The co-founder and CEO of Citizen University will give a virtual speech on Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Eric Liu, co-founder and CEO of Citizen University, a nonprofit national platform founded to foster citizenship through activation, communication and education, will speak to the Elon community as a part of the university’s Speaker Series virtually on Tuesday, Feb. 8.
Liu is a strong advocate for engaged citizenship, an area that Elon focuses many of its initiatives around. He launched and currently directs the Aspen Institute’s Citizenship & American Identity Program, which aims to advance the conversation about the nature of American national identity.
In 2014, Liu gave a TEDTalk on civic power titled, “Why ordinary people need to understand power,” which has over two million views. Most recently, he was elected as a member of the American Academy of the Arts and was also selected to be a 2020 Ashoka Fellow by Ashoka, one of the world’s foremost networks of social entrepreneurs.
Previously serving as a speechwriter and deputy domestic policy advisor for former Bill Clinton, Liu has written several books of his own, including “The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker,” “The Gardens of Democracy” (co-authored with Nick Hanauer) and “You’re More Powerful Than You Think: A Citizen’s Guide to Making Change Happen.” His latest work, “Become America: Civic Sermons on Love, Responsibility and Democracy,” was released in 2019.
The virtual event can be streamed using this link.
The Elon University Speaker Series is presented in partnership with WUNC North Carolina Public Radio with a focus on the power of relationships. The reminder of the Speaker Series events can be found here and additional cultural events for the Spring 2021 semester can be found here.