Among those visiting Elon next year are former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, advocate for equality and civil rights Anita Hill, and leaders in the legal field Alan Dershowitz and Loretta Lynch.
Elon University will welcome speakers of national and international prominence during the 2018-19 academic year and celebrate the inauguration of its ninth president, Connie Ledoux Book.
Fall Convocation and the inauguration of President Connie Ledoux Book
The inauguration of Elon’s ninth president, Connie Ledoux Book, on Oct. 18 will serve as the university’s traditional Fall Convocation ceremony. Book, who began her service as president on March 1, will offer an inaugural address during the formal ceremony in Elon’s new Schar Center.
More details about the inauguration ceremony and several related events scheduled for that week will be shared with the campus prior to the end of spring semester.
2019 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Address: Anita Hill
As part of a weeklong celebration of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Elon will present an address by Anita Hill, an attorney, professor of law and advocate for equality and civil rights, on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019, at 6 p.m. in Alumni Gym. Hill’s testimony during the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas in 1991 sparked a national conversation about sexual harassment.
Today she works toward increasing parity and protection for women and minorities. Joining leading executives in the entertainment industry, she heads the Hollywood Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace that is examining the pattern of sexual abuse in Hollywood. Hill notes that the commission is the next step in a “long-overdue journey to adopt best practices and create institutional change that fosters a culture of respect and dignity throughout the industry.”
A graduate of Yale Law School, Hill worked for the U.S. Education Department and Equal Opportunity Commission and in 1989 became the first African-American to be tenured at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She is now the Professor of Social Policy, Law and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Hill’s commentary has been published in TIME, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Ms. Magazine. She has appeared on national television programs including “Good Morning America,” “Meet the Press,” “The Today Show,” “The Tavis Smiley Show” and “Larry King Live”.
Spring Convocation and Baird Lecture
Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who served from 2010 to 2013, will be the featured speaker at the university’s Spring Convocation on Thursday, April 4, 2019, at 3:30 p.m. and will share insights about geopolitics and the global economy. Gillard’s address will be part of Elon’s Baird Lecture Series, which was endowed in 2001 by a gift from James H. Baird and his late wife, Jane M. Baird, of Burlington, N.C.
As prime minister and earlier as deputy prime minister, Gillard was central to managing the Australian economy, the 12 largest in the world, during the global financial crisis and in 2012 generated worldwide attention for her speech in Parliament on the treatment of women in professional and public life. During her tenure leading Australia, she developed the country’s guiding policy paper, “Australia in the Asian Century,” and delivered nation-changing policies including reforming the country’s educational system from early childhood to university.
Gillard played key roles in improving the delivery and sustainability of health care in Australia, creating a national system to care for people with disabilities, restructuring the telecommunications sector and building a national broadband network. She deepened ties with Australia’s Asian and Pacific neighbors while strengthening the country’s alliance with the United States.
Born in Barry, Wales, Gillard migrated to Australia with her family in 1966 and became an Australian citizen in 1974. Prior to being sworn in as prime minister, she served as deputy prime minister and minister for education, employment and workplace relations, and social inclusion.
She has been a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute since 2013 and in 2014 was appointed board chair for the Global Partnership for Education. She published “My Story,” a book about her service as prime minister, in 2014.
Elon University School of Law Distinguished Leadership Lecture Series
Two of the nation’s most recognizable legal legends will visit Elon University School of Law in Greensboro next year, to discuss the role of lawyers in shaping American society.
Alan Dershowitz, an influential Harvard Law School professor emeritus and one of the most visible legal commentators in American media, will deliver remarks on Thursday, Sept. 13, at 6:30 p.m. in the Elon Law Library as the first guest of the law school’s 2018-19 Distinguished Leadership Lecture Series presented by The Joseph M. Bryan Foundation.
Dershowitz is a Brooklyn native who has been called “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer,” one of its “most distinguished defenders of individual rights,” “the best-known criminal lawyer in the world” and “the top lawyer of last resort.”
The Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School has argued hundreds of appeals in courts throughout the nation throughout his career and he continues to consult actively on both transnational and domestic criminal and civil liberty cases, devoting half of his practice to pro bono cases and causes.
Loretta Lynch, the first African-American woman to serve as Attorney General of the United States and a distinguished former federal prosecutor, visits the law school on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019, at 6:30 p.m. in the Elon Law Library to conclude the series.
Lynch served as the 83rd Attorney General of the United States from 2015-2017, capping a highly distinguished career over the previous three decades.
Appointed to the role by President Barack Obama in 2015, Lynch had twice previously served as the head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, under both President Bill Clinton and Obama. Described by Obama as “the only lawyer in America who battles mobsters, drug lords and terrorists, and still has the reputation for being a charming ‘people person,” she has been instrumental in shaping the direction of the nation on a number of tough issues.
The Distinguished Leadership Lecture Series presented by the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation is an integral part of Elon Law’s commitment to learning, lawyering and leadership. Endowed through a generous gift from the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation of Greensboro, N.C., the Distinguished Leadership Lecture Series brings accomplished leaders from a variety of disciplines to Elon to share their experiences and perspectives with students and faculty.