begin studies at the HBCU. He holds a master’s degree in African American Studies from Temple University, and a Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University. He began his teaching career at Bowdoin College. In 2011 he delivered Harvard’s Du Bois lectures. In 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Colgate University, delivering commencement remarks titled, “Turning Our Backs” that was recognized by The New York Times as one of the best commencement speeches of the year. He is a columnist for Time Magazine and a MSNBC contributor on programs like Morning Joe, and Deadline Whitehouse with Nicolle Wallace. He also regularly appears on Meet the Press on Sundays. Glaude hosts the podcast AAS 21, recorded at Princeton University in Stanhope Hall, the African American Studies department’s home.
Ibram X. Kendi is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, professor of history and international studies, and the Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. He is an Ideas Columnist at The Atlantic, and a correspondent with CBS News. He is the author of four books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won National Book Award for Nonfiction, and the New York Times bestsellers How to Be an Antiracist and STAMPED: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored with Jason Reynolds. His newest book, Antiracist Baby, published on June 16th, 2020.
Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, legal scholar and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness — the bestselling book that helped to transform the national debate on racial and criminal justice in the United States. Since The New Jim Crow was first published in 2010, it has spent nearly 250 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and has been cited in judicial decisions and adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads, and has inspired a generation of racial justice activists motivated by Alexander’s unforgettable argument that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” The book has won numerous awards, including the 2011 NAACP Image Award for best nonfiction. Alexander has been featured in national radio and television media outlets, including MSNBC, NPR, CNN, Bill Moyers Journal, The Colbert Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Tavis Smiley, Democracy Now!, and C-SPAN.
Over the years, Alexander has taught at a number of universities, including Stanford Law School, where she was an associate professor of law and directed the Civil Rights Clinic. In 2005, Alexander won a Soros Justice Fellowship that supported the writing of The New Jim Crow and accepted a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. Currently she is a visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times.
Prior to joining academia, Alexander engaged in civil rights litigation in both the private and nonprofit sector, ultimately serving as the director of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California, where she coordinated the Project’s media advocacy, grassroots organizing, and coalition building and launched a major campaign against racial profiling by law enforcement known as the “DWB Campaign” or “Driving While Black or Brown Campaign.”
Alexander is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Vanderbilt University. She has clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Chief Judge Abner Mikva on the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.
David Axelrod is a preeminent American political strategist and commentator and the former chief strategist and senior advisor to President Barack Obama. Axelrod currently serves as the founding director of the University of Chicago’s non-partisan Institute of Politics and as a senior political commentator for CNN. He is the host of The Axe Files, a top-rated podcast featuring in depth conversations with public figures across the political spectrum. A televised version of the show airs monthly on CNN. A former political writer for the Chicago Tribune, Axelrod produced media strategy and advertising for 150 campaigns across the U.S., culminating in President Obama’s historic elections. Axelrod is also the author of The New York Times best-selling memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.
Chris Christie was inaugurated as the 55th Governor of the State of New Jersey on January 19, 2010. He was re-elected with 60% of the vote in November of 2013 and served two terms as Governor. He left office in January of 2018.
During his time in office, Governor Christie emphasized the issues of fiscal responsibility, pension and health benefit reform, education reform and the opioid crisis gripping his state and the nation. His March 2017 law restricting opioid prescriptions led to a 26% reduction in those prescriptions in its first year. He also devised the state’s groundbreaking response to Superstorm Sandy, leading the rebuilding of the state’s housing, infrastructure and public schools and setting a bi-partisan example for storm recovery.
Governor Christie was a leader among his colleagues as Governor. He was elected Chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2014, leading the organization to a record fundraising effort and the election of 31 Republican Governors. This was after he served as Vice-Chairman of the RGA in 2012. He also was elected to the Executive Committee of the National Governors Association and served from 2010-2013.
On March 29, 2017, President Donald J. Trump appointed Governor Christie as Chairman of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. Governor Christie led the Commission on a seven-month investigation of this issue, holding hearings around the country. The Commission issued an interim report on July 31, 2017 and a final report on November 1, 2017. The reports contained more than 65 substantive recommendations, all of which were adopted by President Trump.
Prior to his service as Governor, he served as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey from January 2002 to December 2008. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on December 7, 2001 and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on December 20, 2001. As the chief federal law enforcement officer in New Jersey for seven years, he led the fight on terrorism in the post-9/11 period, increased resources to fight gang violence, gun crimes and political corruption. His office brought 130 cases prosecuting political corruption at all levels of New Jersey government and never lost a case. He served as one of seventeen U.S. Attorneys on the Attorney Generals Advisory Council in Washington, DC.
He was in the private practice of law from 1987-2001 specializing in corporate law, securities matters and appellate advocacy. He graduated from the University of Delaware with a B.A. in Political Science in 1984. He was awarded a Juris Doctor degree by Seton Hall University School of Law in 1987. He is admitted to the Bar of the State of New Jersey, the U.S. District Court of New Jersey and the United States Supreme Court.
He is now a Senior Legal and Political Commentator for ABC News and the Managing Member of the Christie Law Firm and Christie 55 Solutions, LLC in Morristown, NJ.
In 2019, Christie released Let Me Finish, a no-holds-barred account of his rise to power. In the book, Christie details what really happened on the 2016 campaign trail, sets the record straight about his time as a corruption-fighting prosecutor and more.
Governor Christie married his wife Mary Pat in 1986. They have four children: Andrew, Sarah, Patrick and Bridget. They currently reside in Mendham and Bay Head, New Jersey.
Dan Buettner is an explorer, National Geographic Fellow, award-winning journalist and producer, and New York Times bestselling author. He discovered the five places in the world – dubbed blue zones hotspots – where people live the longest, healthiest lives. His articles about these places in The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic are two of the most popular for both publications.
Buettner now works in partnership with municipal governments, large employers, and health insurance companies to implement Blue Zones Projects in communities, workplaces, and universities. Blue Zones Projects are well-being initiatives that apply lessons from the Blue Zones to entire communities by focusing on changes to the local environment, public policy, and social networks. The program has dramatically improved the health of more than 5 million Americans to date.
His books, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People, and The Blue Zones of Happiness were all national bestsellers. Buettner has appeared on The Today Show, Oprah, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America, and has keynoted speeches at TEDMED, Bill Clinton’s Health Matters Initiative, and Google Zeitgeist. His speech in January 2018 at the World Economic Forum in Davos was chosen as “one of the best of Davos.”
His new book “The Blue Zones Kitchen: 100 recipes for living to 100” is a New York Times Best Seller and fuses scientific reporting, National Geographic photography and 100 recipes that may help you live to 100. Buettner also holds three Guinness World Records in distance cycling.
Margaret Trudeau is a Canadian icon, celebrated both for her role in the public eye and as a respected mental-health issues advocate. From becoming a prime minister’s wife at a young age, to the loss of both her son and her former husband, to living with bipolar disorder, Trudeau tirelessly shares her personal stories to remind others of the importance of nurturing the body, mind, and spirit.
A bestselling author, Trudeau is the author of four books, including her Changing My Mind, which charts her life’s ups and downs, and her latest title, The Time of Your Life, which offers women an inspirational and practical approach to creating a healthy, happy, secure, and satisfying future.
Trudeau recently took her story to the stage, co-writing and starring in her own one-woman-show, A Woman of a Certain Age. Part exploration of mental illness and part tell-all, Trudeau shares her compelling story as one of the world’s most fascinating figures, chronicling her courageous public and private journeys. The show premiered on the renowned Second City stage in Chicago, and has since traveled to Montreal and Toronto as part of the Just for Laughs festival. It also made its New York off-Broadway debut with Audible Inc., the audio content division of Amazon, at the Minetta Lane Theatre. The live recording of this performance will be available via audible.ca in 2020.
Trudeau sits on the Executive Advisory Board of the UBC Mental Health Institute as a community advocate, and is an active WE Charity ambassador who has presented to crowds of 20,000+ people at WE Day events across the world. She is also the former honorary president of WaterAid, a charitable Canadian non-governmental agency that helps communities in developing countries build sustainable water-supply and sanitation services. Trudeau is the proud mother to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Remarkable Evening Speaker Bio:
Walter Isaacson is a Professor of History at Tulane and an advisory partner at Perella Weinberg, a financial services firm based in New York City. He is the past CEO of the Aspen Institute, where he is now a Distinguished Fellow, and has been the chairman of CNN and the editor of TIME magazine. Isaacson’s most recent biography, Leonardo da Vinci (2017), offers new discoveries about Leonardo’s life and work, weaving a narrative that connects his art to his science. He is also the author of The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (2014), Steve Jobs (2011), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986). He is a host of the show “Amanpour and Company” on PBS and CNN, a contributor to CNBC, and host of the podcast “Trailblazers, from Dell Technologies.”
Isaacson was born on May 20, 1952, in New Orleans. He is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He began his career at The Sunday Times of London and then the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He joined TIME in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor, and editor of digital media before becoming the magazine’s 14th editor in 1996. He became chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.
He is chair emeritus of Teach for America. From 2005-2007 he was the vice-chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which oversaw the rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. He was appointed by
President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate to serve as the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other international broadcasts of the United States, a position he held from 2009 to 2012.He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of the Arts, and the American Philosophical Society. He serves on the board of United Airlines, the New Orleans City Planning Commission, the New Orleans Tricentennial Commission, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Society of American Historians, the U.S. Defense Department Innovation Board, the Carnegie Institution for Science, and My Brother’s Keeper Alliance.
Contact: Craig Mohre
614.939.8150
CraigMohre@newalbanyfoundation.org