1:10 p.m., March 4, 2003--Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and poet Stephen Dunn and a Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times highlight UD’s Du Pont Scholars Lecture Series, “Passing the Torch: An Interdisciplinary Look at a World Poised for Change,” this spring. All lectures, free and open to the public, begin at 7:30 p.m. in various locations across campus. Receptions will follow.

The series begins Thursday, March 6, in 127 Memorial Hall with renowned author and poet Stephen Dunn. Dunn, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2001, will present “Toward Grace and a Redefinition of Manners: How Some Poems Might Show the Way.”

Prestigious publications across the country, including The Nation and The New Republic, feature Dunn’s essays. He has received numerous awards for his work, including fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

On Thursday, March 13, the series continues with New York Times’ Supreme Court correspondent, Linda Greenhouse. She will present “Court-watching: How to be a Smart Observer of the United States Supreme Court” in 120 Smith Hall.

A Yale Law School graduate, Greenhouse holds several honorary degrees and has appeared as a “Washington Week” television panelist since 1980. Her extensive experience covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times began in 1978. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her Supreme Court coverage in 1998.

“Sustainable Development Across the Gender Divide: Local Knowledge and Community Initiatives in 21st-Century Asia” will be presented on Thursday, March 20, in 127 Memorial Hall by Lynn Thiesmeyer, assistant professor on the Faculty for Information Environment, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. Through her Mekhong Region Development Net/Women and Development Online Information Project, Thiesmeyer works with several community projects in Thailand and Vietnam.

Thiesmeyer is a member of the Board of Advisers for two World Bank projects in Southeast Asia and is a specialist in discourse, social theory and gender and modernization. She was also a team leader for the 2001 Asia Pacific HIV Impact Research Tool project of the United Nations Development Program.

Musical composer, conductor and performer Jennifer Higdon will present “Composing a Path” on Thursday, April 10, in 207 Amy E. du Pont Music Building. Often known as a Renaissance woman of music, Higdon has had her works performed in such places as the White House and Carnegie Hall, winning awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the International League of Women Composers.

In 1996, USA Today awarded Higdon its Critic’s Choice of Best New Piece of Classical Music. Her most recent accomplishments include winning the 2001 International Alliance of Women in Music Composition Competition and being named Composer-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Singers, a premier professional chorus.

On Thursday, April 24, in 115 Purnell Hall, journalist, author and television producer A’Lelia Bundles will speak. Bundles, author of a biography of her great-great-grandmother, Madame C.J. Walker, will present “On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madame C.J. Walker.”

A graduate of Harvard University and Radcliffe College, Bundles received a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. “On Her Own Ground,” depicting the life of her ancestor, the first female African-American millionaire, won Bundles the 2001 Letitia Woods Brown Prize for the Best Book on Black Women’s History. She was won an Emmy for news programming as a producer for ABC News.

Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader will speak Thursday, May 1, in the auditorium of Clayton Hall. A longtime consumer advocate, lawyer and author, Nader will present “Democracy, Big Business and the American Duopoly.”

Nader, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, was the Green Party candidate in the 2000 presidential election. His efforts both as a freelance writer and a lawyer have been crucial to the founding of many organizations, including the Center for Study of Responsive law, the Center for Auto Safety and the Project for Corporate Responsibility.

Anthony C. Allison, M.D., will conclude the series on Thursday, May 8, in 103 Gore Hall. A medical researcher, Allison will present “Lessons from the Interface of Genetics and Medicine.”

Since 1981, Allison has worked on developing therapeutic agents and vaccines as a distinguished scientist at SurroMed Corp. He was awarded the Galenus Award, given annually for the most innovative therapy approved in Europe and also serves on the advisory board for the largest Indian biotechnology company in the world.

For more information on the series, call 831-1195.

Article by Stephanie K. Whalen, AS 2004