Web Master When the Assembly Series first began in 1953, some of the first lectures covered topics like “Human Intelligence and the Flying Saucer” and communism in China and Russia. In the past few years, Washington University has welcomed the likes of Dr. Ruth and Spike Lee.
My how times have changed.
Like a laundry list of American intellectualism, the Assembly Series has hosted political, social, and religious celebrities like Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Kurt Vonnegut, and Madeline Albright. The Series has featured former presidents and first ladies, future vice presidents, and political candidates from all walks of life. It has featured poets, novelists, playwrights, and journalists. It has featured sports announcers, opera singers, and sex therapists. And don’t forget Maya Angelou and the Dalai Lama.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the incredibly unique Assembly Series, a school-sponsored weekly lecture series that has continuously brought the brightest of the bright for half a century.
“I don’t know of a similar program at any other university,” says Carole Prietto, university archivist. Prietto’s task is to oversee the volumes of archived cassette and reel-to-reel tapes from 50 years of lectures – and almost each lecture is recorded. The manual of the
Assembly Series lectures, with a few non-Series lectures, dating to 1991 is 129 pages long.
Reading the list of past speakers is like looking at an American history book. Some speakers were famous
for their endeavors when they were invited, while some were just beginning to make their marks, and others were barely on the map.
“What’s really neat about the Assembly Series,” says Prietto, “is that the Assembly Series is a Who’s Who of American life.”
A Look Back
Social change is easily tracked in the Series. The civil rights movement and racism was, and is, a prevalent topic in the Series. Speeches stretched from a young Julian Bond’s passionate 1969 indictment of the country’s racial situation, Channing Phillips’ “Black Responsibility, Black Protest, Black Involvement” lecture that same year, and Olympian Jesse Owens’ 1957 “This Land of Opportunity” to Henry Hampton’s 1988 recollection of his filming “Eyes on the Prize,” and Louis Farrakhan’s 1983 and 1976 lectures.
The women’s movement has been a common theme as well. Feminist author Susan Faludi spoke in 1994 and again in 2000, and Sandra Day O’Connor in 1990, long after Eleanor Maccoby’s 1976 “Sex Differences” lecture, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 1979 speech, and Gloria Steinem’s 1986 speech.
In retrospect, some Assembly Series topics seem almost humorous for how much the world has changed since. A 1952 lecture on the use of carbon dating in archeology is an anachronism now that the technique is commonplace. In the 1960’s, speakers confronted the American space program with “Race to the Moon” and
“Role of Man in Space.”
But some things never change. Lectures on Israeli-Palestine are still as common as they were in preceding decades, and debates on religion continue.
Choosing a speaker
Barbara Rea, director of major events and special projects, including the Assembly Series, says the Series is “a good complement to the curriculum,” which is one of the goals for the lectures. Chosen speakers must also enhance campus life and be distinguished in their fields, says Rea.
Those involved with the Series have taken some heat over the years for their choices of speakers. Members of The Washington Witness were angered by the University’s invitation to Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a sex educator, in the fall of 2000.
Rea defends the decision to invite Dr. Ruth, as with other controversial speakers, by stating that there was high demand for her lecture. Those on the 13-member Assembly Series committee felt that Dr. Ruth would enhance campus life by catering her speech to those interested students while also serving as an expert in her field, said Rea. Thus, she met the requirements for a Series speaker.
“The committee brought Dr. Ruth because there was just an overwhelming interest from the students, and the dean of students, and there was money coming from that area. They wanted her, so why wouldn’t we have her?” said Rea.