Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch
The George T. Hunter Lecture Series celebrates its fifth year with a lineup of speakers covering topics from education to the arts.
The series kicks off at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 18, at the Roland Hayes Auditorium at UTC with education historian and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch.
Author of the bestselling book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” Ravitch now repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Drawing on more than 40 years of research and experience, Ravitch is a critic of today’s most popular ideas for restructuring schools, including privatization, standardized testing, punitive accountability and charter schools.
The series continues on Nov. 13 at the Tivoli Theatre with Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and columnist for The New York Times. On Feb. 26, 2013, the series returns to the campus hosting urban farming activist and MacArthur “Genius” award-winner Will Allen. On April 7, 2013, the Tivoli will host Ira Glass, host and producer of the radio show, ‘This American Life,” heard locally on 88.1 WUTC-FM.
Over the past four years, speakers have included two Pulitzer Prize winners, two Peabody Award winners, two MacArthur Genius fellows and four listed on the TIME “100 Most Influential People,” who have collectively authored 12 best-selling books.