Distinguished Speakers: 2007-2008

The Distinguished Speaker Series enhances Penn Charter's curriculum and adds excitement to the academic year. The program is designed to stimulate and enlighten our students and faculty and, space permitting, our visitors. We would be most happy to accommodate alumni, parents or friends who have an interest in attending a particular presentation; please call the receptionist (215.844.3460) in advance to confirm space, dates and times.

Speakers for 2008
1.9.08
Li-Young Lee, Richard B. Fisher OPC '53 Poetry Lecture
Through the observation and translation of often unassuming and silent moments, the poetry of Li-Young Lee gives clear voice to the solemn and extraordinary beauty found within humanity. His poetry accentuates the joys and sorrows of family, home, loss, exile and love. Lee is the author of four books of poetry, Behind My Eyes; Book of My Nights; Rose, winner of the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award; The City in Which I Love You, the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and a memoir titled The Winged Seed: A Remembrance, which received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Lee's honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lannan Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

2.6.08
Gen. Fred Woerner (Ret.) OPC '51, retired general
Fred Woerner attended West Point and served in the U.S. Army for 35 years as an infantryman, ranger, paratrooper and Latin American specialist. In his final tour of duty, he was the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Southern Command, responsible for implementing U.S. national security policy in Latin America. Following retirement from the Army, he became a professor of international relations at Boston University, where he presented courses in Latin American studies and U.S. national security from 1990 to 2003. He also served as senior executive for the construction of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

2.13.08
Eboo Patel, author and religious activist
Eboo Patel is the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core. This Chicago-based international nonprofit works to build mutual respect and pluralism among religiously diverse young people by empowering them to work together to serve others. He serves on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation USA, the Advisory Board of Duke University's Islamic Studies Center, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Patel is the author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. He has written for the Chicago Tribune, the Journal of Muslim Law and Culture, the Harvard Divinity School Bulletin and National Public Radio. Patel holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University.

2.19.08
Arthur Larrabee, Hubben Lecture
Arthur M. Larrabee, general secretary of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, also serves as a consultant on governance and related issues to Friends schools and other Friends institutions. As a teacher and workshop leader, he focuses on decision-making and clerking. He is a graduate of Westtown School, Yale College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and founded a law firm now known as Larrabee, Cunningham and McGowan, P.C. He is a trustee of the Westtown School and a member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. He is currently writing a book on Quaker governance and decision-making.

3.5.08
Bruce Main, Senior Comprehensive Speaker
Executive director for the past 15 years of UrbanPromise Ministries in Camden, N.J., Bruce Main has been instru-mental to the group's outreach to inner-city children and teens. The ministry hosts several after-school programs, youth clinics, summer camps, employment readiness pro-grams, entrepreneurial training opportunities, missionary internships, as well as a home school for teens and the CamdenForward School, an alternative grade school experience. He speaks nationally and internationally at mission conferences, colleges, churches and youth groups, and he is an adjunct faculty member at Eastern College in St. Davids. Limited seating for visitors; L1, 8:30 a.m.

4.17.08
Sonia Lynn Sadler, artist and designer
Sonia Lynn Sadler attended the Maryland Institute College of Art, studying fine art and illustration. At the Parsons School of Design, she received a bachelor of fine art in fashion design. The Hallmark Golden Key Award was presented to Sadler for her art work by the Hecht Co. in Washington, D.C. Sadler has had a career in fashion, working for Anne Klein, Jones New York and Liz Claiborne. Her accessories have been featured in the New York Times and Women's Wear Daily. On her own, she has begun work under her own name, Sonia Lynn Sadler Arts, which encompasses fine art, children's book illustration and a line of greeting cards featuring her art.

4.3.08
Tara Veneruso, filmmaker
Tara Veneruso was an "at risk" teen when a teacher let her have use of a movie camera. That moment changed her life. A graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Veneruso has become a leader in digital filmmaking. She is an award-winning director and editor whose movies, including the short film Sidewalkers, have been included at international film festivals. She began her directing career with the documentary Janis Joplin Slept Here and has edited for MTV, VH-1, the Independent Film Channel, BBC America and Discovery Channel. She is founder and president of Flaming Angel Films.

TBA
Anne Caramanico, businesswoman and activist
Anne Caramanico, a Penn Charter overseer, earned a B.A. from Earlham College and a master of regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania. She recently sold her transportation and infrastructure consulting firm to her employees and has devoted herself to her many social justice interests. On a trip to Cambodia, she was struck by the poverty and decided to fund a school in a rural village. The four-room schoolhouse is made of cinderblock and tin and has a solar panel on the roof that powers computers provided by a Japanese organization. Students eat two meals a day from food grown in a nearby garden. Caramanico is also active in Habitat for Humanity, traveling to Mexico every other year to work on a Habitat project.

TBA
Chris Moore, environmental mediator
Christopher Moore is an internationally known mediator, facilitator, dispute systems designer, trainer and author in the field of conflict management. Moore has consulted in 21 countries in Asia, Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. He was trained as a mediator by the U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the American Arbitration Association, and holds a Ph.D. in political sociology and development from Rutgers University. Moore is highly experienced in working with groups from different cultural, ethnic, professional and technical backgrounds. He has assisted parties in resolving contentious issues over water development and use, mining permits, protection of animal species and habitat, land use, air quality, ethnic relations and charges of discrimination.

Speakers for 2007
10.10
Daniela Holt Voith, architect and environmentalist
Daniela Holt Voith received her master of architecture from Yale University after graduating cum laude with a B.A. in growth and structure of cities from Bryn Mawr College. She is a past president of the American Institute of Architects, Philadelphia Chapter (1994), as well as a former director of the Philadelphia Foundation for Architecture (1994). Her teaching experience of the last 25 years includes courses at Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and Bryn Mawr. In addition to the many awards Voith & Mactavish Architects LLP has won for architecture, Voith has recently been appointed to the Architectural Advisory Committee of the Philadelphia Historical Commission (2004). Voith is the lead architect for Penn Charter's future performing arts center.

10.24
Kari Grady Grossman, author and activist
Kari Grady Grossman has spent nearly two decades traveling, writing and producing documentaries. Her writing, including coverage of a Mount Everest expedition and the Alaskan Iditarod, has appeared on Discovery Channel Online. After traveling to Cambodia in 2001 to adopt their son Grady, Grossman and her husband, George, created the Grady Grossman School. Proceeds from her book about this experience, Bones that Float, will support the school, which now educates nearly 500 children a year. In 2006, the Grossmans traveled to India to adopt their second child. Kari plans to write a book on that country. She is a 1990 graduate of Syracuse University and resides in Fort Collins, Colo.

11.6
David Evans OPC '59, asthma expert
David Evans is professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences and director of the Asthma Education Research Program at Columbia University, where he conducts research to identify effective methods for teaching patients and health-care professionals about asthma. He developed the Open Airways for Schools health education program for children with asthma and their families. He is currently involved in research to teach high school students to manage their asthma better, and in research to test environmental interventions to reduce exposure to indoor allergens in public housing in New York City. He earned his A.B. from Harvard University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He is a member of Morningside Monthly Meeting in New York City.

11.7
Frederick Lipp, Trask Library author
Frederick Lipp is an award-winning author of seven children's picture books that tell poignant, universal stories set in different countries around the world: Cambodia, Sri Lanka and, in the United States, the communities of Maine's newest immigrants. His first book, The Caged Birds of Phnom Penh, was named a Notable Book for a Global Society by the International Reading Association. Lipp, a retired Unitarian minister, is known for his lively, engaging talks with children that gently open new doors to understanding our diverse neighbors. In addition to writing children's books, he is founder and president of the Cambodian Arts and Scholarship Foundation, which helps educate girls in Cambodia.

11.14
Lorene Cary, author, Humanities Lecture
Lorene Cary's first book, Black Ice, a memoir of her years first as a black female student and then teacher at an exclusive New England boarding school, was chosen as a Notable Book for 1992 by the American Library Association. In 1998, Cary founded Art Sanctuary, a nonprofit lecture and performance series that brings black thinkers and artists to speak and perform at the historic Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia. She is currently a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a 1998 recipient of the Provost's Award for Distinguished Teaching. The Price of a Child was selected for the One Book, One Philadelphia project in 2003. Cary, who lives in Philadelphia, serves on the usage panel for the American Heritage Dictionary. Her most recent book is Free! Great Escapes from Slavery on the Underground Railroad.

11.26
Paul Lacey and Irene McHenry, Hubben Lecture
See descriptions to right under "For Parents."

11.28
David Chase, youth environmentalist
After graduating from high school last June, David Chase moved from his Cape Cod, Mass., home to Washington, D.C. to serve as the 2007-08 Youth Leadership Fellow of the Roots & Shoots program of the Jane Goodall Institute. Chase's work with the organization began in sixth grade and included spearheading a local "green hotels" campaign to urge hotels to become eco-friendly, organizing a biannual Main Street cleanup, starting a school recycling program, and traveling to Tanzania. Chase recently spoke at a UNESCO (United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization) conference on climate change in New York City and is promoting the ReBirth the Earth: Trees for Tomorrow youth campaign. Once his year as Roots & Shoots Youth Fellow is complete, Chase will attend St. Mary's College in Maryland.

12.12
Scot Anthony Robinson, Vision Warrior
Vision Warrior is a theatrical lecture presentation conceived and performed by film and television actor Scot Anthony Robinson. In the past 14 years, more than a million students, educators, young people and their families throughout the country have shared the inspirational experience of Vision Warrior. In a performance that is alternately raw, frightening, ironically funny but ultimately uplifting, Robinson engages the audience with a graphic tour that impacts and inspires; it is a universal message. Robinson is best known for his performances on television and films such as Malcolm X, Clockers and New York Undercover.