Year | Speaker | Title | Key Themes |
2024 (Fall) | Anne Savageau, Artist, Activist, former RC faculty | Art is the Highest Form of Hope: Sixty years of teaching, studio practice, activism, and life | Art, activism, identity, grief and memory, resilience |
2024 (Winter) | Nandi Comer, Michigan Poet Laureate | Tapping In | Poetry, identity, Detroit history, intersectionality |
2023 | Cydney Seigerman, PhD candidate (RC alum) | Water, Power, and Performance | Environmental anthropology, dramatic performance, interdisciplinary research |
2022 | Joseph Behen, Clinical Psychologist | College Student Mental Health at the Edge | Mental health, higher ed, creativity and well-being |
2021 (Fall) | Naomi André, RC faculty | Writing Opera, Singing Blackness | Race and representation in opera, musical history, Black narratives |
2021 (Winter) | Laura Kasischke, RC alumna and professor | The News from Poetry: In an Era of False Facts and True Fallacies, What’s to be Found in Art? | Art and truth, poetry, resilience through creativity |
2019-2020 | Anne Curzan, Dean of LSA | Life, Love, and the Liberal Arts: Pursuing an Education That Matters | Purpose of education, curiosity, liberal arts value |
2018 | Nancy Blum, Artist | Not Separate from the World: Nancy Blum and Public Art Installation | Public art, community impact, creative process |
2017 | Alisa Solomon, RC alumna, Columbia Journalism | Press, Politics, Performance | Journalism, performance studies, storytelling in public life |
2016 | Anna Clark, RC alumna, Author | Water’s Perfect Memory: Flint and the Poisoning of an American City | Activism, environmental protections, resilience |
2015 | Angela D. Dillard, Associate Dean LSA Undergraduate Education | The Liberal Arts in the 21st Century: The Next Wave #SocialInnovation #HigherEd @umichLSA | Liberal arts, higher education, innovation |
2014 (Fall) | Andrew Boyd, RC alum, Author and Activist | Beautiful Trouble from the Classroom to the Streets (and back) | Activism, imagination, performance as intervention |
2014 (Winter) | David M. Scobey, Executive Dean at the New School for Public Engagement and Founder of the U-M Arts of Citizenship Prog. | The Gifts of Liberal Education | Liberal arts, civil engagement |
2012 | Dean Terrence J. McDonald, Professor of History | The Liberal Arts in the Research University Today: Histories, Challenges, Futures | Liberal arts, research |
