We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Martha Jean Lemon Distinguished Speaker will be Dina Gilio-Whitaker. Ms. Gilio-Whitaker will visit the OCU campus on Tuesday, Sept. 17. A student event will be held at 1 p.m. and a public talk will take place at 7 p.m. in the Petree Recital Hall.
Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) is a lecturer of American Indian Studies at California State University San Marcos and independent educator/advisor on Indigenous environmental issues. She is a sought-after speaker and has addressed and advised a wide array of academic disciplines and organizations in the realms of conservation, law, science, government, outdoor sports, and more. As a freelance journalist, her work has appeared in Indian Country Today, Los Angeles Times, High Country News, Sierra Magazine, Time.com, Slate, History.com, Bioneers, Truthout, the Pacifica Network, Grist, CSPAN Booktalk, The Boston Globe, and many more. She has won numerous awards for her writing, including awards from the Native American Journalists Association. Her research interests focus on Indigenous nationalism, self-determination, environmental justice, and education. For several years she was involved with Indigenous peoples’ participation in the United Nations arena.
In 2016 Dina published her first book along with coauthor Roxanne Dunbar-Ortez, “All the Real Indians Died Off” and 20 Other Myths About Native Americans. Her most recent book is the critically acclaimed and award-winning As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock. As Long as Grass Grows will be the focus of her public talk on September 17.
Visit Gilio-Whitaker - Authors Unbound to learn more about Ms. Gilio-Whitaker and her work.
The 2024 Martha Jean Lemon Distinguished Speaker event is supported by Bank of Oklahoma.
The Martha Jean Lemon Distinguished Speaker Series features annual events that enrich the academic environment for the University and the surrounding community. Programs may relate to the arts and sciences, business, dance and entertainment, law, music, nursing, theater or religious topics.
The lecture series is supported through an endowment gift from Lynette Lemon Wert and Larry H. Lemon in 2010 on behalf of the Lemon family of Oklahoma City, in honor of Martha Jean Lemon, who graduated from OCU in 1968 with a degree in history and worked as an independent comparative religion scholar.
This series continues OCU’S tradition of the Distinguished Speakers Series which has included speakers such as David Brooks, Marian Wright Edelman, Henry Louis Gates, Jane Goodall, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jonathan Kozol, Rabbi Harold Kushner, N. Scott Momaday, Bill Moyers, Sister Helen Prejean, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Andrew Weil, Fabian Cousteau, Reza Aslan, David Grann, and Matthew Desmond as well as Nobel Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Wangari Maathai and Jody Williams.
