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Naomi Tutu to give first Women and Leadership Lecture

Naomi Tutu will be the first speaker in the Dr. Lila C. Murphy ‘52 Women and Leadership Lecture Series, Monday, October 25, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mabel Brown Room in the Young Student Center at Keene State College.

Tutu is the third child of Archbishop Desmond and Nomalizo Leah Tutu. She was born in South Africa and has also lived in Lesotho, the United Kingdom and the United States. She was educated in Swaziland, the U.S. and England, and has divided her adult life between South Africa and the U.S.

Her professional experience includes work as a development consultant in West Africa and being program coordinator for programs on Race and Gender and Gender-based Violence in Education at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. Ms. Tutu has taught at the Universities of Hartford and Connecticut and Brevard College in North Carolina.

She began public speaking as a college student at Berea College in Kentucky in the 1970s, when she was invited to speak at churches, community groups and colleges and universities about her experiences growing up in apartheid South Africa. Since that time, she has become a much sought-after speaker to groups as varied as business associations, professional conferences, elected officials and church and civic organizations. She and Rose Bator also lead women’s retreats through their organization Sister Sojourner. They are also writing a book provisionally titled I Don’t Think of You as Black: Honest Conversations on Race and Racism.

In addition to speaking, Ms. Tutu is a consultant to two organizations which reflect the breadth of her involvement in issues of human rights: The Spiritual Alliance to Stop Intimate Violence (SAIV), founded by renowned author Riane Eisler and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Betty Williams, and the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa (FHSSA).

Ms. Tutu is a single mother of three and currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Dr. Lila C. Murphy was a Hillsboro native who earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Keene State College. She went on to be a teacher, an employee of the NH State Department of Education, and Professor and Chair of the Department of Individual and Family Studies, College of Human Resources, University of Delaware. While chair, she was responsible for the development of a doctoral program in Family Studies, the first Ph.D. program at the college. Her teaching, research and consulting interests focused on women and leadership, and women and work issues. Her many awards included an Outstanding Alumni Award from Keene State College and the E. Arthur Trabant for Women’s Equality at the University of Delaware. Murphy’s family established the Lila C. Murphy ‘52 Women and Leadership Lecture Series in 2010 to honor her and carry on the work that was so important to her.

This event is free and open to the public. To request accommodations for a disability, please contact Dottie Morris at 603-358-2206.

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