Transportation entrepreneur Robin Chase will kick off The University of Toledo Jesup Scott Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series on Tuesday, Sept. 22.

Chase, the co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest car-sharing company in the world, will speak at 7 p.m. in Doermann Theater, located in University Hall on Main Campus. The talk is free and open to the public, but attendees are encouraged to register for tickets in advance at utoledo.edu/honorslecture.

Robin Chase

Chase also is the founder and CEO of Buzzcar, a peer-to-peer car-sharing service in France now merged with Drivy, and GoLoco, an online ride-sharing community. Additionally, she is the co-founder and executive chair of Veniam, a vehicle communications company.

She lectures widely on the topics of innovation, entrepreneurship, technology, transportation, cities and climate change.

In addition to Chase, the lineup for the 2015-16 lecture series includes a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, the co-founder of Apple and a polar explorer.

“This year’s slate of speakers is outstanding,” said Kelly Moore, interim dean of the Jesup Scott Honors College. “Collectively, they will engage, inspire and motivate the University and the larger community.”

The 2015-16 Distinguished Lecture series also will feature:

•   Thursday, Oct. 22 — Richard Russo, an American novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and teacher. Russo won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel, Empire Falls.
•   Monday, Feb. 1 — Steve Wozniak, a Silicon Valley icon and entrepreneur. Wozniak is known for co-founding Apple Computer Inc. with Steve Jobs.
•   Tuesday, April 5 — Ann Bancroft, one of the world’s preeminent polar explorers. Bancroft is an internationally recognized leader who is dedicated to inspiring women, girls and audiences around the world to unleash the power of their dreams.

This is the third year of the lecture series that has brought to campus high-profile speakers, including Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy; Karl Rove, who served as senior adviser to President George W. Bush; and James Carville, political consultant who helped Bill Clinton win the U.S. presidency in 1992.

For additional information, visit utoledo.edu/honorslecture or call 419.530.2738.

Click links to download photos: Robin Chase. Richard Russo. Steve Wozniak. Ann Bancroft.

Just one look — it’s an eyeful everywhere these days.

“We live in a visually saturated world,” said Dr. Brian Kennedy, president, director and CEO of the Toledo Museum of Art. “We take in up to 90 percent of our information with our eyes. Did anyone ever train you to use them?”

Kennedy

He will give a talk titled “Do You Speak Visual? Learning Visual Language” as the finale of the 2014-15 UT Jesup Scott Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series Tuesday, March 24, at 7 p.m. in Doermann Theater.

Tickets for the event are free and available here.

Kennedy oversees the Toledo Museum of Art’s 36-acre campus and its art collections in three architecturally significant buildings. He arrived in the Glass City in 2010, bringing extensive experience in senior leadership positions after working at art museums in Ireland, Australia and the United States.

He has led the development of a strategic plan for the Toledo Museum of Art that focuses on sustainability through alternative energy sources, building staff capacity, introducing new technologies, and establishing an initiative to promote visual literacy.

The art historian and curator has written seven books, including Sean Scully: The Art of the Stripe (2009) and Frank Stella: Irregular Polygons, 1965-66 (2010).

A native of Dublin, Ireland, Kennedy studied art history and history at University College in Dublin, where he received bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.

“We are excited to have such a respected figure in the art world share his thoughts with the UT and Toledo communities on how to enhance our visual language skills,” UT Interim Provost John Barrett said.

A group of University of Toledo students has been selected in the top 1.25 percent of more than 20,000 applying teams from around the globe to compete in regional competitions for the Sixth Annual Hult Prize.

Coined the “Nobel Prize for Students” by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, the annual Hult Prize Competition is the world’s largest student case competition, awarding the winners $1 million in seed capital to promote social good. The competition, in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative, capitalizes on promising ideas of young and socially engaged entrepreneurs, growing them into actual startup enterprises.

UT students, from left, Merna Naji, Kaitlyn Opperman, Mahbod Pourriahi, Abigail Dudek and Nehemiah Scott will travel to Dubai over spring break to participate in the Hult Prize Competition.

The UT team includes four Jesup Scott Honors College undergraduate students — Kaitlyn Opperman, Merna Naji, Mahbod Pourriahi and Abigail Dudek — as well as one doctoral candidate, Nehemiah Scott, who is in the Manufacturing and Technology Management Program.

The theme of this year’s competition is to propose a solution for early childhood education disparities for residents of urban slums.

“Our goal is to close the gap between children growing up without access to early education programs that jump-start the learning process, among other things,” said Opperman, a junior majoring in secondary/adolescence to young adult education. “The brain development that happens at that age is crucial to setting them up for the rest of their education and lives.”

“We are trying to find a solution that is scalable, sustainable and holistic,” added Naji, a junior majoring in biology. “Because we are such a diverse team, we have members who bring health, educational, business and engineering/infrastructure perspectives to the table.”

Aside from their diversity of academic backgrounds, the UT Hult team is also different from traditional teams in that the majority of Hult Prize competitors are MBA students, rather than undergraduate students.

Dr. Lakeesha Ransom, dean of the Jesup Scott Honors College, will travel to Dubai with the UT Hult team during spring break next week for the regional finals competition.

“We are dedicated to creating as many transformative opportunities for our students as possible in the Honors College, and I’m incredibly proud that the UT Hult team will compete in the regional finals,” Ransom said. “I look forward to all that they will accomplish.”

Media Coverage
13 ABC (March 5, 2015)

Former presidential adviser and political strategist Paul Begala will continue The University of Toledo’s Jesup Scott Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series speaking in Doermann Theater at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 21.

Begala

Begala is a commentator and member of the CNN political team that won an Emmy for its coverage of the 2006 U.S. elections and a Peabody Award for its coverage of the 2008 presidential election.

In the 2012 presidential campaign, he was a senior adviser for the pro-Obama Super Political Action Committee. As a White House counselor to Bill Clinton, he functioned as one of the president’s closest aides. A consultant for political campaigns across the country and around the world, Begala has advised politicians in Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.

Currently an affiliated professor of public policy at Georgetown University, Begala also has taught at the University of Texas and the University of Georgia. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Board of Visitors of the University of Georgia. Along with his professional partner James Carville and GOP strategist Karl Rove, he was a 2012 inductee into the American Association of Political Consultants’ Hall of Fame.

Begala received his bachelor’s degree in government and his law degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was the student body president.

Rove, fellow Texan and political adversary, spoke at UT in September as part of the lecture series. Rove was a political adviser for George W. Bush and serves as a political strategist.

Tickets for the event are free, although seating is limited. To obtain tickets, visit utole.do/begala.

Click here to download a photo of Begala.

Media Coverage
The Independent Collegian (Jan. 14, 2015)
The Blade (Jan. 22, 2015)

Political strategist and former presidential adviser Karl Rove will be the first speaker in this year’s Jesup Scott Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series at The University of Toledo.

Rove will address a capacity crowd Monday, Sept. 15, at 7 p.m. in Doermann Theater. The lecture will also be streamed live free of charge in UT’s Memorial Field House Room 2100 for those members of the community interested in viewing the speech.

Rove is one of the nation’s best-known political strategists. He served as senior adviser to President George W. Bush for seven years and led Bush’s election campaigns in 2000 and 2004.

He served as deputy chief of staff from 2004 to 2007, overseeing the offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs. Rove was deputy chief of staff for policy and coordinated the White House policymaking process.

“Universities are forums for great conversations, and we’re excited to hear from this year’s speakers,” said Dr. Lakeesha Ransom, dean of the Jesup Scott Honors College.

Also speaking as part of the 2014-15 Distinguished Lecture Series will be Paul Begala, political strategist and former adviser to President Bill Clinton, Wednesday, Jan. 21, and Dr. Brian Kennedy, director of the Toledo Museum of Art, Tuesday, March 24.

Media Coverage
The Blade (Sept. 13, 2014)
The Blade (Sept. 15, 2014)
The Blade (Sept. 15, 2014)
The Independent Collegian (Sept. 15, 2014)
The Blade (Sept. 16, 2014)

The inaugural Jesup Scott Honors College Lecture Series will conclude with a talk from Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow, entitled The Future of Education, on Monday, March 10 at The University of Toledo.

Crow

Crow is the 16th president of Arizona State University responsible for guiding the transformation of ASU into one of the nation’s leading public metropolitan research universities, combining academic excellence, inclusiveness to a broad demographic, and maximum societal impact — a model he designed known as the “New American University.”

Under his leadership, the University established transdisciplinary research initiatives and witnessed an unprecedented academic infrastructure expansion, the tripling of research expenditures and the attainment of record levels of diversity.

The lecture will be at 7 p.m. in Doermann Theater. Tickets are available at utoledo.edu/honorslecture.

“In a time when people have been questioning the relevance of traditional higher education and the value of a college degree, Dr. Crow has transformed ASU to exceed expectations of students and the community at large,” said Dr. Scott Scarborough, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “His talk is a great opportunity for anyone interested in the future of education.”

Prior to joining ASU, Crow was executive vice provost of Columbia University. An adviser to the U.S. departments of state, commerce, and energy on matters of science and technology policy, he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Public Administration, and has published on science and technology policy and the design of knowledge enterprises.

The Jesup Scott Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series kicked off in September with education innovator Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy. In November UT heard from political consultant James Carville and from business strategy expert Richard Rumelt in January.

The next round of speakers for the Jesup Scott Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series has been set.

The series next year will kick off Sept. 15 with Karl Rove, who served as senior advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. Musician Crystal Bowersox, the Toledo native and 2010 American Idol runner up, will talk and perform Nov. 10. Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and political commentator for CNN who served in President Bill Clinton’s administration, will speak Jan. 21. And Toledo Museum of Art Executive Director Brian Kennedy will deliver the final lecture in the series in March, the date is to be determined.

Click here to download a photo of Crow.

Business strategy expert Richard Rumelt will deliver the third talk in the inaugural Jesup Scott Honors College Lecture Series Monday, Jan. 13 at The University of Toledo.

Rumelt

Rumelt is the Harry and Elsa Kunin Professor of Business and Society at UCLA Anderson School of Management. Voted one of the world’s Top 50 Business Thinkers by the Thinkers50 program, sponsored by the Harvard Business Review, he maintains a multifaceted career in teaching, research and consulting, with the focus on competitive advantage and strategy, industry dynamics, and overall management.

The talk will be 7 p.m. in Doermann Theater in University Hall on the UT Main Campus. The Toledo Symphony Chamber Orchestra will perform prior to the lecture. Tickets are available at utoledo.edu/honorslecture.

“As UT enters the second year of its Main Campus strategic plan Imagine 2017, this is a great opportunity to welcome a strategy expert of Rumelt’s caliber to campus to provide insight into how institutions can best meet industry challenges and move forward,” said Dr. Scott Scarborough, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

Rumelt is the author of “Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters,” a finalist for the 2011 Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

He previously served on the faculty of Harvard Business School and INSEAD, The Business School for the World, where he headed the Corporate Renewal Initiative. Rumelt also was a founding member and served as president of the Strategic Management Society, which represents some 3,000 members from more than 80 countries.

The Jesup Scott Honors College Lecture Series kicked off in September with education innovator Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, and in November UT heard from political consultant James Carville. Arizona State University President Michael Crow will deliver the final lecture of the 2013-14 academic year Monday, March 10.

Click here for a photo of Rumelt.

One of the best-known American political consultants will visit The University of Toledo Monday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. as the inaugural Jesup Scott Honors College Lecture Series continues in the newly renovated Doermann Theater in University Hall.

James Carville is perhaps best noted for his role helping elect William Jefferson Clinton to the U.S. presidency in 1992 and has been a frequent political commentator on cable news.

Carville

“We’re incredibly excited by the opportunity to hear from Mr. Carville about a fascinating career as well as the political possibilities he sees for the nation,” said Dr. Scott Scarborough, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

A professor of practice at Tulane University in New Orleans, Carville has a long list of electoral triumphs on his record. He has helped lead successful gubernatorial and Senate races as well as guiding former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to victory in 1999.

Carville is married to high-profile Republican strategist Mary Matalin; together the couple wrote All’s Fair: Love, War, and Running for President. He also has written 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation(2009) and his most recent New York Times best-seller, It’s the Middle Class, Stupid!, co-authored with Stan Greenberg, with whom he founded Democracy Corps, an independent polling nonprofit organization.

Carville is the second of four guests who will speak during the 2013-14 academic year as part of the Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series. Still to come will be business strategy expert Richard Rumelt Monday, Jan. 13, and Arizona State University President Michael Crow Monday, March 10.

In September, UT heard from education innovator Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy.

All lectures will take place at 7 p.m. in Doermann Theater, and speakers will take audience questions.

Visit utoledo.edu/honorslecture to order tickets and learn more about the speakers.

“A distinguished lecture series sponsored at the university-wide level is something that top-tier universities provide to their students and to their communities, and UT is proud to offer the same for Toledo and northwest Ohio,” Scarborough said.

Media Coverage
The Independent Collegian (Nov. 13, 2013)
The Blade (Nov. 19, 2013)

Khan will speak at 7 p.m.at UT tonight in University Hall’s newly renovated Doermann Theater

The appearance of Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, will prove significant well beyond the opportunity to hear from a man who Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates described as “a true pioneer in integrating technology and learning.” It represents the launch of a new initiative designed to bring Khan’s ideas to bear on the delivery of education to University of Toledo students.

In conjunction with the first installment from the Jesup Scott Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series, Dr. Scott Scarborough, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, announced the creation of the UT One World Schoolhouse, inspired by Khan Academy and Salman Khan’s book, “The One World Schoolhouse.” The schoolhouse will serve as a worldwide association of educators working to explore and test new educational paradigms, models and tools.

Through a triad of divisions, the UT One World Schoolhouse will deliver technological advancements in education, an educational lab and a cohesive approach to international education.

“We’re thrilled that The University of Toledo wants to explore Khan Academy concepts in the UT One World Schoolhouse,” Khan said. “We are looking forward to being a part of this effort and the educational benefits that it can bring about for learners everywhere.”

The divisions of the schoolhouse include:

•  An Educational Games and Simulation division to develop advanced educational games for all levels of education. This division will connect Main Campus simulation to the new advanced simulation center on the Health Science Campus;
•  Learning Innovation Laboratories that will be located in renovated space on the second floor of Carlson Library on the UT Main Campus. This division will partner with numerous educational providers to test and then demonstrate new technological and experiential models of education; and
•  International Connections through which UT international educational endeavors will be managed. This division will work to facilitate and expand international connections to give students of all types and backgrounds a global education.

“We believe, as Salman Khan does, that the ideal model of education, both today and in the future, is a balanced combination of personalized education that is facilitated and enhanced by technology and experiential learning that takes many forms including advanced simulation and educational games,” Scarborough said.

“Other forms of experiential learning include internships, co-ops, service learning, clinical rotations, field experiences, creative works, study abroad, international conversations, and undergraduate research. Our goal is to position The University of Toledo as THE University of Experiential Learning. The use of the term, ‘One World Schoolhouse,’ signals our University’s intent to test and then apply Khan’s model of education where it applies best.”

The initiative will be led by Bill McCreary, a senior leader with years of high-level managerial and technical expertise.

“Bill’s past experience and ability to lead the development of advanced simulation education games and his connections to key outside stakeholders make him the perfect choice for this new initiative,” Scarborough said.

The University will now enter the tactical phase for creation of the UT One World Schoolhouse, with the entity expected to be operational in Fall 2014.

Media Coverage
The Blade (Sept. 18, 2013)
The Independent Collegian (Sept. 18, 2013)

Media Note: The lecture is sold out and is a ticketed event. Please find or ask for Meghan Cunningham or me to gain access to the lecture if you are a member of the media.

A globally renowned education innovator will launch The University of Toledo’s Jesup Scott Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m. in UT’s newly renovated Doermann Theater on the third floor of University Hall.

Khan

Salman Khan is the founder of the Khan Academy, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to bring a top-tier education to anyone with an Internet connection. Khan Academy has a library of more than 3,000 web videos ranging from algebra and chemistry to art history and economics.

“People like Salman Khan are the inspirations for the innovative approaches we are taking at The University of Toledo as we make sure the education our students receive keeps pace with rapid societal changes UT graduates will face once they begin their career,” said Dr. Scott Scarborough, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

Scarborough pointed to plans, particularly in the Jesup Scott Honors College, to flip classrooms — having students listen to lectures prior to class and then completing interactive activities during class time with a professor’s assistance.

A hedge fund analyst, Khan walked away from Wall Street and began what became Khan Academy as a simple effort to provide tutoring for his niece. As word spread and the videos became more and more popular, Khan found himself working with people like Microsoft founder Bill Gates to find new ways to enhance education across the nation.

During his 2012 annual address to the University community, UT President Lloyd Jacobs touted Khan as an education game-changer who “will be recognized in subsequent decades, perhaps centuries, as the real innovator in teaching and learning.”

“Knowledge is now fluid, moveable, mercurial and exists in cyberspace,” Jacobs said last September. “Khan’s transmission of knowledge freely and for free will have tremendous transformative power.

“Already the great universities of the world are emulating him,” Jacobs said at the time, urging UT to embrace these transformations and help lead the effort.

Khan is the first of four guests who will speak during the 2013-14 academic year as part of the Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series. Also speaking will be:

• Political consultant James Carville Monday, Nov. 18;
• Business strategy expert Richard Rumelt Monday, Jan. 13; and
• Arizona State University President Michael Crow Monday, March 10.

All lectures will take place at 7 p.m. in Doermann Theater, and speakers will take audience questions. Visit utoledo.edu/honorslecture to learn more about the speakers.

“I remember when I was in college the impact that lecture series with the leading minds of the day had on me and my education,” Scarborough said. “A distinguished lecture series sponsored at the University-wide level is something that top-tier universities provide to their students and to their communities, and UT is proud to offer the same for Toledo and northwest Ohio.”

Media Coverage
The Blade (Sept. 9, 2013)
The Independent Collegian (Sept. 11, 2013)
The Blade (Sept. 16, 2013)
The Independent Collegian (Sept. 17, 2013)
The Independent Collegian (Sept. 18, 2013)
The Blade (Sept. 18, 2013)
WTOL 11 (Sept. 20, 2013)