Spring 2017 Speaker Series announced

The Illinois State University Speaker Series returns this spring with topics ranging from labor workers and union rights to self-identity and depictions of visual race. Speakers will include actress Patricia Arquette, and a Pulitzer-Prize winning author whose work reflects some of the more controversial events in contemporary American history.

The Illinois State University Speaker Series seeks to bring innovative and enlightening speakers to the campus with the aim of providing the community with a platform to foster dialogue, cultivate enriching ideas, and continue an appreciation of learning as an active and lifelong process. All talks are free and open to the public.

The series continues on Thursday, February 23, when president and CEO of AptarGroup, Inc. Steve Hagge will speak at 3:30 p.m. in the Center for the Performing Arts at Illinois State University. His talk titled “Adapting to a Changing International Marketplace” is the keynote address of Business Week 2017.

AptarGroup, Inc., is the global leader in consumer product dispensing systems, and provides dispensing solutions for a wide variety of fragrance, personal care, household, food, beverage, and pharmaceutical products used by millions of consumers every day. Hagge has been instrumental in the company’s growth and success over the past 30 years, holding various senior executive positions. He has also served as a member of AptarGroup’s board of directors since 2001, and is currently chairman of the AptarGroup Charitable Foundation, which funds an employee matching gift program and provides grants for health and human service organizations as well as cultural programs in the communities in which AptarGroup’s employees live and work.

Lobbying for African Americans and labor

The Rev. Alvis Martin has spent the past 30 years as a union member and lobbyist promoting public policy to protect union workers, advocating for diversity within organized labor, and standing up for the disenfranchised. He will speak as part of the University’s Black History Month events at 7 p.m. Tuesday, February 28, in the Old Main Room of the Bone Student Center.

During his talk “Civil Rights and the Labor Movement: An Alliance Built Out of Necessity,” Martin will explore both the historic and current importance of trade unionism in progressive racial politics, as well as the cultural and political obstacles confronting interracial class alliances.

Martin dedicated several years to lobbying on behalf of the Illinois State Federation of Labor. While there he spearheaded the first-ever celebration of African American labor history for the AFL-CIO, and conducted numerous workshops for union locals on increasing diversity amongst their rank and file.

He currently sits on the national board of directors of the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porters Museum and is the A. Philip Randolph Institute Chicago Chapter vice president. Martin has his own consulting firm, where he lobbies on behalf of various organizations dedicated to serving union construction workers, black construction contractors, and black business owners.

State Department’s Conflict and Stabilization expert to speak

Thomas Hushek will present his talk “The Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations and Its Role at the State Department” at noon Wednesday, March 1, in the Prairie Room of the Bone Student Center. This presentation will be an overview of the roles of the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations and issues in a variety of countries. The talk is also part of the International Seminar Series, sponsored by the Office of International Studies and Programs.

Hushek is currently the acting secretary from the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations for the U.S. Department of State. Hushek has spent his career as a foreign service officer, most recently serving as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Mission to the International Organizations in Vienna.

Other Washington, D.C., assignments include the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, diplomatic postings in Khartoum and Moscow, and as an Afghanistan/Pakistan desk officer.

Diversity and disabilities in media

Student Access and Accommodation Services will present Matt Glowacki, who explores pop culture and news media in an effort to demonstrate the opportunities that arise to learn about diversity in everyday life, at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 28, in the Prairie Room of the Bone Student Center.

This talk will center around two popular television programs: Family Guy and South Park. Glowacki uses his interpretation of these cultural icons to engage and encourage taking a fresh look at modern life. He identifies the ways in which these programs break down stereotypical attitudes and behavior toward people’s differences.

Campus Activities Magazine named Matt Glowacki Best Speaker in 2014, Best Diversity Artist for 2010 and again in 2013. He has been the most booked diversity performer on college campuses for the past 10 years. Glowacki has delivered his messages of diversity to over one million people and two presidents of the United States.

Speaker and symposium celebrate Women and Gender Studies 

As part of the 22nd annual Women’s and Gender Studies Symposium, Mariana Ortega will present “Bodies of Color, Bodies of Sorrow, and Resistant Melancholia” at 1 p.m. Friday, April 14, in the Old Main Room of the Bone Student Center. Ortega is a professor of philosophy at John Carroll University, with areas of research in 20th century continental philosophy, women of color feminisms, and philosophy of race.

Ortega’s research focuses on questions of self and sociality, the question of identity, and visual representations of race. She has published articles in journals such as Hypatia, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, International Philosophical Quarterly, Radical Philosophy Review, and Critical Philosophy of Race. In her monograph, In-Between: Latina Feminist Phenomenology, Multiplicity, and the Self, she introduces the notion of multiplicitous selfhood in light of Latina feminisms.

Actress lends voice to critical global issues

Actress, writer, and activist Patricia Arquette has spent her career portraying memorable characters in film and on television. Winner of both the Academy Award and the Emmy for her roles in Medium and Boyhood, Arquette has chosen to use her considerable visibility to shine a light on issues and speak for people whose voices are rarely heard. As the keynote speaker for the 2017 Science and Technology Week, she will present “Going Global with Community Sanitation: The Story of Give Love” at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 20, in Braden Auditorium in the Bone Student Center.

Arquette’s work post-Katrina and then in Haiti after the devastating hurricanes in 2012 led to the creation of Give Love, a skills training organization that is deeply engaged with community-led sanitation projects to treat and compost waste, improve public health, and create jobs around recycling. She is also an executive producer on a new documentary addressing the pay gap, Equal Means Equal, which explores topics such as pregnancy discrimination, female poverty, reproductive health care, and sexual assault.

History’s influence on the world today

Professor and author Fredrik Logevall will give the 2017 Robert G. Bone Distinguished Lecture with his presentation, “Making Sense of the Vietnam War” at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 20, in the Caterpillar Auditorium of the State Farm Hall of Business.

Logevall is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and a professor of history. Considered as a specialist on U.S. foreign relations history and modern international history, Logevall’s career has been dedicated to education as evidenced by his previous appointment as the Anbinder Professor of History at Cornell University, vice provost, and as the director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.

Logevall is the author or editor of nine books, most recently Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History and the 2013 Francis Parkman Prize, as well as the 2013 American Library in Paris Book Award and the 2013 Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations.

For full biographies and more information, go to the Illinois State University Speaker Series.