Want to be happy?
An expert on personality and happiness — with local roots — is one of the speakers for this season’s San Joaquin Valley Town Hall lecture series.
He’s Edward Diener, psychology professor at University of Illinois, who attended San Joaquin Memorial High School in Fresno.
The annual series begins its 73rd season Oct. 14, with medical futurist Alan J. Russell. Other speakers will be PBS program host David Brancaccio, arts expert Robert Fitzpatrick, Fox television political analyst Juan Williams and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll.
The dates and lecturers:
Alan J. Russell, Oct. 14: He’s founder of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
Tabbed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of 500 people changing America, Russell is working on an artificial ovary so women with cancer may undergo radiation treatment and still be able to have children. He will speak on “Exploring Medical Frontiers.”
Edward Diener, Nov. 18: Diener’s recently published book, “Happiness: Unlocking the Mystery of Psychological Wealth,” was co-written with his son Robert and featured in Oprah Winfrey’s “O” magazine. He’ll talk about “Happiness and Complete Wealth.”
Seems fitting he is the Joseph R. Smiley Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois, doesn’t it?
David Brancaccio, Jan. 20: Brancaccio hosts “Now,” a PBS program that airs locally on KVPT (Channel 18.1).
Brancaccio’s talk, “Dissecting Economic Disaster,” will focus on economics and the lessons of the recession.
Robert Fitzpatrick, Feb. 17: His topic is “Passionate About the Arts.”
Fitzpatrick has been CEO of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, dean of the School of Arts at Columbia University, president of Euro Disney in France and director of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles.
He also oversaw the opening of the Haunch of Venison gallery in Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Juan Williams (March 17): He’s a regular panelist on the “Fox News Sunday” program, a senior correspondent for NPR and author of six books, including “My Soul Looks Back in Wonder.”
Williams’ topic will be “A Powerful Mix: Money, Race & Age.”
Steve Coll (April 21): He is president/CEO of New America Foundation and staff writer at The New Yorker magazine.
He won his first Pulitzer Prize, along with David Vise, in 1991 for explanatory journalism for a series about the SEC and Wall Street. His second Pulitzer was for general nonfiction in 2005 for “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.”
Coll will deliver the series’ Frances Ermoian Memorial Lecture on “The Changing World of Terrorism.”
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