WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., co-founder, president and CEO of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, will speak Nov. 11 at Purdue University.

His talk, sponsored by Purdue’s Black Cultural Center, begins at 7 p.m. in Stewart Center’s Fowler Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.

The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network is a non-profit, non-partisan coalition of hip-hop artists, entertainment leaders, education advocates, civil rights proponents and youth leaders. Its mission is to harness the cultural relevance of hip-hop music to advocate education and other societal concerns related to the empowerment of youth.

Chavis, a civil rights leader and a longtime advocate of equal opportunity, also is the president of Education Online Services Corp., a company committed to increasing online higher education among Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other academic institutions of higher learning worldwide.

A native of Oxford, N.C., Chavis started his career in 1963 as a statewide youth coordinator in North Carolina for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Later he became director and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and executive director and CEO of the 1.7 million-member United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice. He also was executive director and CEO of the National African American Leadership Summit. In addition, he was the national director and organizer of the Million Man March in 1995.

Chavis has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from University of North Carolina, a master’s in divinity from Duke University and a doctorate in ministry from Howard University. He has authored numerous books and publications.

“We are really excited to have someone of Dr. Chavis’ caliber visit Purdue,” said Renee Thomas, director of the Black Cultural Center. “We feel he ties in very well to the theme of our fall cultural arts series programs, which is Hip-Hop: A Social and Political Message of Black Identity.”

Thomas said the cultural arts series this semester was an opportunity to celebrate the contribution of hip-hop to American culture.

“Since the late 1970s, hip-hop has steadily gained intellectual credibility,” she said. “A unique feature of hip-hop is its ability to transcend cultural, ethnic, racial, generational and geographic boundaries. It bridges the divide between the academy and the real world and inspires a growing body of scholarly discourse.”

Established in 1969, the Black Cultural Center helps Purdue students better understand African-American heritage and enhances cultural diversity on campus. The center is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A professor of African-American studies at the University of California, Berkeley will examine the continued impact of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath on New Orleans’ African-American community in a lecture Nov. 10 at the Stewart Center.

Charles P. Henry’s lecture, titled “We Are Americans: The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Politics of Language,” will be given at 7 p.m. in Fowler Hall. In the epilogue of his book “Long Overdue: The Politics of Racial Reparations,” (2007) Henry connects the tragic events following the hurricane to the need for a public dialogue on racial reparations. The event is sponsored by the Black Cultural Center Library, African-American Resource Program and Research Center and the Diversity Resource Office/DiversiKey. It is free and open to the public.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed Henry to the National Council for the Humanities for a six-year term. He is the former president of the National Council for Black Studies and former board chair of Amnesty International USA. Henry authored and edited seven books and more than 80 articles and reviews on black politics, public policy and human rights. His other books include “Ralph Bunche: Model Negro or American Other” (1998) and “Foreign Policy and the Black (Inter)national Interest” (2000). He was the Distinguished Fulbright Chair in American History and Politics at the University of Bologna, Italy, in 2003 and taught at the University of Tours in France as a Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair in 2006.

In April Henry received the Chancellor’s Award for advancing institutional excellence at the University California, Berkeley. A member of the faculty since 1981, he chaired the African-American Studies Department from 2000-02.

The lecture is part of the Black Cultural Center’s semester-long examination of the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the retention of African-American culture and art.

Established in 1969, the Black Cultural Center is nationally recognized and acknowledged by the Association of Black Cultural Centers as one of the best centers of its kind. The center helps the community gain a greater understanding of the African-American heritage and supports and enhances cultural diversity on campus and in the community.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Thomas L. Friedman, the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, will speak at Purdue University on Sept. 19 about his upcoming book “Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How It Can Renew America.”

Thomas Friedman

Friedman, whose talk will begin at 7 p.m. in the Elliot Hall of Music, has reported on the current Middle East conflicts, the end of the Cold War, U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy, international economics, and the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat. The College of Engineering – including its Division of Environmental and Ecological Engineering, Global Engineering Program, and School of Mechanical Engineering – has partnered with the Center for the Environment, Energy Center, Office of the Provost and Purdue Climate Change Research Center in sponsoring his speech and related activities that week.

The speech is free and open to the public, but tickets are required in order to reserve a seat. Tickets can be picked up at the Elliott Hall of Music after Aug. 25.

“Tom Friedman has won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work with the New York Times and is one of our country’s foremost journalists on energy and how that has affected our foreign policy,” said event organizer E. Dan Hirleman, the William E. and Florence E. Perry Head of the School of Mechanical Engineering. “He is one of the world’s preeminent commentators on international affairs.”

In 2005 Friedman’s book “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century” was an international bestseller and given the first Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, and Friedman was named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S.News & World Report.

His book “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” was one of the best-selling books in 1999 and winner of the 2000 Overseas Press Club Award for the best nonfiction book on foreign policy. It’s now available in 20 languages. Friedman’s 2002 book “Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11″ consists of columns Friedman wrote about Sept. 11, as well as a diary of his private experiences and reflections during his reporting on the post-September world as he traveled in 2005 from Afghanistan to Israel, Europe, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

Friedman is author of “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” which won both the National Book Award and the Overseas Press Club Award in 1989 and was on the New York Times’ bestseller list for nearly a year. It is now used as a basic textbook on the Middle East in many high schools and universities and has been published in 27 languages.

Friedman graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University with a bachelor’s degree in Mediterranean studies and received a master’s degree in modern Middle East studies from Oxford University. He has served as a visiting professor at Harvard University and has been awarded honorary degrees from several U.S. universities. He lives in Bethesda, Md., with his wife Ann and their two daughters.

The College of Engineering serves more than 8,500 undergraduate and graduate students with a wide range of academic programs and interdisciplinary projects, including many related to environment, energy and global issues. The Center for the Environment, Energy Center and Purdue Climate Change Research Center coordinate campuswide activities involving the colleges of Agriculture, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Science, Technology and the Krannert School of Management.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — An expert who studies Catholic children during the 20th century will visit Purdue University on Feb. 8 to discuss how those children live as Catholic adults today.

Robert Orsi, the Grace Craddock Nagle Chair in Catholic Studies at Northwestern University, will present “Growing up Catholic: A Case Study of Catholic Children in Mid-20th Century America” at 7:30 p.m. in the Krannert Auditorium. His talk, which is sponsored by the Aquinas Educational Foundation and the College of Liberal Arts’ Religious Studies Program, is free and open to the public.

Orsi studies American Catholicism and is widely recognized for his work on theory and method for the study of religion. Before coming to Northwestern, he taught at Fordham University at Lincoln Center in New York from 1981-88, at Indiana University from 1988 to 2001, and at Harvard Divinity School from 2001-07. He was president of the American Academy of Religion in 2002-03.

His books include, “The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950,” “Thank You, Saint Jude: Women’s Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes” and “Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them.” Orsi also has edited “Gods of the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscape.” He is currently at work on “The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies” and on a social and cultural history of 20th-century Catholic childhoods in the United States, which is set to be published by Harvard University Press.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — An expert who studies Catholic children during the 20th century will visit Purdue University on Feb. 8 to discuss how those children live as Catholic adults today.

Robert Orsi, the Grace Craddock Nagle Chair in Catholic Studies at Northwestern University, will present “Growing up Catholic: A Case Study of Catholic Children in Mid-20th Century America” at 7:30 p.m. in the Krannert Auditorium. His talk, which is sponsored by the Aquinas Educational Foundation and the College of Liberal Arts’ Religious Studies Program, is free and open to the public.

Orsi studies American Catholicism and is widely recognized for his work on theory and method for the study of religion. Before coming to Northwestern, he taught at Fordham University at Lincoln Center in New York from 1981-88, at Indiana University from 1988 to 2001, and at Harvard Divinity School from 2001-07. He was president of the American Academy of Religion in 2002-03.

His books include, “The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950,” “Thank You, Saint Jude: Women’s Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes” and “Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them.” Orsi also has edited “Gods of the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscape.” He is currently at work on “The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies” and on a social and cultural history of 20th-century Catholic childhoods in the United States, which is set to be published by Harvard University Press.