Fall Speaker Series Brings Journalists, Policy Experts to Campus

Southgate University's President's Speaker Series concluded its fall lineup this week with a talk by Marguerite Voss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, who spoke to a packed audience in the Ainsworth Auditorium about the future of local news.

Earlier in the semester, the series hosted a former federal housing official who discussed affordable housing policy, and a climate scientist whose talk on freshwater ecosystems drew heavily from research on the nearby Cascade River.

The series, now in its ninth year, is organized by the Office of the President in partnership with the College of Arts & Sciences and is free and open to the public. Each talk is followed by a student Q&A session and a reception.

"We want students to encounter ideas and people they wouldn't otherwise meet," said President Marianne Okafor, who introduced each speaker personally this fall. The spring lineup will be announced in January.