The Scholarship and Creative Arts Day (SCAD) keynote speaker has been announced. This year’s speaker is filmmaker and environmental activist Josh Fox, who is best known as the director of the Oscar-nominated HBO documentary “Gasland.”
The keynote speaker was chosen by a group made up of faculty members and students known as the SCAD Committee.
The chair of the committee, Brian Newsome, associate professor of history, was delighted when Fox was officially booked to be the keynote speaker last summer. “He was our first choice so we are excited that we got him,” Newsome said. “He is someone of national prominence. This has become an important day in the Etown community as it highlights student scholarship. It is the best of the best of what Etown has to offer academically and artistically.”
Fox will give the keynote address from 3:00-4:30 p.m. in Leffler Chapel and performance center on April 23. Then Fox will eat dinner with students that are selected by the leaders of the Open Book discussion groups. Later, Fox’s documentary, “Gasland,” will be shown in Leffler Chapel at 7:30 p.m.
Last year, the committee began to correlate their guest speaker with the Open Book program. They wanted a speaker who would tie in with this year’s open book, “End of Country” by Seamus McGraw.
Dr. Newsome encourages the Etown community and people from surrounding areas to attend this year’s SCAD and see keynote speaker Fox speak on this pressing environmental issue.