Seminole State College Speaker Series
Each year, the Seminole State Speaker Series welcomes speakers representing diverse views and interests. Planning is underway for the 2021-22 academic year speakers.
All events are free and open to the public. To request accessibility accommodations, please email Disability Support Services
The views expressed by these speakers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Seminole State College of Florida, its Board of Trustees, employees, students, alumni or partners.
Seminole State's Speaker Series is co-sponsored by Addition Financial. For more information, please call 407.708.2776. To view a list of previous speakers at Seminole State, visit seminolestate.edu/community/speakers.
Dr. Robert Kopp, Climate and sea-level scientist and climate policy scholar at Rutgers University’s
Institute of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences
- When: Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 7:00 p.m. virtually via Zoom webinar. (Zoom room opens at 6:45 p.m.)
- Topic: Confronting Coastal Risk in an Age of Rising Sea Levels
The rate of global sea-level rise today is roughly three times the average rate over the last century, which was itself already the fastest rate in at least three millennia. What's driving this sea-level rise? What can science say about sea-level rise over the coming decades and centuries? And how can society manage the risks these changes are creating?
Dr. Robert Kopp is a climate scientist who serves at Rutgers University as a Professor in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences and as Co-Director of the University Office of Climate Action. His research focuses on past and future sea-level change, the interactions between physical climate change and the economy, and the use of climate risk information in decision-making. He is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report and a director of the Climate Impact Lab. He also directs the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub, a National Science Foundation-funded consortium that advances coastal climate adaptation and the scientific understanding of natural and human coastal climate dynamics.
A Q&A session will follow the presentation.
ZORA!® Festival
For a third year the Seminole State Speaker Series will partner with the 33rd Annual Zora Neale Hurston™ Festival of the Arts and Humanities (ZORA!® Festival), for a presentation in late January 2022. Check back for updates.
- When: January 2022
- Topic: TBD
Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist, Acclaimed Filmmaker, and Immigration Advocate
- When: Thursday, September 16, 2021
- Topic: An Evening with Jose Antonio Vargas, author of
Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen
Born in the Philippines, at age 16, journalist and filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas found out he was in the United States illegally. In 2011, the New York Times Magazine published a groundbreaking essay he wrote in which he revealed and chronicled his life in America as an undocumented immigrant. Author of Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, Jose Antonio Vargas will shared his personal story during his presentation, with a Q&A session. Vargas is the founder of Define American, a non-profit media and culture change organization that uses the power of narrative to humanize conversations about immigrants. Passionate about the role of arts in society and promoting equity in education, he serves on the advisory board of TheDream.US, a scholarship fund for undocumented immigrant students.