Margot Lee Shetterly, author of "Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race," will give the 2017 Mills Distinguished Lecture at 7 p.m. Sept. 25 in the Alumni Field House.
The lecture is free and open to the public, and tickets can be reserved here.
The book, which is SUNY Oneonta's 2017-18 Common Read selection, tracks the careers of three African American female mathematicians who worked behind the scenes at NASA and its predecessor the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics doing complex mathematical calculations. As computers improved, these women became computer programmers and engineers while the space program moved forward toward human flight in the early 1960s. "Hidden Figures" was the basis for the Oscar-nominated film of the same name.
SUNY Oneonta's Common Read advances diversity by encouraging students to examine and better understand topics such as equity, inclusion, and personal history through many lenses. It aims to further infuse cultural literacy into our academic program by asking all incoming freshmen to read a diversity-related book, which then is discussed in fall courses across several disciplines.
The Mills Distinguished Lectureship is named to honor the memory of Professor Albert Mills and his wife, Helena. Their bequest to the College at Oneonta Foundation led to the establishment in 1988 of a fund to bring prominent speakers to our campus.