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2008-2009 Sheetz Visiting Lecture
Series
The Division of Student Affairs
is pleased to announce that the following speakers will participate in the 2008-2009
Sheetz Visiting Lecture Series:
Junior High School Dropout to Construction CEO
"On Being Unstoppable"
Thursday, September 25, 2008
7:30 p.m. - Wolf Kuhn Theatre - The Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts
Frank Warren
Founder of PostSecret
"The Most Trusted Stranger in America: Frank Warren's PostSecret"
Thursday, January 15, 2009
7:30 p.m. - Wolf Kuhn Theatre - The Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts
2008-2009 Distinguished Speaker
Series
The Division of Student Affairs is pleased to announce that the following speakers will participate in the 2008-2009 Distinguished Speaker Series:
- Richard Dreyfuss
Academy Award-Winning Actor,
Author, & Activist
"Teaching Our Children How to Think, Not What to
Think"
Thursday, November 13, 2008
7:30 p.m. - Gymnasium - Stephen A. Adler Athletic Complex
- Jim
Ellis
Swim Coach and Subject of the Film,
PRIDE
"Instilling Pride, One Lap at a Time"
Thursday, February 19, 2009
7:30 p.m. - Wolf Kuhn Theatre - The
Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts
- John Bul Dau
Lost Boy of Sudan and
Featured in the Film, God Grew Tired of Us
"Political Crisis in Our Country"
Thursday, April 9, 2009
7:30 p.m. - Gymnasium - Stephen A. Adler Athletic Complex
2008-2009 Sheetz Visiting Lecture Series
Lynn Donohue
(link to downloadable poster)
"On Being Unstoppable"
Before
Lynn Donohue
built walls for a living, she had to tear down a few.
Raised in a working class neighborhood in New
Bedford, Massachusetts during the 1970s, Donohue entered her teens with
virtually no sense of self worth, no life skills, and no plan for her future. A
junior high school drop out at the age of 15, Donohue was living out of her car
and earning minimum wage as a bar tender at a local biker hang out when she
stumbled onto an article in the newspaper about a new training program for women
interested in the construction trades. Seizing the opportunity to steer her life
in a new direction, she quit the bar and began taking classes towards becoming a
professional mason. The brick masonry training taught her to develop inner calm
and focus and gave her the structure and purpose she had been searching for her
whole life.
Donohue entered the masonry trade as an
apprentice and the only woman in her local union, which was dominated by men
with little interest in diversity. As a mason's apprentice, she was subjected to
harassment from her fellow co-workers on numerous construction sites. Every day
she came back to the job with steely determination to get her weekly paycheck on
Friday, which was more than she had earned in a month at the bar. In 1981,
Donohue gained recognition for her skills by becoming the first (and to this day
only) female apprentice bricklayer to win the state masonry competition. Even
after winning the competition, which for a man would have secured his career
with the union, Donohue could not get assigned to a crew. Finally, she was able
to get the union to give her work on government-funded jobs requiring minority
participation.
Donohue loved bricklaying - the rhythm of setting
brick upon brick - and the rewards of meaningful work. She became a sponge,
learning every aspect of the masonry process including estimating and bidding on
jobs. She began reading books on finance, self-improvement and business - and
she continued to develop her own skills in every aspect of her work. When the
time came for her finally to bid on her own job, she didn't pick a small one.
She made an ambitious first bid - a major drugstore chain was building a new
store in a Boston suburb. Donohue won the contract to build the store, without
having financing, a truck, or even one employee working under her. But the store
got built - on time and on budget.
A believer in the resilience of the will in the
face of adversity, Donohue channeled the negativity and discrimination she faced
as a woman into a staunch resolve. In 1982, she founded Argus Construction. She
hired a crew, many of whom were the same men who tormented her on earlier jobs.
Now, she signed their paycheck - every Friday she put it in their hands
personally and thanked them for their contribution to the success of the job.
Eventually, Donohue grew her company into a multi-million dollar operation.
Before the age of 40, the former drop out was a millionaire entrepreneur.
Today, Donohue devotes much of her life to taking
care of her two children, Kelsey and Daniel, and to giving back to her
community. In 2000, Donohue used her wealth and financial independence to found
Brick By Brick, a New Bedford-based non-profit organization that helps teenagers
foster creativity, and adults struggling with career choices enhance their
personal and professional development. Passionate about education, Donohue
returned to school and received her MBA from Lesley College in 2008. She is also
the author of a critically acclaimed book, Brick By Brick: A Woman's Journey,
which was a finalist for the 2001 Ben Franklin Award for best autobiography.
Building still remains central to Donohue's life.
As a masonry consultant for a construction material manufacturer, Donohue
continues to blaze her path in a world almost exclusively run by men. A
leadership and sales motivator, she travels nationally as a speaker, presenting
to companies, women's conferences, and trade associations on the topics of
perseverance, positive attitude, and overcoming obstacles to personal and
professional success.
Frank Warren
(link to downloadable poster)
"The Most Trusted Stranger in America:
Frank Warren's PostSecret"
Frank Warren
is the sole founder and curator of the PostSecret Project: A
collection of over 200,000 highly personal and artfully decorated postcards
mailed anonymously from around the world, displaying the soulful secrets we
never voice.
Warren's first book,
PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives
(ReganBooks) is a
New York Times
best seller. He followed it up with
My Secret: A PostSecret Book and
The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book. In 2006, his
PostSecret website (which receives over 3,000,000 visitors every month) was
awarded
six weblog awards
including “Best
American Blog”
and “Blog
of the Year.”
His traveling exhibition of PostSecret cards was called by the
Washington Post,
“One of the five best art shows in 2005”.
Warren was
born in Arizona and went to high school in Illinois. He later graduated from UC
Berkeley with a degree in social science and moved to the Washington, DC area to
start a business. Fifteen years later, his document delivery firm, Instant
Information Systems, takes up less of his time as he focuses more energy on the
project that thrust him into the public eye.
Warren has appeared on the
Today Show,
20/20,
CNN, MSNBC, CBC, NPR, and Fox News.
USA Today
called Warren, “An award-winning blogger, a first-time author, an artist with a
traveling exhibit, a possible documentary subject, the inspiration for a music
video and the all-around media ‘it’ boy of the moment.”
In 2005, The All American Rejects approached
Warren about using images of actual PostSecret images in their
Dirty Little Secret
music video. They offered Warren $1,000 but instead he asked them to donate
$2,000 to 1(800)SUICIDE where Warren is a volunteer. The donation was made and
the music video became one of the most requested on
MTV.
Warren continues to receive between 100 and 200 postcards everyday. He updates
his website on Sundays and is working to produce four more PostSecret books.
Warren, his wife and 11 year-old daughter call Germantown, Maryland home. He
continues to call himself an “accidental artist” because he has no artist
background or training. “I have been asked many times why I started this. It
still feels to me as though this project found me. All I try to do is make the
right decisions every day to protect the integrity of the project – and learn to
trust the journey.
2008-2009 Distinguished Speaker
Series
Richard Dreyfuss (link
to downloadable poster)
"Teaching Our Children How to Think, Not
What to Think"
Richard
Dreyfuss
has relied on intelligence, energy and incredible talent to gain
and keep his place among the leading actors of the American cinema. Three of his
films, in fact, were recently included in the American Film Institute's list of
the greatest 100 films. One of his notable roles was as the teacher in Mr.
Holland's Opus, for which he received Academy Award and Golden Globe
nominations for Best Actor.
At age 29, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in
The Goodbye Girl. One of the many dimensions Dreyfuss has displayed
throughout the years of his success has been his political and social activism.
He has campaigned for candidates and causes, given testimony advocating for
national and community service before congressional and other governmental
committees, and works with groups promoting solutions to the Arab/Israeli
conflict. His Imagining the Future Fund has focused on public affairs broadcast
media in the Middle East, having just returned from a conference he helped
organize bringing together Western and Arab journalists at the Salzburg Seminar.
He is co-founder of L.A. Works, a non-profit, public action and volunteer center
in Los Angeles. He sits on the board of the National Constitution Center in
Philadelphia, which built the first national museum dedicated to our
Constitution. He has also spoken in venues across the country about the need for
civic engagement. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles ACLU
Foundation and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dreyfuss has
made his personal involvement a priority. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Dreyfuss
and his parents moved to Los Angeles when he was eight years old. He soon
realized he wanted to spend his life as an actor, beginning his acting career at
age nine at the Westside Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles. After his
formal schooling, he spent two years as a conscientious objector, doing
alternative service as a clerk at Los Angeles County General Hospital. In the
late 60s and early 70s, Dreyfuss commuted between both coasts doing Broadway,
off- Broadway, repertory and improvisational comedy, as well as some guest
appearances on television.
Dreyfuss made his motion picture debut
in 1967 with a bit part in
Valley of the Dolls, followed by one line in The Graduate. Then
several films later, in 1973, his sensitive portrayal of an ambivalent
college-bound teen in the cult classic American Graffiti garnered him
both praise and attention. This was the beginning of a string of stellar
performances in such films as The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,
Jaws,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and
The Goodbye Girl. The 80s saw a string of acclaimed movies
including Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Tin Men and Stakeout,
followed by at least a dozen others. The 90s have seen a variety of films
ranging from
Mr. Holland's Opus
and Sidney Lumet's Night Falls on Manhattan (with Andy Garcia), to the
comedy hit What About Bob? (with Bill Murray), as well as a cameo role in
The American President, for his childhood friend Rob Reiner. He also
directed
Our Love is Here to Stay, a thirty-minute film starring Anne Archer,
Carrie Fisher, and William Peterson for Showtime's Directed By series.
Dreyfuss, like many other actors, began his career on stage, but few have
returned to their theatrical roots as steadfastly as he with starring roles in
“The Hands of Its Enemy,” “The Normal Heart”, the Broadway production of “Death
and the Maiden” with Glenn Close and Gene Hackman, and “Three Hotels” with
Christine Lahti at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, to name a few. He also
directed “Hamlet” for TheBirmingham Theatre Company at the Old Rep in England,
marking his bow as a director. He is a charter member of the Los Angeles Theatre
Works, a radio ensemble company. He recently starred as Mark Anthony in the BBC
Radio/ KCRW production of Julius Caesar, as Benedict Arnold in “ An American
General”, and in George Bernard Shaw's “Devil's Disciple” in Washington, DC.
Dreyfuss could recently be seen in the play “The Exonerated” off Broadway.
In 1998, Dreyfuss starred in
Lansky for HBO, written by David Mamet and directed by John McNaughton.
He completed a successful run of the Neil Simon play “Prisoner of Second Avenue”
in London's Haymarket Theatre with Marsha Mason. He starred in The Crew
with Burt Reynolds and Jennifer Tilly, and then shot The Old Man Who Read
Love Stories directed by Rolf de Heer in French Guyana. He was presented
with the 2000 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Hollywood Film Festival. He was
the star of CBS’ show The Education of Max Bickford, and starred in the
Showtime movie The Day Reagan Was Shot, playing General Alexander Haig.
Dreyfuss starred with Judy Davis in the Showtime movie Coast to Coast.
Most recently, he starred in Cop Shop for PBS and was co-producer,
co-writer and host for the History Channel’s
Duel: Hamilton vs. Burr, which
examined the tumultuous feud between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Dreyfuss
was the executive producer of the award-winning ABC special honoring the
bicentennial of the constitution,
Funny, You Don’t Look 200: A Constitutional Vaudeville. Most recently,
Dreyfuss starred in “All My Sons,” the play written by Arthur Miller and
directed by Doug Hughes, at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut,
opposite Joanne Woodward. He recently finished a successful run of a new
production of “Sly Fox” by Larry Gelbart on Broadway.
Jim Ellis
(link to downloadable poster)
"Instilling Pride, One Lap at a Time"
Jim
Ellis’ story is testimony to the power of dreams and their ability to
inspire and transform human life. His story is the subject of the film, Pride,
starring Terrence Howard.
Ellis founded the P.D.R. (Philadelphia Department
of Recreation) Swim Team, based at the Marcus Foster Recreation Center in the
Nicetown section of Philadelphia, in 1971. Today, it is the city's nationally
recognized competitive swim team, the nation's best predominately
African-American team, and has become a model for urban swim programs around the
country.
Over the past 36 years, Ellis has been
introducing competitive swimming to inner city youth and their families. His
coaching has provided a healthy and stimulating environment in which the young
athletes can grow and compete. It also brings together families from diverse
ethnic backgrounds. Through travel to various competitions, the program exposes
swimmers to other parts of the country and different lifestyles.
The movie based on Jim Ellis’ life, Pride,
tells the story of how Ellis built a successful swimming program in one of
Philly’s most impoverished neighborhoods. It is set in the early 1970s, when the
lives of the young African-American teens on the P.D.R. swim team are full of
hardship and prejudice. The film shows this uplifting and soulful story of
Ellis’ journey that pulled together a group of troubled inner-city kids, made
them into a dedicated team, and taught them how to overcome adversity through
hard work and determination. Jim Ellis teaches his swimmers more than just how
to compete in the water; he gives them important and life-changing lessons that
prepare them for a better future. Through this emotional journey, Coach Ellis
also discovers his team has a lot to teach him as well. Pride stars Oscar
nominee Terrence Howard (Hustle and Flow, Crash, Ray), popular comedian
turned actor Bernie Mac (The Bernie Mac Show, Kings of Comedy, Ocean’s Eleven),
and Kimberly Elise (star of CBS series Close to Home).
Besides his work as a swim coach, Ellis has
served as a math teacher for many years. As a real-life role model, Ellis’
story strikes a chord with all types of audiences. Coach Ellis is a loveable
storyteller whose inspiring true-to-life story captivates and motivates
audiences to always remember the influential power of one.
John Bul Dau
(link to downloadable poster)
"Political Crisis in Our Country"
John Bul Dau
has experienced journeys in life that most people never imagine. Dau was born in
war-torn Sudan, and in 1987, his village was attacked by government troops
involved in the civil war between the Muslim-controlled government in northern
Sudan and the non-Muslims in southern Sudan. The violence scattered his family,
and Dau was forced to travel on foot for three months until reaching the
relative safety of Ethiopia.
Dau stayed in a refugee
camp in Ethiopia for four years, but when civil war broke out in the region, he
was once again forced to flee. As one of thousands of “Lost Boys of Sudan,” Dau
wandered hundreds of miles and faced disease, starvation, and violence, until
arriving in Kenya. While living in the Kenyan Kakuma refugee camp, he attended
school for the first time and earned a prestigious Kenyan Certificate for
Secondary Education in 2000. In 2001, he was brought to Syracuse, New York along
with 140 other young Sudanese refugees.
Despite the initial culture
shock – women driving cars, huge stores filled with food – Dau has succeeded in
the United States and can proudly say that he is living the American dream. Not
only was he able to bring his mother and sister from Sudan, but while working 60
hours a week as a security guard, he received an Associates degree from Onondago
Community College. He is currently pursuing a degree in Policy Studies at
Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
Additionally, Dau is an
experienced social entrepreneur. He has founded three non-profit 501(c)3
organizations. In 2003, he helped establish The Sudanese Lost Boys Foundation of
Central New York which raised over $35,000 for books and medical expenses for
Lost Boys living in the United States. In 2005, Dau was instrumental in founding
the American Care for Sudan Foundation which solicited funds to build and
operate the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Southern Sudan. He has raised more than
$400,000 for the clinic. Currently, Dau is the President of the John Dau Sudan
Foundation which was founded in July of 2007 to develop health facilities that
currently do not exist for most of the populations of Duk, Twic East and Bor
South Counties in the State of Jonglei in Southern Sudan.
Dau’s move to the United
States and early experiences in the country are the subject of the film God
Grew Tired of Us, which won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at
the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. His memoir, also entitled God Grew Tired of
Us, was released in January 2007 by National Geographic Press.
Dau’s command of the
English language has helped assure that his voice and the voice of the Sudanese
is heard in the United States and around the world. He has become a successful
national public speaker, focusing speeches on his life story and the importance
of perseverance against all odds. His moving talks also focus on the importance
of human rights and on ending the tragedy in Southern Sudan.
In his brief
time in the United States, Dau has earned many awards for his public
achievements and charitable work. He received a National Geographic’s Emerging
Explorers Award and was named a Volvo for Life Award finalist in the Quality of
Life Category in 2008 which carried a contribution of $25,000 to the John Dau
Sudan Foundation. As he continues to work to succeed in the United States he
envisions a positive future for Sudan. He says, “I hope for my country to get
out of war and secure a good government. I want Sudan to become a place where
people are welcome and hope is restored.”
The Sheetz Visiting Lecture Series and the Penn State Altoona Distinguished Speaker Series
are free and open to the public. Tickets are available at the Penn State Altoona Bookstore Monday
through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or at
The Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts ticket office during posted
hours, and at the door if not sold out in advance.
Penn State Altoona provides the Sheetz Visiting Lecture Series and the Distinguished Speaker Series as a student and
community service. They are partially sponsored by an endowment from the Sheetz
family, the Margery Wolf Kuhn Fund, the
John and Ann Wolf Family Speakers Series Fund, the Sarah Simonton Fund, and the Student Activities Fee.
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