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Neil deGrasse Tyson to be next Sacerdote Great Names Speaker

By Brian Sobotko '16

Neil deGrasse Tyson, renowned astrophysicist, will be the next speaker in the Hamilton College Sacerdote Great Names Series. Tyson will speak on Tuesday, Apr. 12, at 7 p.m. in the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House. Tyson will be the first scientist to speak in the lecture series’ twenty-year history. He will give an interactive presentation, followed by an open question and answer period.

Tyson is currently the fifth head of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Last year, he served as executive editor and host for the television series Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey. The show, which ran thirteen episodes on FOX, won four Emmy awards.

School officials tout the selection of Tyson as someone who is at the top of his field and will excite the campus community. A group of faculty had been lobbying for Tyson to speak at the College and his selection broadens the series in a way school officials have long aimed.

The selection committee, led by Interim Senior Associate Dean of Students Lisa Magnarelli ’96, notes they must balance competing interests when deciding on speakers to bring.

“For every person who says bring a politician, someone else says you should never have a politician for this series again,” Magnarelli explained.

While Magnarelli notes that Tyson may not have the same universal name recognition as previous speakers, she notes that he is “everywhere right now.” In addition to his role on Cosmos, Tyson is a frequent guest on Bill Maher’s show and made multiple appearances on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s old shows.

Tyson, born and raised in New York City, received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia. Tyson has combined a successful professional career with a persona as a public intellectual, authoring books such as Death By Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries and The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet. In 2001, Tyson was appointed by President Bush to serve on a 12-member commission that studied the future of the US Aerospace Industry. He was later appointed by Bush to serve on the “Moon, Mars, and Beyond” commission. In 2006, Tyson was appointed to serve on NASA’s prestigious Advisory Council.

Former New York Yankee captain Derek Jeter spoke in the 2014 edition of the series and was the first athlete. There have been 22 total speakers in the series including two events that had two speakers each. Of those 22, eight have been American political office holders including four former secretaries of state (Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell) and two former presidents (Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter).

Moving forward, the selection committee, led by Magnarelli but comprised of some of the College’s top officials, hopes to continue to bring diverse and noteworthy figures. The school must deal with the schedules of the figures they seek. One name on the list this year was Malala Yousafzai, a 2014 Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Yousafzai, however, will not be speaking in the United States this year.Magnarelli also identified President Obama as a dream speaker she hopes to secure over the next few years. 

Magnarelli indicated that Tyson’s interactive presentation, including a PowerPoint, will be a similar style event to Al Gore’s 2007 version of the series. Following the presentation, Tyson will participate in an open question and answer period. The questions will not be pre-screened.

The College will release more information on the specifics of the event, including information on ticketing and group reservations at the beginning of next year.

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