In observance of the university’s 227th anniversary, Betty Jean Craige, retired University Professor of Comparative Literature and former director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, will present the 10th annual Founders Day Lecture on Jan. 27 at 2 p.m. in the Chapel.
Craige’s talk, “We Are All Part of the Tangled Bank,” focuses on the connectedness of university life. It is open free to the public.
“At the end of the Origin of Species, Darwin used a tangled bank—of plants, birds, insects and worms—as a metaphor for the interactivity of organisms in evolution,” Craige said. “So I’m using Darwin’s beautiful paragraph as a metaphor for the interactivity of scholars across disciplines in the intellectual life of a great research university.”
The student response will be given by Waring “Buck” Trible, a Foundation Fellow majoring in ecology and entomology.
The Founders Day Lecture recognizes the date UGA was established in 1785, when the Georgia General Assembly adopted a charter creating the university as the country’s first state-chartered institution of higher education.
The event is sponsored by the University of Georgia Alumni Association and the Emeriti Scholars, a group of retired faculty members known for their teaching abilities who continue to be involved in the university’s academic life through part-time teaching, research and service assignments.
The Student Alumni Association also is sponsoring several free events leading up the lecture as part of Founders Week. The events include a T-shirt giveaway at 10 a.m. Jan. 23 at the Abraham Baldwin Statue; a button giveaway at 10 a.m. Jan. 24 at the Zell B. Miller Student Learning Center; a cupcake giveaway at
8 a.m. Jan. 26 at Snelling -Dining Commons; and the birthday surprise at noon Jan. 27 at the Tate Student Center.