The Bridgewater State College Distinguished Speaker Series offers the college community and the general public a wealth of perspectives, experiences and insights presented by a wide variety of leaders and luminaries of our time. Introduced by President Dana Mohler-Faria in 2006, the series has presented the following speakers to date:

Fall 2009
Shannon Brownlee
Expert on American health care reform, author of Overtreated

SPRING 2009
Michael Pollan
Author

FALL 2008
David Gergen
Political analyst, presidential adviser, magazine editor

SPRING 2008
Terry McMillan
Novelist, columnist, editor

FALL 2007
Dr. Sherry Turkle
Professor, researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

SPRING 2007
Bill Nye
Scientist, engineer, comedian, author and inventor

FALL 2006
Katty Kay
Washington correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation, anchor of BBC World

Angela Davis is known internationally for her ongoing work to combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad. Over the years, as a student, teacher, writer, scholar, activist and organizer -- and even prisoner -- she has become a living witness to the historical struggles of two generations of American life. In 1969, Angela Davis came to national attention after being removed from her teaching position at UCLA as a result of her social activism and her membership in the Communist Party. In 1970 she was placed on the FBI's Ten most Wanted List on false charges, and was the subject of an intense police search that drove her underground -- culminated in one of the most famous trials in recent American history. During her sixteen-month incarceration, a massive internation "Free Angela Davis" campaign was organized, leading to her acquittal in 1972.

During the last twenty-five years, Prof. Davis has lectured in all of the fifty United States, as well as in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the former Soviet Union. She is the author of five books, including the campus classics Angela Davis: An Autobiography and Women, Race & Class; her other bookes include Blues Legacies and Black Feminism and The Angela Y. Davis Reader. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies.

Currently, Davis is a tenured professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her long-standing commitment to prisoners' rights dates back to her involvement in the campaign to free the Soledad Brothers, which led to her own arrest and imprisonment. Today, she remains an advocate of prison abolition and has developed a powerful critique of racism in the criminal justice system. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Prison Activist Resource Center, and is working on a comparative study of women's imprisonment in the US, the Netherlands, and Cuba.

Ticket Information

Admission is free to Bridgewater State College Distinguished Speaker Series presentations, but reservations are required. Seating is limited for this event. Spaces are divided amongst external constituents, faculty, staff and students.

External guests may request two seats per household. Please email presidentevents@bridgew.edu with your name, full address and phone number. A confirmation email will be sent to you. If the event nears full capacity, tickets will be issued and mailed to all participants with reservations. Please call 508.531.6123 if you don't have computer access.

For students, please reserve your space by emailing presidentevents@bridgew.edu by March 5^th.

Faculty and staff are each entitled (space permitting) to two seats per person request. Please use the online events rsvp form https://www.bridgew.edu/president/rsvp.cfm.

There will be a "check in" table at the event entrance.

Directions to BSC and a campus map that includes parking areas can be found at www.bridgew.edu/directions.cfm.

Further Questions? Call Sally Murray, Coordinator of Institutional Events, 508.531.2388.