September 14, 2009

Neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson opens 2009 MSE Symposium

Benjamin Carson will lead off the university's annual Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 15

Pediatric neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson will lead off the university’s annual Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 15, in Homewood’s Shriver Hall Auditorium. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., and a reception in the Clipper Room follows the talk.

Carson’s lecture is the first of six events making up this year’s symposium, A Transition Between Generations in a Changing America. Also scheduled are journalist, author and pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell, Tuesday, Oct. 6; attorney and health care advocate Elizabeth Edwards, Wednesday, Oct. 21; a discussion on the role and future of young people in public service, with Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele and Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), the youngest member of Congress, Thursday, Nov. 5; actor, director and Academy Award – nominated producer Sean Astin, Tuesday, Nov. 17; and Johns Hopkins President Ronald J. Daniels, Tuesday, Dec. 1. All lectures are at 8 p.m. in Shriver Hall Auditorium; each lasts approximately 45 minutes and is followed by a question-and-answer period and a reception with the speaker.

Established in 1967 to honor the university’s eighth president, the MSE Symposium is an undergraduate-run lecture series that brings to campus renowned speakers with a variety of perspectives on issues of national importance.

This year’s co-chairs, all seniors, are Danielle Fair, an economics major from Doylestown, Pa.; Michelle Harran, a biomedical engineering major from Neptune City, N.J.; and Daniel Ingram, a political science major from Scotch Plains, N.J.

The chairs receive some funding from Student Council and raise the balance from university departments, corporations, foundations and other sources, including, this year, the city’s Free Fall Baltimore program. The students are also responsible for everything else, a daunting array of tasks that includes booking auditoriums; arranging for hotels, dinners and receptions for the guests; securing the sound system; and publicizing the series.

Carson, the first speaker, majored in psychology at Yale, graduated from the University of Michigan School of Medicine and completed both his internship in general surgery and residency in neurological surgery at Johns Hopkins. In addition, he served as senior registrar in neurosurgery at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Queen Elizabeth II Medical Center in Western Australia.

Now the long-standing director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, Carson focuses on traumatic brain injuries, brain and spinal cord tumors, achondroplasia, neurological and congenital disorders, craniosynostosis, epilepsy and trigeminal neuralgia. He is also interested in maximizing the intellectual potential of every child and devotes time to speaking to young people about how he himself learned the value of education. Carson is the author of three best-selling books as well as more than 100 neurosurgical publications and has been awarded 38 honorary doctorates and dozens of national merit citations.

The students are selling $60 season passes that will secure seating near the stage. To purchase a season pass, send a check payable to JHU Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium with the name and e-mail address of the pass holder to Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium, 210 Mattin Center, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218.
For more information, go to www.jhu.edu/mse.