Frizzell Learning & Speaker Series

Established in 2013 thanks to a generous gift to The College in commemoration of the life, accomplishments, and aspirations of Alexandra Frizzell, the Frizzell Family Speaker and Learning Series is a student-organized program of events in agriculture, environment, and health from the perspective of the social sciences.

A young woman whose boundless curiosity about the world fueled audacious learning and strong ties to friends and family alike, Alex exemplified the undergraduate for whom wisdom builds upon intelligence. For her, life knowledge, the inspiration of community, and enhancing the chances of others fueled commitment to learning, as well as joy in life. The goal of the series is therefore to better enable students to interact with thought leaders, relevant alumni, faculty, and locally based advocates to build skills, knowledge, and confidence in relation to the above topics.

For the most up to date information on Frizzell Series and other CEGU Events, please visit our events page. Recent events have included:

• Weather Report, a series launched in January 2024 by CEGU faculty Alexander Arroyo and Mary Beth Pudup intended to establish a forum for student-driven conversations that grapple with the climate and nature emergency as it happens. Students discuss root causes of climate emergencies, map efforts underway to address those causes and finally and urgently, imagine alternative futures.
• Stormy Weather: The Future of Cities and the Challenge of Participatory Democracy, a lecture by New York Times Architecture Critic Michael Kimmelman on the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, obstacles to addressing homelessness, and challenges to the construction of subsidized housing around the country. The following day, Kimmelman attended a small-group lunch with student writers, editors, and designers from Expositions Magazine and presented an evening book talk on The Intimate City: Walking New York.
• Property, Personhood, and Police: Racial Banishment in Postcolonial Los Angeles, a virtual presentation by UCLA Professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare, and Geography Ananya Roy. Roy is inaugural Director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA, which promotes research and scholarship concerned with displacement and dispossession in Los Angeles and and seeks to build power to make social change. Her research and scholarship focuses on urban transformations and land grabs in the global South as well as on global capital and predatory financialization.