Leadership Lecture Series
Wade Davis Nationally acclaimed speaker, activist, writer and educator Monday, Oct. 6, 7 p.m. Burney Center
Ernest Cline Author of the 2014-15 Synergy Common Reading book Ready Player One Monday, Nov. 3, 7 p.m. Burney Center
Wade Davis was the first NFL football player to come out as gay, becoming an instant role model for the LGBTQ community. Davis is the executive director of the You Can Play Project, an organization dedicated to ending discrimination and homophobia in sports. He is the co-founder of the You Belong Initiative, a youth sports and leadership camp for LGBTQ and straight allied youth. During the 2012 election, he served as an LGBTQ surrogate for President Obama. He is a visiting professor at Rutgers University. His upcoming memoir, Interference, chronicles his struggles from growing up in a strict religious household to working and advocating for LGBTQ rights.
Ernest Cline is no stranger to the world of technology and video games. Self-described as the “biggest geek in history,” Cline’s childhood centered around comic books, sci-fi novels, Dungeons & Dragons and video arcades. A New York Times bestseller, Ready Player One takes the reader on a thrilling ride while providing a commentary on the relationship between people and technology. The book is scheduled to be adapted into a film. Additionally, Cline performs slam poetry, and his work is featured on NPR and CBC Radio.
Co-sponsored by the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, Upperman African American Cultural Arts Center, LGBTQIA Resource Office and UNCW Athletics.
Co-sponsored by the University College and the Division of Student Affairs.
Piper Kerman Author of the memoir Orange is the New Black Tuesday, March 3, 7 p.m. Burney Center In the critically acclaimed memoir-turnedNetflix series Orange is the New Black, Piper Kerman recounts the year she spent in a correctional facility, serving time for a crime she had committed 10 years prior. Kerman’s book is a compelling and moving conversation about the women she met while incarcerated, raising issues of friendship and family, codes of behavior and the almost complete lack of guidance for life after prison. Now, Kerman advocates for change in the prison system, speaking to groups that include federal probation officers, public defenders and formerly incarcerated people. In her lecture, Kerman will discuss her experience in a women’s prison and her advocacy for reform within these prison systems. Co-sponsored by the Mimi Cunningham Speaker Series Endowment of the Department of Communication Studies.
Tickets: $10 general public Free to UNCW students/faculty/staff Available beginning Aug. 20 at www.etix.com or Sharky’s Box Office in the Fisher Student Center 6
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