2018 College of Liberal Arts Fallon-Marshall Lecture Series
Please join the College of Liberal Arts on Monday, April 2, 2018 at 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. in Rudder Forum for the concluding event of our year of “hidden figures.” We began exploring the “hidden figures” theme for the academic year by distributing Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (William Morrow 2016) to all incoming Liberal Arts students, organizing one-hour seminars and other events, and enjoying a presentation by Ms. Shetterly.
Our concluding event this year, a moderated panel, will finish by hearing how the research of two of our faculty, Dr. Jonathan Coopersmith (history) and Dr. Rumya S. Putcha (performance studies), illuminates the “hidden figures” theme. Coopersmith will focus on the first African Americans to work at NASA and the necessity of using a variety of tools to preserve historical materials so that “no figures remain hidden.” Putcha also uses the early days of NASA (including her personal history as the daughter of immigrants who worked there) as a jumping-off point for exploring how U.S. immigration policy shapes our understanding of race, ethnicity, and citizenship. To complete the panel of three, Coopersmith and Putcha will be joined by Dr. Steven Moss, who coauthored We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program (U of Texas 2015). The book received national and international attention, including coverage in the New York Times Book Review, Esquire, C-SPAN, and BBC International.
Thanks to the work of the Liberal Arts Council (particularly Carlos Blanton, Heidi Campbell, and Quan Li), this year’s event also reimagines our traditional Fallon-Marshall “Lecture” as a conversation and an interactive Q&A session for a wide audience. The event’s goal remains true to the endowment’s purpose: to highlight the important research in the College and to communicate it broadly.
The panel and audience discussion will be followed by an informal reception at approximately 5:30 p.m. in Rudder Exhibit Hall. We hope you’ll be able to join us!