The Golden Tribe Lecture Series was re-established in Fall 2010 to provide the student body with a series of speakers sponsored by the Student Government Association in collaboration with Union Productions. The Golden Tribe Lecture Series is an academically focused speaker series, which attempts to connect students to outstanding individuals who are either experts in their field or working at the forefront of a relevant political or social issue. The mission of the series is to engage students in issues and dialogue that will positively benefit their overall academic, scholastic, or humanitarian experience.
Past Speakers
John Legend
Golden Tribe Lecture Series Presents:
An Evening with John Legend
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Ruby Diamond Concert Hall
Doors 6:00 PM
Event 7:00 PM
Free admission for FSU students with valid gold ID
All ages
Ticket Distribution:
Ticket distribution for “An Evening with John Legend” will take place at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall on the campus of the Florida State University on January 22, 2103. Tickets will be distributed only to FSU students with valid gold FSU ID from 530pm to 615pm. Students may obtain only one ticket per valid gold FSU ID. Tickets are first come, first serve and will be general admission seating. Upon availability, remaining tickets will be distributed to both students and non-students after 6:15pm.
The Florida State University Golden Tribe Lecture Series, a collaborative, student-focused effort, proudly presents an evening with musician and education advocate John Legend on January 22, 2013 at 7pm at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall on the FSU Campus.
Nine-time Grammy® Award winner, John Legend is a multi-talented artist known for his signature vocals and songwriting style which has earned him legions of worldwide fans along with a string of Top 10 platinum-selling albums. His albums Get Lifted (2004), Once Again (2006), and Evolver (2008) each reached #1 on the Billboard R&B/Hip Hop charts. He has collaborated with some of the best in the business and has written for numerous artists on bestselling recordings by artists including Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z and Kanye West.
John’s debut album, Get Lifted, earned eight Grammy nominations; won Best New Artist, Best R&B album and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for Ordinary People while selling more than three million copies worldwide. His follow-up album, Once Again, earned an RIAA platinum certification and a Grammy award for “Heaven”, which also won Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. In 2008, John released Evolver, his third Top 10 album and embarked on an extensive world tour with his ten-piece band.
Most recently, John and the band The Roots released Wake Up! (2010), a compilation of music from the 60′s and 70′s all with an underlying theme of awareness, engagement and social consciousness which won two Grammy Awards for Best R&B Album and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance. The album is highlighted with tracks like “Little Ghetto Boy” by Donny Hathaway and Baby Huey and the Babysitters’ “Hard Times.” Wake Up! also includes John’s original composition “Shine,” which won a Grammy award for Best R&B Song and is featured in Oscar award winner Davis Guggenheim’s domestic education reform documentary Waiting for ‘Superman.’
Throughout his career, John has worked to make a difference in the lives of others. In 2007, John Legend launched the Show Me Campaign (ShowMeCampaign.org), an initiative that uses education to break the cycle of poverty.
John was awarded the 2010 BET Humanitarian of the Year award, the 2009 CARE Humanitarian Award for Global Change, the 2009 Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award from Africare, and the 2012 Harvard Foundation Artist of the Year Award.
John sits on the Boards of Teach for America, Stand for Children and the Harlem Village Academies. He serves on the Advisory Council for Turnaround and is an “IRC Voice” for the International Rescue Committee. John is also the national spokesperson for Management Leadership for Tomorrow, a non-profit organization that assists the next generation of minority business leaders. In 2007, John was named spokesman for GQ Magazine’s “Gentlemen’s Fund”, an initiative to raise support and awareness for five cornerstones essential to men: opportunity, health, education, environment, and justice. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of PopTech, a unique innovation network with a mission to accelerate the positive impact of world changing people, projects and ideas.
John stars in The People Speak, a film about social change in the U.S. and is a frequent guest on political talk shows including Real Time with Bill Maher, Anderson Cooper 360º and MSNBC’s Morning Joe. He supported President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, including the premiere of a new song, “If You’re Out There,” at the 2008 Democratic National Convention; and is supporting the President again in his 2012 re-election campaign.
John partners with Samsung to support education initiatives, with a special focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In response to devastation surrounding Hurricane Katrina, he worked with Tide laundry detergent to address the needs of families in hard-hit areas. John partners with Product (RED), which benefits the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria.
John was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people, and in his tribute to John, Quincy Jones explained: “He is a genius…we’ve seen only the tip of the iceberg. For all that he has already achieved in his career, it is going to be fun watching where he goes from here.”
Gen. Wesley Clark
Golden Tribe Lecture Series Presents:
An Evening with Gen. Wesley Clark
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Ruby Diamond Concert Hall
Doors 6:30 PM // Event 7:00 PM
Free Admission | No Advanced Tickets
All ages welcome
In 38 years of service in the United States Army, Wesley K. Clark rose to the rank of four-star general as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. Since retiring from the military in 2000, he has taken on the roles of investment banker, alternative energy leader, author, cable network television military analyst and businessman. In September 2003, he answered the call to stand as a Democratic candidate for President of the United States, where his campaign won the state of Oklahoma and launched him to national prominence before he returned to the private sector in February 2004. Clark has chaired several public and private companies, and is a progressive leader in pursuing energy solutions.
Clark graduated first in his class at West Point and completed degrees in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University (B.A. and M.A.) as a Rhodes Scholar. While serving in Vietnam, he commanded an infantry company in combat, where he was severely wounded and evacuated home on a stretcher.
He commanded at the battalion, brigade and division level, and served in a number of significant staff positions, including service as the Director Strategic Plans and Policy (J-5). Clark finished his career as NATO commander and Supreme Allied Commander Europe where he led NATO forces to victory in Operation Allied Force, saving 1.5 million Albanians from ethnic cleansing.
His awards include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Defense Distinguished Service Medal (five awards), silver star, bronze star, purple heart, honorary knighthoods from the British and Dutch governments, and numerous other awards from other governments, including award of Commander of the Legion of Honor (France).
The author of three books, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo and the Future of Combat, Winning Modern War: Iraq, Terrorism and the American Empire and A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor, Country, Clark also serves as Chairman/CEO of Wesley K. Clark & Associates, a strategic consulting firm, and Co-Chairman of Growth Energy. In August 2012 he debuted as co-host on NBC’s military-themed competition series Stars Earn Stripes with Samantha Harris.
General Clark joined UCLA as a senior fellow at the Burkle Center for International Relations in UCLA’s International Institute in 2006, where he teaches seminars, publishes through the Burkle Center and hosts an annual conference of government, corporate and opinion leaders from around the world on national security.
General Clark currently serves in leadership roles with a number of non-profit public service organizations, including VoteVets (Board of Advisors), Democrats Work (National Advisory Board), Project H.E.R.O. (Campaign Chairperson), the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Distinguished Senior Adviser), the Center for American Progress (Trustee), the International Crisis Group (Board Member), City Year Little Rock (Board Chair), the United States Institute of Peace (United Nations Task Force Member), and the General Accountability Office (Advisory Board Member). He also serves as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative’s Energy & Climate Change Advisory Board and ACORE’s Advisory Board.
At the podium, Clark tailors each speech to his audience, employing his expertise and scholarly background to relate world events to current business strategies. As American business is increasingly sustained by a global economy, Clark poses the question: what is America’s future?
Clark has been on the front lines of the world’s emerging markets, intimately aware of the political strategy and psychology that dictates corporate bottom lines. He applies his experience and skills in strategic leadership, high technology, training and organizational development to the challenges facing the corporate world—offering a singularly informed and dynamic view of leadership based on honor, conviction and action.
Arrangements for the appearance of Wesley Clark made through Greater Talent Network, Inc., New York, NY.
Jonathan Haidt
Jonathan Haidt recently joined the Business and Society Program at NYU Stern, where his focus will be on the intersection of moral psychology and business ethics. Before joining Stern, Haidt was a professor in the department of psychology at the University of Virginia for 16 years. Haidt has been a featured speaker at the TED conference in 2008 and 2012. He has been interviewed by Bill Moyers and has been a featured guest on the Colbert Report. Booklist called Haidt, “a much-needed voice of moral sanity.”
When: September 11, 2012 – 8:00pm – 9:30pm
Where: Student Life Cinema
Title of Talk: The Righteous Mind: How morality binds us together and tears us apart
Sponsors: The Golden Tribe Lecture Series / FSU Student Government Association / Division of Student Affairs / Uphold the Garnet and Gold / The Center for Leadership and Civic Education/Village Square
Additional Programming: Haidt’s contract commits him to speaking and taking questions from 8 – 9:30 that evening. The FSU Spiritual Life Project is hosting a brief activity immediately afterwards where interested audience members will pair up and practice dialogue across difference in a structured format. Haidt will take part in this activity as well.
Read an interview with Jonathan Haidt from The New York Times Magazine >>
Contact for event:
Dr. Steven D. Mills
The Center for Leadership and Civic Education
100 S. Woodward Ave., Rm 1106
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4161
(850) 644 – 3174
(850) 933 – 9945 – cell
Rebecca Skloot
Sunday August 28, 2011
Tallahassee Leon County Civic Center
Doors 12:00 PM / Event 1:30 PM
Free for all
Conversation and Q&A with Rebecca Skloot
Ruby Diamond Concert Hall
Doors 3:45 PM / Program 4:00 PM
Tickets will be handed out in the Wescott Lobby at 3:15 PM
Free for all
Rebecca Skloot is an award winning science writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; and many other publications. She specializes in narrative science writing and has explored a wide range of topics, including goldfish surgery, tissue ownership rights, race and medicine, food politics, and packs of wild dogs in Manhattan. She has worked as a correspondent for WNYC’s Radiolab and PBS’s Nova ScienceNOW. She and her father, Floyd Skloot, are co-editors of The Best American Science Writing 2011.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot’s debut book, took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly became a New York Times best-seller. She has been featured on numerous television shows, including CBS Sunday Morning, The Colbert Report, Fox Business News, and others, and was named One of Five Surprising Leaders of 2010 by the Washington Post. The Immortal Life was chosen as a best book of 2010 by more than 60 media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, O the Oprah Magazine, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, People Magazine, New York Times, and U.S. News and World Report; it was named The Best Book of 2010 by Amazon.com and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick. It has won numerous awards, including the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and two Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year and Best Debut Author of the year. It has received widespread critical acclaim, with reviews appearing in The New Yorker, Washington Post, Science, and many others. Dwight Garner of the New York Times said, “I put down Rebecca Skloot’s first book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” more than once. Ten times, probably. Once to poke the fire. Once to silence a pinging BlackBerry. And eight times to chase my wife and assorted visitors around the house, to tell them I was holding one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time …It has brains and pacing and nerve and heart.”
The Immortal Life is being translated into more than 25 languages and adapted into a young reader edition. It is also being made into an HBO movie produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball. Skloot is the founder and president of The Henrietta Lacks Foundation, which has been featured in the New York Times. She has a B.S. in biological sciences and an MFA in creative nonfiction. She financed her degrees by working in emergency rooms, neurology labs, veterinary morgues and martini bars. She has taught creative writing and science journalism at the University of Memphis, the University of Pittsburgh, and New York University.
Skloot lives in Chicago but she regularly abandons city life to write in the hills of West Virginia, where she tends to find stray animals and bring them home. She is also an avid knitter, a family tradition passed on from her mother, Betsy McCarthy, a professional knitter whose story was recently featured on Your Life Calling With Jane Pauley.
Spike Lee
Golden Tribe Lecture Series Presents:
An Evening with Spike Lee
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Ruby Diamond Concert Hall
Doors 6:30 PM Event 7:00 PM
Free admission
All ages welcome
Ticket Distribution:
Tickets will be free for everyone and open to all ages. Ticket distribution for FSU students will be at the Oglesby Union Courtyard from 2:00pm to 4:00pm on Thursday, September 8, 2011 with valid FSU student ID. Students will be given one ticket per valid FSU student ID; therefore, students are welcome to pick up more than one ticket (up to four tickets total) as long as the student has one valid FSU student ID per ticket. All remaining tickets will be available beginning at 5:30pm at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall on a first come first serve basis for students and non-students. Tickets are not general admission; seats will be assigned.
American film director, producer, writer and actor Spike Lee needs no introduction. You already know the Academy Award-nominated classic Do the Right Thing and the Cannes’ favourite Jungle Fever. You cheered at Malcolm X, screamed during Summer of Sam, and felt enraged and empathetic watching When the Levees Broke, his Peabody-winning HBO documentary on Hurricane Katrina. You know the Nike Air Jordan ads. You know he’s one of the most influential directors of his generation. But do you really know Spike Lee?
Rumour has it that Shelton Jackson Lee was nicknamed “Spike” by his mother because he was so tough. Though born in Atlanta, Lee grew up in Brooklyn — the future setting for many of his films. Studying film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Art, Lee made a thesis film, Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, which became the first student film ever to be showcased in the Lincoln Center’s New directors New Films Festival. His first feature, She’s Gotta Have It, shot on just $175,000, grossed over seven million at the box office.
Lee has since produced and directed countless movies – or, as they’re known in the vernacular, “Spike Lee Joints.” He’s also penned a dozen screenplays, and appeared in everything from his own Clockers to Saturday Night Live. In person, the provocateur and media icon is never at a loss for words. As one of the most outspoken African American voices, he talks candidly, and with authority, about issues of race in mainstream media and Hollywood, using, as a backdrop, a rare behind-the-scenes look at his celebrated body of work, whose images of racial division and understanding have ingrained themselves on the popular consciousness for over twenty years now.
Elie Wiesel
Tuesday October 4, 2011
Ruby Diamond Concert Hall
Doors 6:30 // Event 7:00
Free for all
Ticket distribution for “An Evening with Elie Wiesel” will take place at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall on the campus of Florida State University on October 4, 2011. Tickets will be distributed only to FSU students with valid gold FSU ID from 5:30pm to 6:30pm. Students may obtain only one ticket per valid gold FSU ID. Tickets are first come, first serve and will be reserved seating. Upon availability, remaining tickets will be distributed to both students and non-students after 6:30pm.
Nobel Peace Prize winner and Boston University Professor Elie Wiesel has worked on behalf of oppressed people for much of his adult life. His personal experience of the Holocaust has led him to use his talents as an author, teacher and storyteller to defend human rights and peace throughout the world.
Wiesel’s work has earned him the United States Congressional Gold Medal (1985); the Medal of Liberty Award (1986); the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1992); the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor (2001); an honorary Knighthood of the British Empire awarded by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II (2006) and the 2009 National Humanities Medal. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He is the recipient of more than one hundred and twenty honorary degrees from institutions of higher learning in the United States, Europe and Israel. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed him chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. In 1980, he became founding chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which created the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Wiesel’s more than fifty books have won numerous awards, including the Prix Médicis for A Beggar in Jerusalem, the Prix Livre Inter for The Testament and the Grand Prize for Literature from the City of Paris for The Fifth Son. Knopf will publish his latest novel, The Sonderberg Case, in the spring of 2010.
Wiesel was born in Sighet, Romania, (Hungary 1940-45). He was fifteen when he and his family were deported to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister perished there. He and his father were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died shortly before the camp was liberated in 1945.
After the war, Wiesel studied in Paris and eventually became a journalist in that city, yet he remained silent about his time in the death camps. During an interview with the French writer François Mauriac, he was persuaded to end that silence and wrote his memoir Night. Since its publication in 1956 in Yiddish and in 1958 in French, Night has been translated into over thirty languages and millions of copies have been sold. In 2006, Farrar, Straus and Giroux published a new English-language edition of Night featuring a new translation by Marion Wiesel; Oprah Winfrey chose the book for her Book Club.
An ardent supporter of Israel, Wiesel was also among the first to defend the causes of Soviet Jews, Nicaragua’s Miskito Indians, Argentina’s “Disappeared,” Cambodia’s refugees, the Kurds, South African apartheid victims, famine victims in Africa, the prisoners in the former Yugoslavia and most recently the victims of genocide in Darfur. Soon after he received the Nobel Peace Prize, Wiesel and his wife Marion established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Its mission, rooted in the memory of the Holocaust, is to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding and equality. The Foundation runs multiple programs both domestically and internationally.
In the U.S., the Foundation organizes The Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics Essay Contest. It also bestows The Elie Wiesel Humanitarian Award to a deserving individual. In the U.S. and abroad, the Foundation organizes international conferences for youth in conflict-ridden countries and sponsors its Nobel Initiative Conferences. These conferences, which focus on themes of Peace, Education, Health, the Environment and Terrorism, serve as a way to bring together Nobel Laureates and world leaders to discuss social problems and develop suggestions for change. For four years beginning in 2005, the Foundation co-hosted the Petra Conferences with His Majesty King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In 1992, the Foundation began working with Ethiopian immigrants in Israel. It opened the Beit Tzipora Centers for Study & Enrichment, which give Ethiopian Jewish children the opportunity to overcome early educational inequality and participate fully in Israeli society.
Named in memory of Wiesel’s younger sister, who died in Auschwitz, the Foundation currently has two centers, one in Ashkelon and one in Kiryat Malachi, which enroll close to 1,000 youth. The goal of these programs is to provide Ethiopian immigrants with desperately needed academic tutoring, pre-vocational training, and social and emotional support.
Using the Beit Tzipora Centers as a model, the Foundation started an after-school program in the fall of 2007 for refugees from the genocide in Darfur who have been given safe haven in Israel. The program, operated through the Bialik-Rogozin School in Tel-Aviv, provides after-school English and Hebrew training, computer courses, tutoring, arts and crafts, and counseling to the children. Language classes and other courses, as well as counseling, are also offered to their parents.
Wiesel has served as Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies at the City University of New York (1972-1976), and the Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in the Humanities and Social Thought at Yale University (1982-1983). Since 1976, he has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, where he also holds the title of University Professor and is a faculty member in the departments of religion and philosophy. In 2002, Boston University created The Elie Wiesel Center of Jewish Studies in his honor. Wiesel has been an American citizen since 1963.
Cornel West
Wednesday January 18, 2012
Ruby Diamond Concert Hall
Doors 6:30 // Event 7:00
Free for all
Ticket distribution for “An Evening with Cornel WEst” will take place at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall on the campus of Florida State University on January 18, 2012. Tickets will be distributed only to FSU students with valid gold FSU ID from 5:30pm to 6:30pm. Students may obtain only one ticket per valid gold FSU ID. Tickets are first come, first serve and will be general admission seating. Upon availability, remaining tickets will be distributed to both students and non-students after 6:30pm.
Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual. He is the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. He has taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard and the University of Paris. He has written 19 books and edited 13 books. He is best known for his classic Race Matters, Democracy Matters, and his new memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. He appears frequently on the Bill Maher Show, Colbert Report, CNN and C-Span as well as on his dear Brother, Tavis Smiley’s PBS TV Show. He is also co-host of the popular radio show “Smiley & West” heard on PRI around the country.The Smiley and West radio show is a highly acclaimed progressive program.
He made his film debut in the Matrix – and was the commentator (with Ken Wilbur) on the official trilogy released in 2004. He also has appeared in over 25 documentaries and films including Examined Life, Call & Response, Sidewalk and Stand.
Last, he has made three spoken word albums including Never Forget, collaborating with Prince, Jill Scott, Andre 3000, Talib Kweli, KRS-One and the late Gerald Levert. His recent spoken word interludes were featured on Terence Blanchard’s Choices (which won the Grand Prix in France for the best Jazz Album of the year of 2009), The Cornel West Theory’s Second Rome and the Raheem DeVaughn’s Love & War: Masterpeace. In short, Cornel West has a passion to communicate to a vast variety of publics in order to keep alive the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. – a legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice.
