Â鶹ÊÓƵ

J.C. Watts, former Republican congressman from Oklahoma and a commentator and strategist, will hold a question-and-answer session at 11 a.m. today in Whitley Auditorium. Watts is visiting campus as the seventh Isabella Cannon Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership. He delivered a public lecture last night in McCrary Theatre.

NPR correspondent Rob Gifford, author of Â鶹ÊÓƵ's 2010-11 Common Reading selection China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power, will speak Tuesday night for the Common Reading Lecture. The book describes Gifford's 3,000-mile journey across Route 312 from Shanghai to China's western border with Kazakhstan.

Annie Leonard, the activist behind the short film “The Story of Stuff,” comes to Â鶹ÊÓƵ for an April 22 evening lecture on the costs associated with the nation’s consumer-driven culture. Leonard’s appearance in McKinnon Hall, which is free and open to the public, coincides with Earth Day 2010.

A report that clarifies the mission of the Multicultural Center, to build on its strengths and reflect an expanded role for diversity education activities, is now available online for students, faculty, staff and other members of the Â鶹ÊÓƵ community to read.

Â鶹ÊÓƵ will present a second concert with this summer's Eastern Music Festival on Monday, July 13, when guest conductor Chelsea Tipton leads EMF's two student orchestras in a lively pops concert on the lawn Under the Oaks. The music begins at 7:30 p.m.

Jeffrey D. Clark, whose career has taken him to theatre companies in Massachusetts, Missouri and North Carolina, has been named the new executive director of cultural and special programs at Â鶹ÊÓƵ.

Academic leader and celebrated scholar Hanna Holborn Gray discussed the historical evolution of universities and the role of foundational liberal arts studies in the annual James P. Elder lecture on April 16.

Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree Hanna Holborn Gray, who served as president of the University Chicago and as provost and acting president at Yale University, will give the James P. Elder Lecture at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, April 16 in Whitley Auditorium. Gray's talk is titled "Education and Utopia."