Events
The hallmark of the Society's public visage is its Speaker Series, which draws distinguished individuals from myriad disciplines to address the Society and its guests each Friday evening during the fall and spring academic sessions. Noteworthy speakers over the years include Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, U.S. Senators John Warner and George Allen, Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, Vermont Governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean, Tom Clancy, William Faulkner, George Will, Ruth Westheimer, Antarctica explorer Roald Amundsen, Congressman Bob Barr, Colombian President Victor Mosquera Chaux, John Dos Passos, Avery Dulles, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart, Christina Hoff Sommers, Congressman Asa Hutchinson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson, Playwright and Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek Soong May-ling, Kenny Mayne, Sharon Olds, César Pelli, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and Edward Teller, inventor of the Hydrogen Bomb.
Each week, members of the Society engage in spirited debate on matters ranging from current events to philosophy and law to humorous topics. Members frequently present original works of Literature and Poetry or give readings of the works of other authors. Each semester, the Society holds a number of competitive Debate, Oratorical, and Literature events, and engages other organizations in friendly contests of debate or athletic skill. The Society hosts several formal events annually, including Wilson's Day, the Restoration Ball, and Founder's Day - first held in 1832.
Read more about this topic: Jefferson Literary And Debating Society
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“By the power elite, we refer to those political, economic, and military circles which as an intricate set of overlapping cliques share decisions having at least national consequences. In so far as national events are decided, the power elite are those who decide them.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)