RCLA Town Hall 2019 Lecture Series Welcomes Notable Speakers

James Comey, Caroline Kennedy and Shaquille O’Neal Among Notable Speakers
at RCLA Town Hall 2019 Lecture Series

Former FBI Director James Comey, Caroline Kennedy and NBA star and media personality Shaquille O’Neal are among the five distinguished speakers who will appear at the 2019 Ringling College Library Association Town Hall Lecture Series.
“From politics to technology to athletics, our speakers for the 39th annual lecture series will deliver their insights on timely national and global issues,” said Mitzie Henson, chair, Town Hall Lecture Series 2019, which is presented by the Ringling College Library Association (RCLA) in Sarasota.
Subscription tickets for RCLA members for the 2019 series went on sale May 1, according to Stephanie Grosskreutz, RCLA executive director. “Since launching our annual lecture series, our association has committed to more than $11 million for student scholarships and the support of the Alfred R. Goldstein Library, which opened in 2017 at the Ringling College of Art and Design.
“We serve as a catalyst for the educational growth of students, faculty and the community,” Grosskreutz added. “Our Town Hall Lecture Series and the ongoing support of our members make it possible for talented students with limited financial means to attend Ringling, while supporting the ongoing needs of our library.”
RCLA’S 2019 Town Hall Lecture Series will begin on Monday, January 21, with a talk by O’Neal, a revered cultural icon and one of the nation’s most influential athletes according to Forbes magazine. During his nearly two-decade career in the National Basketball Association, “Shaq’ was a four-time NBA champion, 15-time NBA All Star and three-time NBA Finals MVP. Currently an analyst on TNT’s Emmy-award winning show, “Inside the NBA,” O’Neal has managed an increasingly robust personal brand, including television shows, a shoe line and social media/tech products.
On Monday, February 4, Comey will speak on his service as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2013 to 2017. During that period, Comey oversaw the federal response to the mass shootings in San Bernardino in 2015 and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando the following June, at the time the deadliest in the country’s history. Before joining the FBI, Comey worked as a federal prosecutor in New York and Virginia. Comey is now the 2017–2018 Gwendolyn S. and Colbert I. King Endowed Chair in Public Policy at Howard University.
Jimmy Wales, technology visionary and founder of Wikipedia will speak on Monday, February 18. An entrepreneur who established the free collaborative online encyclopedia, Wales is also the founder of WikiTribune, a groundbreaking ad-free news platform that produces evidence-based journalism, and co-founder of Wikia, a privately owned free web hosting service. The success of Wikipedia has helped popularize a trend in web development that aims to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users. Wales is a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and a board member of Socialtext, a provider of wiki technology to businesses and the non-profit organization Creative Commons.
Caroline Kennedy, an attorney who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, will speak on Monday, March 4. During her tenure she helped realize the United States military’s return of land on Okinawa to the Japanese government, and President Obama’s historic visit to Hiroshima. She is the author or editor of eleven New York Times best-selling books on law, civics, and poetry, and serves as the honorary president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and honorary chair of the Senior Advisory Committee of the Harvard University Institute of Politics.
Wrapping up the 2019 series on Thursday, April 11, Ian Bremmer will discuss global trends and issues. Dubbed the “rising guru” in the field of political risk by The Economist, Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a leading global political risk research and consulting firm. He is also the foreign affairs columnist and editor at large for Time magazine, and author of the 2015 book, “Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World.” His latest book, Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism will be published in April, 2018.
All five lectures will be presented at Van Wezel Performing Arts Center, 777 North Tamiami Trail in Sarasota. Morning lectures begin at 10:30 a.m. and evening talks begin at 7:30 p.m. Call 941-309-5100 to become an RCLA member and subscribe to the 2019 Town Hall Lecture Series. Learn more by going online to www.rclassociation.org.