Steven Galloway, author of the Freshman Reading Program novel “The Cellist of Sarajevo,” addressed the importance of the civilian narrative in times of war during a lecture in College Hall on Monday.

Student Union Treasury voted Tuesday night to allocate $92,350 for the College Democrats to bring vice-President Al Gore to campus. Student reactions to the decision are mixed. The vote in favor of funding Gore for that amount was 12-1 with two abstaining due to conflicts of interest.

More than a dozen student groups will spend the next two weeks vying for Student Union funding to bring speakers to campus. SU Treasury has more than $300,000 that it can spend on bringing proposed speakers including Al Gore, Fareed Zakaria, John Legend and Garry Kasparov to campus.

The 2011 fall assembly series will explore a broad range of topics and will feature philanthropists, lawyers, journalists, college professors and even comic-strip creators. The main focus of this fall’s assembly series is the human spirit.

Jimmy Wales spoke in Graham Chapel on Friday evening as the keynote speaker of the Global Leadership Conference. The speech was also part of the Assembly Series.

An expert on the Israeli economy explained how the small nation has grown into a leading economic power as part of the Assembly Series. Dan Senor, co-author of the bestseller “Start Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle” and adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, spoke Thursday in Graham Chapel.

The worldwide oppression of women is the greatest moral issue of the 21st century, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof told a packed Graham Chapel Monday afternoon.

This semester’s Assembly Series speakers are described in detail.

With his hands resting on his legs while sitting onstage in a high-set chair, Matisyahu commanded his quietly captivated listeners Thursday with the performance of three serenely delivered acoustic songs in a blend of words, hums, beatboxing and other sounds.

Reggae musician and Hasidic Jew Matisyahu spoke in Graham Chapel this Thursday, March 18th. He interspersed an unscripted question and answer session with acoustic performances of a number of songs, accompanied on guitar by Wash. U. alumnus Adam Weinberg.