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NEWS RELEASE
Communications and Marketing Office
600 S. Clyde Morris Blvd.
Daytona Beach, FL 32114-3900
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For more information, contact:
Phone: 386-226-6157
Fax: 386-226-6158
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Embry-Riddle Speakers to Cover Tuskegee Airmen, Lord of the Rings, Social Security Reform, Flu Epidemics, and the Slave Trade
Daytona Beach, Fla., Sept. 6, 2005 -- This fall, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University brings a Tuskegee Airman-turned-venture capitalist, a world-famous expert on J.R.R. Tolkien, a prominent authority on Social Security, a medical specialist in flu epidemics, and a historian of the slave trade and emancipation to the podium for its 2005-2006 Honors Program Distinguished Speaker Series.
 On Monday, Sept. 26, Lee Archer will give “An Anecdotal History of the U.S. Air Force.” Born and raised in Harlem, N.Y., Archer was one of the most legendary fighter pilots among the Tuskegee Airmen, earning the title “Ace Fighter” after shooting down at least five German fighter aircraft during World War II. After his military service, he became CEO of General Foods’ investment companies Vanguard Capital Corp., North Street Capital Corp., and Hudson Commercial Corp. In those roles, he helped create 74 companies, including Essence Communications and Black Enterprise magazine. He remains active as a board member of Beatrice Foods and is a consultant to universities and humanitarian organizations. In his talk, Archer reflects on his personal experiences in the Air Force that led to his later successes in business and life.
 On Wednesday, Nov. 9, Thomas Shippey will speak on “Wisdom and the Wise in The Lord of the Rings.” When movie director Peter Jackson needed an expert to teach the cast of The Lord of the Rings how to pronounce all the words of the Elven languages, he turned to Thomas Shippey, the only man who could help. Shippey is a well-known scholar and philologist and the world’s foremost expert on J.R.R. Tolkein, author of The Lord of the Rings. The professor at St. Louis University grew up near Tolkien’s home, attended school where he had gone, and played soccer on the same team he had played for. Later he taught briefly with Tolkien at Oxford University and inherited his faculty position at the University of Leeds in England.
 On Thursday, Dec. 1, Edward Berkowitz will discuss “The Current ‘Crisis’ in Social Security: A Historical Perspective.” Berkowitz, chairman and professor of history at George Washington University, is recognized as the nation’s foremost authority on the history of the Social Security program. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including America’s Welfare State: From Roosevelt to Reagan and Social Security and Medicare: A Policy Primer. He testified on Social Security and related SSI disability programs in 2000 before the House Subcommittee on Social Security, and last March he was featured on NPR’s “Fresh Air” interview hour with Terry Gross. In his talk, Berkowitz questions President George Bush’s approach to Social Security reform and challenges popular assumptions about the program’s “endangered status.”
 On Tuesday, Jan. 24, Edward Belongia will speak on “Influenza in the 21st Century: Back to the Future?” Belongia is director of the Epidemiology Research Center at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Marshfield, Wis., one of the nation’s leading clinics and medical research institutes. He received a grant of over $1 million this year from the Centers for Disease Control to conduct a “rapid analysis of influenza vaccine effectiveness.” He is the author of dozens of articles and serves as a juror for the American Journal of Public Health and other publications. In his talk, Belongia discusses the great flu pandemics of the past, the efficacy of flu vaccines, and the future of the virus.
 On Monday, Feb. 6, Seymour Drescher will address “The Slave Trade and the Holocaust: A Fruitful Comparison.” Drescher is professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of numerous articles on the history of slavery. He is the recipient of the 2003 Frederick Douglass Book Prize for his book The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor Versus Slavery in British Emancipation. “It is important to note that liberty and material sufficiency and affluence don’t always go together,” said Drescher about the decision by the British in 1833 to abolish slavery. “You have to have an ultimate faith that if you do things that favor human freedom and liberty, in the long run it will work out.” His other books include From Slavery to Freedom, Capitalism and Antislavery, Econocide, Dilemmas of Democracy, and Tocqueville and England. Drescher’s lecture coincides with Black History Month.
All events are scheduled at 7 p.m. in the Gale Lemerand Auditorium, Willie Miller Instructional Center, at Embry-Riddle, located at 600 S. Clyde Morris Blvd., Daytona Beach, Fla. The lectures are free and open to the public.
Embry-Riddle, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, offers more than 30 degree programs in its colleges of Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Engineering and meets the needs of students and industry through its educational, training, research, and consulting activities. Embry-Riddle educates more than 30,000 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs at residential campuses in Prescott, Ariz., and Daytona Beach, Fla., through the Extended Campus at more than 130 teaching centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, and through distance learning.
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