Two more individuals with diverse accomplishments will share aspects of their viewpoints, projects, and lives with the Tri-State University community as part of TSU’s Distinguished Speaker series. The series of one-hour presentations will take place in Fabiani Theatre in the new University Center and Center for Technology and Online Resources at 7 p.m.

The management of corporations in crisis was the first subject in the series, which began Monday, Sept. 24, when Peter Kurzina, a senior lecturer with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Entrepreneurship Center, delivered “Anatomy of a Corporate Turn-Around.”

Joe Kernan, former Indiana governor, visited TSU on Monday, Oct. 15, to present “Play Ball!,” which drew an analogy between baseball and public service. Kernan was elected mayor of South Bend, Ind., in 1987, 1991, and 1995. In 1996, he was elected Indiana’s lieutenant governor, and then re-elected in 2000. He became Indiana’s governor on Sept. 13, 2003, upon the death of the incumbent governor, Frank O’Bannon. He now heads a group of 40 investors who purchased the Midwest League Class A South Bend Silver Hawks baseball team in 2005.

Poet, novelist, attorney, scholar, and northeast Indiana native Robert Ely will share some views on language and globalism as a traveling scholar for the Fulbright Foundation, among other esteemed organizations, when he visits TSU to present “Language and a Nostalgia for World Culture” on Feb. 18, 2008.

Ely is an associate professor of English at Alabama State University and the author of “Hallelujah, Alabama!,” a novel satirizing contemporary Southern politics and culture; a book of children’s verse, “Mose T’s Slapout Family Album;” a book of poetry, “Encanchata;” and a textbook, “The Humanities: A Cross-Cultural Approach.” He is an attorney in private practice and has published articles and developed curricula as a scholar supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the Mobil Foundation, the Luce Foundation, and others. A Fellow of the East-West Center, his studies have taken him to Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, throughout England, Ireland, Europe, and elsewhere. Ely’s roots connect him deeply to the northeast corner of the Hoosier state. He is a graduate of Ashley High School, where he studied English under the tutelage of one-time TSU treasurer, Merritt Boyer.

On March 17, 2008, writer Rachel Lapp and her mother, Anita Stalter, academic dean and vice president for academic affairs at Goshen College, will discuss their book, “More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Indiana Women.”

After reading through journals, letters, newspaper accounts and other narratives, the pair chose 10 early Hoosier women who have impacted history, and summed up their lives in 3,000 words or less. The authors’ goal was “to see where Indiana women in history have been role models…(and) bring voices to women who haven’t been included in that fourth-grade social studies class,” Lapp said. Among those are Madame C.J. Walker, whose parents once were slaves, who educated herself and became a millionaire after launching her hair-product business. Another, Rhoda Johnson Coffin, the daughter of Quakers, advocated for the poor and mentally ill and helped establish the first women’s prison in the state.