Oberlin College and community enjoy a long, proud history of discussing important and compelling issues. To deepen that dialogue, over a decade ago the Office of the President inaugurated what is now the annual Oberlin Convocation Series that has brought to campus some of the country’s leading thinkers and most prominent figures in their fields. This year is no exception.

The first semester of the 2008-09 Oberlin Convocation Series will feature “An Evening with Stephen Sondheim & Frank Rich: In Conversation,” on Monday, September 8; Newt Gingrich, on Wednesday, September 24; and Michael Pollan on Tuesday, October 28, Each program will take place at 8 p.m. in Finney Chapel.

Sondheim has been described by New York Times op-ed columnist Rich as “the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theatre.” Sondheim’s scores include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, and Sweeney Todd.

As a columnist, Rich focuses on politics and popular culture.  The newspaper’s former chief theater critic, in May 2008, signed on as a creative consultant to help initiate and develop new programming for the pay-TV network HBO.

A prolific novelist and the coauthor of the Republican Party’s 1994 Contract with America, Gingrich was in the forefront of the Republicans’ dramatic success in the 1994 Congressional elections and subsequently served as Speaker of the House until resigning his seat in 1999.

The author of the best-seller, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan is a science journalist, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, and director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at University of California, Berkeley. His latest book is In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008).

> Read more about the 2008-09 Oberlin Convocation Series