Photo Courtesy of Emporia State's Honors College
This year’s annual Bonner and Bonner Diversity Lecture is to feature education revolutionary Steve Perry. Perry is “the voice of a generation, a people’s champion who has been fighting for disadvantaged children and families for 30 years,” according to drsteveperry.org.
“I think people will get some new ideas and we’re not presenting this as, ‘he has the answer to everything,’” said Gary Wyatt, director of the Honors College, assistant provost and professor of sociology, anthropology and crime and delinquency studies. “Some of what he says people will disagree with and that’s just fine. He does a good job of starting a conversation, of raising issues that people need to discuss and debate and hopefully help us maybe see some alternatives we’ve never seen before.”
The Bonner and Bonner lecture series has been on campus for many years and has just recently come under the direction of the Honors College.
“We try to bring in people who reflect a variety of different perspectives, but the common theme here is people who have engaged with others to make progress on difficult issues,” Wyatt said. “This is the second year that the Honors College has sponsored the series. Last year was Dr. Freeman Lebowski and this year Dr. Steve Perry. So far by chance there has just been an education reform theme among both.”
A committee made of six people from across the campus meet to discuss and vote on the guest speaker each year.
“I have confidence that he will be a good speaker,” said Nick Sumner, vice president of the Honors College and senior information systems major. “From my understanding, he holds opinions that may be viewed controversially by many and I think that is a really good thing as I believe that by exposing ourselves to varying viewpoints we better understand our own positions on a subject.”
Perry’s commitment to excellence began when he was the principal of Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, CT.
“What a magnet school is going to do is, as the word magnet implies, there is going to be something they (students) specialize in that will attract people to that school and it’ll be such that it will attract people in a broad area,” Wyatt said. “With that in mind you then have that unique theme to the school that makes it special. That’s what the first school Dr. Perry established was. The theme is the unusual educational, out-of-the-box educational experience that has proven to be successful among low income students and helped them achieve their potential.”
Perry has written several books and has been featured on MSNBC, Fox, CNN, Al Jazeera, TV One, BET and NBC as well as on the Oprah Winfrey network in multiple shows, according to drsteveperry.org.
“The most important thing that participants can get from any speaker is simply the ability to engage with a different perspective on an issue,” Sumner said. “Exposing ourselves to different perspectives is an extremely important part of developing our own position on an issue.”
The Bonner and Bonner lecture with Dr. Steve Perry will take place at 7:00 p.m. today in Albert Taylor Hall. Tickets are required to enter and are free to get from the Memorial Union ticketing office.
Following the lecture there will be a question and answer session and a book signing.