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Zoe Kolenovsky
Staff writer

Pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk has developed a warm relationship with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra during the last 17 years of guest appearances. 

“Playing with the Chautauqua Symphony is like playing with family members by now,” he said. “It’s really the most endearing, warm experience every time.”

In his second and final appearance on the Amphitheater stage this season, Gavrylyuk will be closing out his stay with a solo recital at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amp.

“I’m very happy to be back every year, very happy to be part of the Chautauqua society,” said Gavrylyuk, artist-in-residence and artistic adviser for the School of Music’s Piano Program.

When at Chautauqua, Gavrylyuk works closely with Program Chair Nikki Melville, a relationship that has flourished over the years.

“He’s just an outstanding role model for the students in terms of somebody that is a fabulous player, a famous player and a fabulous teacher,” she said.

His technical skills will be on display for the Chautauqua community this evening, with a performance that begins with Franz Joseph Haydn’s Sonata No. 47 in B Minor, Op. 14, No. 6.

“This is a very theatrical work. It’s quite bright in terms of its range of expressions,” said Gavrylyuk. “There’s all kinds of operatic drama and expressions of joy and passion and purity, and lots of humor as well.”

This will be followed by a series of Chopin’s greatest works: two Etudes and his Fantasie in F Minor.

Gavrylyuk said Fantasie is “very wise in a way because it’s already Opus 39. So he was quite a bit older at that stage compared to the Etudes, which were written in Opus 10.”

The piece is very intense thematically, with Gavrylyuk describing it as bittersweet.

“We hear these joyful moments of an absolutely outgoing sense of joy and love, and also at the same time there’s tormented feelings of this piece as well. There’s sort of a sense of fate above all of those,” he said.

That concludes the first half of the concert, which will continue after an intermission with the full selection of movements from Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

“It’s a work which really explores human expression in such a variety of characters, of tone, colors, and visions,” Gavrylyuk said.

While the audience is most likely to be familiar with the final movement, “The Great Gate of Kiev,” Gavrylyuk said each of the work’s elements is engaging.

“It’s so powerful; there are so many fireworks in there,” he said.

Gavrylyuk is internationally renowned for his performances in concert, having performed as a soloist and with orchestras to critical acclaim. The Ukrainian pianist began his studies at age 7 in Australia, where he grew up, and progressed rapidly. 

He took first prize in the 1999 Horowitz International Piano Competition and the 2000 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition at ages 15 and 16, later receiving a gold medal at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition in 2005. 

He has participated in music festivals around the world, notably in New York City, Rotterdam and Los Angeles, and his numerous solo recordings over the years have been widely praised.

In addition to his performing obligations, Gavrylyuk is involved with much of the Chautauqua School of Music’s Piano Program, teaching lessons and holding discussions during his stay. 

“I’m bringing my experience as a concert musician to the students in different forms. … I can offer a lot of what I’ve experienced on stages for the last 25 years,” he said.

Gavrylyuk taught a master class with a number of the students last Friday, which he said is one of his favorite parts of his partnership with the program.

“It’s sharing and working through different musical ideas together with the students, which to me personally is the most humbling and enriching kind of experience,” he said. “I’m much more in favor of a mutual kind of process rather than the hierarchical type of teacher-student setup. I much prefer to have the kind of mental approach of camaraderie and friendship.

The night is sure to be a joyous one in the Amp, and Gavrylyuk said he is grateful for each chance to perform on the grounds.

“The philosophy of Chautauqua aligns with my own vision for the arts,” he said. “I get very inspired by being here because I meet people that share this point of view, and they share the passion for learning, the passion for sharing, the passion for art and for this universal language that music presents us with.”

Gavrylyuk said he enjoys the balance of learning and “feeling of zen” that lends itself to open-mindedness.

“Those things coming together for me,” he said, “it’s like a piece of heaven.”

Sara Toth
editor

At the end of its most recent term, the Supreme Court handed down decisions in two cases brought by Students for Fair Admissions — one against Harvard and one against the University of North Carolina — that effectively eliminated the use of affirmative action in college admissions. 

It was a decision that many had feared, and others had hoped for, for nearly 40 years, said Justin Driver, and it’s difficult to overstate the decision’s significance.

“It could well set off a series of events that reshape higher education,” said Driver, the Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law and Counselor to the Dean at Yale Law School.

Driver will deliver the 19th Annual Robert H. Jackson Lecture on the Supreme Court of the United States at 3:30 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy, where he’ll discuss the Court’s recent decision, the ramifications it will have, and the precedents it overturned.

“Many people thought that this decision was a foregone conclusion,” Driver said. In an October 2022 guest essay in The New York Times, he offered up ways that preserving affirmative action would be consistent with precedent — an approach he thought would garner a majority on the Court. 

“The path I thought would, plausibly, hold some appeal would be to focus on Justice O’Connor’s opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger,” he said. “In 2003, she writes for the Court that it’s been 25 years since we first upheld affirmative action (in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke), and we expect that in another 25 years, that will no longer be necessary.”

Justice Brett Kavenaugh, Driver said, “took that argument quite seriously.”

“He and I differ on how one should count the 25 years. But he agreed that the 25-year sunset provision had some sort of legal significance,” Driver said. “.. So while it would be inaccurate to say that the decision arrived as a surprise, it nevertheless has arrived as a jolt to legal education.

Previously the Harry N. Wyatt Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, Driver teaches and writes in the area of constitutional law, and in 2021 President Joe Biden appointed him to serve on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. He holds degrees from Brown, Duke and Harvard Law; after graduating, he clerked for then-Judge Merrick Garland, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Stephen Breyer. 

Issues of education have formed both his professional and personal life; growing up in Southeast Washington, D.C., Driver would make the long trek every day to the Northwest, and to Alice Deal Junior High School. Known as the best middle school in the district, Driver landed a spot there thanks to D.C.’s open enrollment practices, and to the dedication of his father, Terrell Glenn Driver.

“My father departed our house in the wee hours of one morning, drove across the city, and slept fitfully in his car to ensure that he would be among the first parent in the required queue for out-of-district students,” Driver wrote in the acknowledgments of his book, The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind, which is dedicated to his parents.

The Schoolhouse Gate was published in 2018 and named both a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year and an Editors’ Choice of The New York Times Book Review. It also received the Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law, and was a finalist for the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award and Phi Beta Kappa’s Ralph Waldo Emerson Book Award.

Among the many celebrations of the written word happening during Week Six on Chautauqua’s grounds, that genre of writing — legal opinions and dissents — may be in danger of being overlooked. But there’s value, even a “democratic responsibility for lawyers and judges to make their opinions accessible to people who are steeped in law. … That’s one thing that the best Supreme Court opinions managed to do,” Driver said. It’s also the reason he opted for a trade press in Pantheon Books, rather than an academic or legal publisher, for The Schoolhouse Gate.

His “single favorite opinion in the history of the Supreme Court” when it comes to the craft of writing, is actually from the man for whom the lecture series is named.

“(Jackson) is the finest writer in the history of the Supreme Court,” Driver said. “… The great opinion in question is West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, and it was written in 1943. The question was whether it was permissible to expel students for refusing to salute the American flag and that raises issues, particularly for Jehovah’s Witnesses, who view it as worshiping a graven image and therefore prohibited by Exodus.”

In the middle of World War II, with patriotic sentiment running high, Jackson’s opinion “reconceived” the case from one of freedom of religion, to one of freedom of speech. Effectively, Driver said, the right to speak also means the right to not speak. Jackson concluded in his opinion: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in matters of politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word their faith therein.” 

“It is just a beautiful sentence,” Driver said. “It’s one of the few that I can recite by heart. The alliteration, in particular — our constitutional constellation. … In effect, he’s suggesting that it is unbecoming and, indeed, un-American, to require someone to make that pledge.”

On the flip side of that coin, Driver said, is perhaps the “most famous dissent ever written” — Marshall Harlan’s argument in Plessy v. Ferguson that the U.S. Constitution was colorblind, and the country has no class system. 

He’ll discuss that as part of his lecture today.

Week Five’s Chatuauqua Lecture Series platform wrapped with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden laying out the importance of libraries in a community’s civic infrastructure, and the threats they face as book bans spread across the country. Book bans are nothing new ­— a recent streaming series from Wondrium takes a look the centuries-old controversy. “Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works” takes viewers through some of the most challenged works of literature, from Shakespeare to contemporary bestsellers. 

There may be no better person to examine such trends as Maureen Corrigan, who has spent her career at the nexus of the classical and the contemporary. And there may be no better person to open Week Six of the Chautauqua Lecture Series on “A Life of Literature” than the longtime book critic on NPR’s Peabody Award-winning “Fresh Air.” At 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater, Corrigan will frame a week of discussions by tracing literary trends and assessing the current state of literature. One of America’s most respected book critics with a distinctive voice at once incisive and accessible, Corrigan is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism in the Department of English at Georgetown University.

She is also the author of the memoir Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading, and So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures. Her Great Course/Wondrium course was released this past spring.

“Books are powerful. That’s the central idea that over 400 years of book banning affirms,” Corrigan said in a press release from Wondrium. “And, ironically, for some books, the best thing that’s ever happened to them — in terms of popularity and cultural status — is that someone has tried to ban them.”

Corrigan is an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery and Suspense Writers, which won the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism, presented by the Mystery Writers of America; the winner of the 2018 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, from the National Book Critics Circle; a juror and panel head for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for two consecutive years; and was a juror for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. She served as a curator and continues to serve as an Advisory Board member and video exhibit guide for the American Writers Museum in Chicago, advisor to the National Endowment for the Arts’ ”Big Read” Project, and on The Usage Panel of The American Heritage Dictionary. 

James Buckser
Staff writer

Texts have an influence on their readers, whether they’re religious or otherwise. In her book Praying with Jane Eyre, Vanessa Zoltan uses sacred reading techniques to study the classic Brontë novel.

According to the description of the book on Zoltan’s website, the piece is “informed by the reading practices of medieval monks and rabbinic scholars,” and Zoltan “reveals simple practices for reading any work as a sacred text — from Virginia Woolf to Anne of Green Gables to baseball scorecards.”

Zoltan will bring her perspective to Chautauqua at 2 p.m. today at the Hall of Philosophy to open Week Six of the Interfaith Lecture Series, with its theme, “Literature and Meaning-Making.”

Zoltan is an atheist chaplain, a podcast host and CEO of Not Sorry Productions, a “feminist organization producing podcasts, educational content, live shows and immersive experiences,” according to its website, with the goals of “addressing the spiritual needs of its participants.”

One of Not Sorry’s major outputs is podcasts, perhaps the most famous of which is “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text,” which Zoltan co-created with Casper ter Kuile, its first episode released in 2016. Zoltan co-hosts the program to this day, but she said it started by accident.

“We started a class called ‘Harry Potter and the Sacred Text’ and we got mentioned in an article about atheists going to divinity school,” Zoltan said. “We started getting emails from people asking if they could Skype in.”

Zoltan said she and her collaborators were hesitant to let people in to what she saw as intimate conversations. Then, her now-co-host suggested making a podcast. The original goal was just a proof of concept, though it soon expanded in scope.

“We thought we would make 19 episodes, which is how many chapters there are in book one of Harry Potter,” Zoltan said. “But we found an audience … so we kept making it.”

The podcast no longer focuses on any new material like the “Fantastic Beasts” films, Zoltan said, so as to avoid supporting J.K. Rowling financially after controversial comments she has made about the transgender community.

“It was heartbreaking,” Zoltan said. “Most of our audience is queer, so watching our audience get so hurt by this was obviously really hard.”

Zoltan and her collaborators were “ready to walk away,” she said, but a poll of their audience made them reconsider.

“About 68 percent of people asked us to keep making it, and that was across-the-board true, whether people identified as cis or nonbinary or trans,” Zoltan said. “We just made a really big effort to make clear that we’re interested in exploring the art rather than celebrating the artist.”

In addition to the popular “Potter” podcast, Not Sorry produces “The Real Question,” which Zoltan hosts, focuses on on holding “space for life’s tough questions,” and “Hot and Bothered,” currently co-hosted by Zoltan and Lauren Sandler, a podcast focusing on romance novels like Twilight and Pride and Prejudice.

In her book Praying with Jane Eyre and episodes of the current season of “Hot and Bothered,” which focus on Pride and Prejudice, Zoltan is engaging with classic texts as compared to more modern ones like Harry Potter or Twilight.

“I think for those of us who grew up sort of going to church or synagogue or mosque and dealing with an ancient text, it’s actually more familiar with us to try to do some of that historical critical work,” Zoltan said.

In addition to its podcasts, Not Sorry produces live events, virtual classes and programs where people can interact with each other and texts. These include Literary Chaplaincy, the Common Ground Pilgrimages, and Calling All Magnificent People (C.A.M.P.).

The group recently put on its first C.A.M.P., which Zoltan explained is a three-day gathering of fans from across the world meant to recur annually.

“It’s just about believing that gathering together in person matters,” Zoltan said. “We’re pretty intentional about trying to build a community over Slack and Discord and various online communities, and we have local groups that meet all over the world, but this was pretty special to have everyone in one place.”

Her talk will be a “spiritual autobiography,” Zoltan said.

“I will be talking about three books in particular that have really mattered to me over my life, what my current theology is, and how these books have sort of gotten me to my current theology,” she said.

Zoltan said she hopes people feel that somebody else cares about the things they do, and that she inspires people to treat things in their lives as sacred.

“We’re really hard on ourselves, and are like, ‘Oh, this doesn’t count as serious literature,’ or, ‘This doesn’t count this is a guilty pleasure,’ ” Zoltan said. “I don’t think that serves anything, and I think that we can develop values and live into our best selves through all sorts of things. If it gives you joy, it most likely can teach you something.”

Sarah Russo
Staff writer

Scored with sweeping strings, triumphant brass and booming timpani, the music of an epic opera is set to carry listeners across the universe this weekend.

But this chapter of what is now an entire world of colorful characters and high drama was written in 1983, not 1883: The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra is set to perform music of “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” alongside the film at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Amphitheater.

Rather than a seasoned soprano or poised baritone with which to collaborate, guest conductor Chia-Hsuan Lin said the movie itself is “a super diva soloist” with unyielding demands and pacing.

​​“The film, … the image, will not change,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how much I plead. So the tricky part is to work with this incredible soloist on the screen and to lead the orchestra to match that.” 

The score, however, was written by “one of the greatest composers of our time,” Lin said: John Williams.

The composer, who has more than 100 feature film scores to his name in his seven-decade-long career as the most Oscar-nominated person alive (behind only Walt Disney), is “masterful,” and “Return of the Jedi” is no exception, Lin said.

“The way (Williams) writes themes and the way he orchestrates all these for all these characters that he’s trying to describe or illustrate … it’s incredible,” she said. “It’s very genius.”

Lin, who will make her Chautauqua debut with this performance, trained in Taiwan then came to the United States for graduate school at Northwestern University. 

Pulling off a concert of this magnitude is no easy feat, but Lin said it’s all worth it in the end, particularly when the audience reacts to big emotional moments.

“I love during the concert we’re performing and hearing the audience cheering for their favorite characters when they hear the music,” Lin said. “The brilliance is that the music is telling the story, because everybody knows the movie so well. If you close your eyes, you know which character walked in or which character flew in or which character won the battle. You are hearing the movie and the music.” 

Even the biggest Star Wars fans can appreciate anew the layers that enhance this “three-dimensional” experience, Lin said. 

When everything is in sync and the live music elevates and heightens the intensity of the film — when Princess Leia attempts to rescue Han Solo and reveals herself as the bounty hunter, for example — Lin said the relationship between the performers and the audience is the most rewarding.

“The celebration of the rebel, to celebrate the fall of the empire — the entire room, you can feel that,” she said. “The trumpet of the horns, of the brass, everyone on stage soaring for that celebration; that experience is incredible.”

Mary Lee Talbot
Staff writer 

The V. Rev. Samuel Glenn Candler, dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta since October 1998, will be the preacher for the 10:45 a.m. Sunday morning service of worship in the Amphitheater. 

His sermon title is “I Sing a Song of Parish Ministry.” 

Candler is one of three pastors who will preach during Week Five due to the cancelation of the Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, for health reasons.  

Candler will preach at the 9:15 a.m. morning worship services Monday to Wednesday in the Amp. 

His sermon titles include “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,” “God Is Not Fundamentalist” and “Parish as the Practice of Vaccination and Blessing.”

The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, senior pastor for Chautauqua Institution will preach on Thursday. His sermon title is “Ephphatha!” 

The Rev. Robert Franklin, former director of the Department of Religion and senior pastor of Chautauqua Institution, will preach on Friday. His sermon title is “A Grandmother and a Garden: Modeling Moral Leadership.”

Candler commits himself to the community and diversity of parish life.

An amateur pianist, he had intended to become a jazz musician before he was called into the priesthood. Deeply valuing the role of music in prayer, he has served on liturgy and music committees in several dioceses. 

While serving as dean of Trinity Cathedral in Columbia, South Carolina, in the 1990s, Candler was a member of the Governor’s Commission on Race Relations, where he called for removing the Confederate battle flag from atop the South Carolina State House. He believes that the Church follows a social and civic call to justice for all. His vision for the Christian Church is that “we are a great beloved community, loved and called by God to serve various local beloved communities, faithful both to a great God and to our local identities.”

Candler was raised on a farm in Coweta County, Georgia. He received his bachelor’s degree, cum laude, from Occidental College in Los Angeles. He received a master of divinity degree, magna cum laude, from Yale University Divinity School. In 2021, he earned a doctor of divinity degree, honoris causa, from the University of The South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Ordained as a deacon in 1982 and as a priest in 1983, Candler has served five differently sized parishes in the Episcopal Church in Georgia and South Carolina. 

Candler has been an adjunct professor in the Anglican Studies Program at Candler School of Theology at Emory University, where he has taught both Anglican Theology and the Book of Common Prayer. He is known for his optimistic and progressive vision of traditional Christian church life, and life in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. 

Committed to interfaith relationships of good faith, he has been a member of The Faith Alliance, an interfaith network in the city of Atlanta; and World Pilgrims, a group committed to taking Jews, Christians and Muslims on interfaith pilgrimages together. He writes a commentary called “Good Faith and the Common Good,” online at goodfaithandthecommongood.org; and he is an occasional writer for Episcopal Café, found online at episcopalcafe.com.

He has served on a variety of boards and organizations, among them The Episcopal Church Pension Fund, The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University in New Haven, the George West Mental Health Foundation in Atlanta, the Compass Rose Society of the Anglican Communion, the Cumberland Island Conservancy, and the Magnetawan Watershed Land Trust Association. He is serving as a deputy to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church for his 10th term. 

Deborah Trefts
Staff writer

Sometimes people choose not to share personal stories; but when they do choose to open up about family and friends who have passed on, history and genealogy come alive.  

Phyllistene (Phyllis) Biffle-Elmore cherished and still remembers when her grandmother, Lula Young Horn (1883-1988), told such stories – often while stitching the quilt she was making for her young granddaughter. Eventually, she wrote them down and began learning more about her genealogy.

At 3 p.m. on Saturday in the Hall of Philosophy, as part of the Chautauqua Women’s Club’s Contemporary Issues Forum, Biffle-Elmore will give a talk titled, “Stories from the Quilt of Souls.”

In and around Livingston, Alabama, Horn was the preeminent quilter. Using the clothing worn by Black women born before and after the Civil War, “Grandma Lula” expertly crafted colorful, intricate and breathtaking “quilts of souls” following their deaths. She did so as remembrances for their families, who brought her the fabric and told her stories about their deceased loved ones.

With leftover fabric from their clothing, she created for her beloved granddaughter a master “Quilt of Souls” representing the oral tradition and the history of generations of her family, extended family and community, and bringing together the individual stories of several women.

“I’d always planned to write this book,” Biffle-Elmore said. “… I completed and self-published Quilt of Souls in 2015. A traditional publisher and a literary agent picked it up. … I started writing Quilt of Souls: A Memoir in 2017.” 

Her first book is a portion of her memoir.

Biffle-Elmore’s own story begins in 1957 when, at 4 years old, she was abruptly taken away from her home in Detroit, Michigan, away from her parents and her seven siblings – including her eldest sister, whom she adored – by five adults who were strangers to her. Without explanation, they drove her all the way to rural Alabama, the home of her maternal grandparents, whom she had never met. She lived there for nine transformative years.  

“Quilt of Souls is a tribute to everything I learned about slavery, the resulting African American servitude in this country, and the bravery it took for many women of that era to eke out a semblance of dignity from a culture of white supremacy that tried to deny their basic humanity,”  Biffle-Elmore wrote at the end of her memoir.

For her, telling the story of how “African Americans before slavery and during and after Reconstruction … particularly Black women, uplifted themselves and overcame injustices while shielding their families from a host of retributions” is overdue. These injustices include lynchings, other racist atrocities, acts and behaviors, colorism and sexism. And these ordinary, yet simultaneously extraordinary, women include “enslaved people, laundresses, storytellers, healers and quilters.”

 Biffle-Elmore is herself an extraordinary woman.

“My parents sent me to live with my grandmother because they couldn’t take care of me,” she said. “Then my mother snatched me back when I was 13. I was treated differently than the other kids, and I ran away to Pittsburgh at 16. I was brought back, but I didn’t want to stay.”

In Detroit, Biffle-Elmore completed junior high and two years of high school. Then she joined the Job Corps in Cleveland, and earned her high school diploma there.

Job Corps had been formed five years earlier, in 1964, as the central program of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” It was modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Depression-era emergency relief program.

Biffle-Elmore described it as “a residential training program for at-risk female adolescents” lasting from one to three years, run by Alpha Kappa Alpha, the largest Black sorority in the United States. In 1965, AKA had been awarded a multi-million dollar grant to operate the Cleveland Job Corps. Until 1976, when it began accepting young men, it exclusively trained female high-school dropouts, ages 16 to 21.

“Dr. (Zelma Watson) George was a mentor,” Biffle-Elmore said. “She was the first Black woman who worked for the United Nations, and she was an ambassador, opera singer and the head of Jobs Corps.”

While learning to be a receptionist, Biffle-Elmore also completed as many of the skills taught there as she could. In 1973, during the Vietnam War, she left the Jobs Corps and went directly into the U.S. Air Force, joining “WAF,” the Women’s Air Force.

“I went in when President Nixon had signed an order allowing females to go into non-traditional military jobs, and I did aircraft maintenance on B-52s,” she said. “They were forced to make sure that women went through the technical schools.”

Out of 11 technicians, as the only female specialist on pneudraulics (a combination of hydraulics and pneumatics) on her Air Force base and on overseas operations, she said she filled the quota.

“They hated me,” Biffle-Elmore said. “… I felt severe sexual harassment. … I was from the South. They asked me no questions and didn’t want to know anything about me.” 

Because she’d been told “don’t worry, the guys will take care of you; say you broke a nail” when she was recruited into the Air Force, she said she adapted. She became less independent and “focused on shared experiences.” Her supervisor noticed and promoted her. Then she “got two stripes and … had more rank in the class.” 

Before the fall of Saigon in 1975, Biffle-Elmore served two temporary duty assignments to Vietnam. The first happened right away; she was sent to Thailand to bring back B-52 Bombers. After serving for five years – one tour – she got out of the Air Force.

At the University of Maryland, Biffle-Elmore earned her Bachelor of Arts in sociology and social work.

“I worked in a long-term treatment facility with adolescents, and got my certification in alcohol, drug and chemical dependence,” she said. “Males were sent by the court and women by social services so they could get their kids back.” 

She served as a “counselor for incarcerated youth and for women who were victims of domestic violence.”

In 1986, Biffle-Elmore completed basic training and joined the U.S. Army Reserve. When she was deployed in 1991 to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Storm, she worked for three months on flight plans with pilots and crews in aviation operations.  

Later that year, when she got out of the Army Reserve, Biffle-Elmore began working for Virginia Commonwealth University on alcohol and substance abuse, and remained there for about five years.

“After 9/11, someone talked me into the Army National Guard,” she said. “Then I was deployed (in December 2003) to support Operation Enduring Freedom. I went to Kuwait six or seven times to provide top secret operational support for aircraft.”

When Operation Enduring Freedom ended, Biffle-Elmore worked in counseling for nine more months – marking 10 years as a counseling supervisor for youth and adults suffering from alcohol and substance abuse – before an active duty spot in aviation came up in the Army National Guard.

Since she missed the Army, she signed on and spent eight more years in the military. She served as Aviation Operations Specialist at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, at the National Guard Bureau attached to the Pentagon, and on special detail at Patrick Air Force Base in central Florida teaching equal opportunity, diversity, equity and inclusion for three years. Following 20 years in military service, she chose Florida for her “retirement” in 2013.    

Biffle-Elmore is one of just a handful of women in the military who served in three major conflicts. 

“The military helped me to grow up,” she said. “The responsibility you have to yourself and others is almost unsurpassed – except with my grandmother.” And perhaps also with her two sons and seven granddaughters.

Having long planned to write Quilt of Souls, she earned a master’s certificate in creative writing from the University of Denver. 

“The stories I heard when I went South are what created me,” Biffle-Elmore said. “… In the 1850s, Miss Jubilee was a slave. I would have to sit on her porch with her and her friends. They were building a foundation; building me up. It was almost like they knew I’d be facing an uncertain future.” 

She continued, “I want people to realize that these are the women who weren’t the Harriet Tubmans. This story is about the unheard and untold. I wanted to tell the story these unsung women told their granddaughters.” 

For instance, Livingston is the county seat of Sumter County, Alabama. Biffle-Elmore said Sumter “had more lynchings, reported and unreported, than anywhere else in the South” until the early 1960s. 

“My grandmother would tell me where not to walk – over and near bodies,” she said.

Stories are handed down by talking with and listening to one’s elders. 

“I think what happened between my generation and my grandmother’s, is we stopped listening to the tales of old,” she said. “My grandmother took me to a slave cemetery and said, ‘These are the best stories.’ That’s why I got into genealogy. People want to know about their ancestors.”

Alton Northup 
Staff writer

The Revivalists are hoping to pour it all out into the band’s performance at 7:30 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater.

“It’s kind of one of the things that we do best as a band,” said Zack Feinberg, guitarist for the chart-topping group. “It’s very high-energy, it’s exciting, it’s stimulating to be in these fun, cool places.”

On the heels of releasing its fifth studio album, Pour It Out Into The Night, the eight-piece rock group is on an extensive North America tour. The album is the band’s first release since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which gave the members much to reflect on while writing and recording Pour It Out Into The Night.

“It’s the culmination of years of songwriting, and personal experiences and growth,” Feinberg said.

He described the album as being “very honest” about those experiences. He and vocalist David Shaw wrote the lead single, “Kid,” during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, while Feinberg’s now-fiancé was one month pregnant with twins. An anthem of hope amid chaos, the song’s chorus reminds listeners to “just sing the songs that wake the dead” and “don’t worry about the mess” while “living for the spirit.”

Though the band is based out of New Orleans, Feinberg is not quick to label the group with the Big Easy sound – but the city certainly leaves an impact on its music. The band wrote the song “Good Old Days” with a message of gratitude after spending an “incredible carnivalesque” Mardis Gras together in 2018.

“New Orleans is such an incredibly expressive musical town,” he said. “The talent is amazing and ridiculous in this city of working musicians, but then there’s also this culture of music that’s part of the place, and it has been for a long time.”

Despite being a rock band, The Revivalists’ wide range reflects the storied ensembles of New Orleans – with eight members, its performances feature a horn section, pedal steel guitar, drummers and an “absolute monster” lead singer in Shaw.

Seattle-based Band of Horses will join a large stretch of the group’s tour, including tonight in Chautauqua. Rolling Stone has described the group as a “blend of spooky Southern rock and shoegazer indie pop.”

The band has long captured generational anxiety in its music, which culminated in a Grammy nomination in 2011 for the album Infinite Arms.

“We’re super honored to be sharing the stage with them,” Feinberg said. “They’re  a fantastic band that we’ve been fond of for many, many years.”

Being on a stage is not something he takes for granted since the pandemic, he said. The band had to cancel or postpone several tour dates after the release of its last album, Made In Muscle Shoals, in January 2020.

“We’re super grateful to be doing it, and it’s all been really special,” he said. “Not that it wasn’t before, but we have a renewed appreciation for playing live these years.”

Alton Northup
Staff writer

Libraries offer more than just books.

“They are a part of the cultural, the civic and even the physical underpinnings of just about every community,” said Carla Hayden, the 14th librarian of Congress.

Hayden concludes the Chautauqua Lecture Series Week Five theme, “Infrastructure: Building and Maintaining the Physical, Social and Civic Underpinnings of Society,” at 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater, where she will discuss the ways libraries have become more ingrained in the infrastructure of communities and the challenges they face.

Hayden calls herself an “accidental librarian.” 

Growing up, she said she loved libraries because they gave her access to the things she cared about, but knew little about.

“I found out about the profession of librarianship and that’s when I said, ‘Oh wow, something I love and you can actually work in it and be part of how they develop,’ ” she said.

Libraries have indeed developed in recent years.

Reckoning with a new digital age, libraries are quickly becoming an all-encompassing resource for communities. 

Many now offer tools, sewing machines, business clothes for interviews and – after the pandemic forced them to temporarily close – internet hotspots.

Another popular addition to libraries are makerspaces. In 2018, The Johns Hopkins University reported 31% of public colleges and universities in the United States had or planned for a makerspace in its library. These makerspaces have also transformed into incubators for local businesses.

This change is no sweat for librarians such as Hayden.

“We have T-shirts, bags and cups that say, ‘Librarians are the original search engine,’ ” she said. “It’s really just expanded what librarians provide in terms of information and inspiration.”

It also would not be the first time libraries have adjusted to change. The 1960s ushered in the era of libraries as community information centers, when people could visit for information on local services such as rental assistance. Librarians, Hayden said, are always “trying to help people live their best lives.”

As the first professional librarian to hold her position since 1974, she said her background is an advantage for the Library of Congress during this time of rapid digital change. The institution is the largest library in the world and also one of the largest collections of comic books, photographs, film, musical instruments and presidential papers.

Her goal since taking office in 2016 has been to connect these resources to local libraries. The institution regularly holds programs in conjunction with local libraries where audiences in one location can interact with live presenters in Washington, D.C. 

“We’re really making sure that we are connecting directly with local libraries,” she said. “We’re working with state libraries, and their connections; we also have a network of services for the National Library for the Blind and Print Disabled.”

This will not be Hayden’s first visit to Chautauqua; eight years ago, when she was CEO of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library System and the former president of the American Library Association, she gave the closing lecture of the Chautauqua Women’s Club Contemporary Issues Forum series.

“I was there in 2015, right before I started on the journey to become Librarian, so it will be full circle for me,” she said.

James Buckser
Staff writer

While he had always worked in nonprofits and social justice, the Rev. Starsky Wilson first focused on the thing that would drive his career while at the Deaconess Foundation.

“Our work very explicitly focused on child advocacy and investing in organizations that were advocating and building power for children,” Wilson said. “I had the opportunity to really dedicate my full time and attention to this work.”

Wilson has worked in the realms of faith and child advocacy for years, and he will bring his knowledge to Chautauqua at 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy, closing out Week Five’s theme, “Religious and Ethical Infrastructure.”

That work with the Deaconess Foundation, Wilson said, is what connected him to the Children’s Defense Fund, where he is currently president and CEO.

“Children’s Defense Fund is a 50-year-old, national, multi-issue child advocacy organization focused on advancing the vision of a nation where marginalized children flourish, leaders prioritize their well being, and communities wield the power to ensure they thrive,” Wilson said.

The Children’s Defense Fund works in three core areas, Wilson said: public policy advocacy in capitals across the country; power-building and community-organizing “focused on faith communities, students and youth, and caregivers;” and direct service programming through a network of Freedom Schools.

The Freedom Schools have been running for 50 years, Wilson said, and are “out of school time” interventions, which focus on teaching agency for young people, history consistent with the cultural backgrounds of the students, and their ability to make a difference in the world.

“We train college students across the country to run this six- to eight-week program during the summer, and after school in some locations,” Wilson said. “It’s focused heavily on culturally relevant pedagogy, history and literacy.”

Wilson is also involved in the CDF Action Council, a 501c4 social welfare organization, as compared to the Children’s Defense Fund which is a 501c3 nonprofit institution, and therefore forbidden from trying to influence legislation, unlike a 501c4.

“There we have an opportunity to do a little more focused grassroots lobbying around some of our policy agenda,” Wilson said.

In his work, Wilson said he has come to recognize that “much of our sense of social vision is informed by religion and theologies,” whether they are explicitly expressed or embedded influences, and that we come to “believe things are possible in the world, in the West,” based on religious and social infrastructure.

“The ideas that … spiritual beings and people produce, make a social vision possible, they are part of the social infrastructure,” Wilson said. “They inform the broader narrative and hopes of a community, and then the actual religious bodies, the synagogues, mosques, temples and congregations create the container by which we work to make these social visions happen in the world.”

In his talk, Wilson said he plans to discuss the connection between theology and social vision, as well as those involving policies of congregational religious structure, and how they advance those visions.

“Given my work, I’ll focus significantly on advancing a vision of a world where children are able to thrive,” Wilson said.

Wilson hopes people leave his lecture considering ways their spiritual or religious traditions can create conditions for children to live in a better world.

“I am hopeful that as we gather together, we might see the future in a new way through the lens of children, especially in this moment where caring for children is literally a life and death situation in our country,” Wilson said. “I think it will take people of faith centering these stories, and considering the ways in which our theologies inform our social visions and realities, to get to a better world.”

JULIA WEBER
STAFF WRITER

Anna Roman, who plays Lizzy Bennet in the Kate Hamill adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, is excited to be revisiting the character after first playing her in a different adaptation in high school.

It was a beautiful thing to be able to revisit again and have fresh eyes on it with a new perspective. As I’ve aged, I think Lizzy has, too.

ANNA ROMAN
Conservatory Actor,
Chautauqua Theater Company

“She’s a character who is a little unlike her sisters, who abides by the rules and plays the game, and she tries to laugh so she doesn’t cry,” Roman said. “… She’s unlike a lot of her sisters in that she doesn’t want to get involved in marriage, she doesn’t want to give up any part of herself. She’s kind of ahead of her time in a way.”

Pride and Prejudice continues this week with performances at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. today in Bratton Theater.

Roman, a 2023 CTC Conservatory Actor, is pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in acting at Yale University’s David Geffen School of Drama.

Since Roman initially played Bennet in her high school production, she feels that she has matured, and as Roman has grown, she feels Bennet has, too, in a way.

“It was a beautiful thing to be able to revisit again and have fresh eyes on it with a new perspective,” she said. “As I’ve aged, I think Lizzy has, too.”

Roman said she believes that the adaptation Hamill has written, directed at Chautauqua by CTC Producing Artistic Director Jade King Carroll, is more focused on different forms of love in our lives than most other adaptations. The play explores an array of relationships — including familial, platonic and romantic bonds.

Roman cites Chautauqua as a space that she recognized would both evolve and supplement the acting training she is receiving at Yale. She specifically referenced living in a shared house with fellow conservatory members, and the collaboration and bonding that has emerged from the living situation.

The rehearsal process for Pride and Prejudice was short and intense. Cast and crew were in rehearsal for multiple hours per day workshopping and exploring the plot and how different characters interacted.

Through this experimentation and freedom to play, Roman said the cast and crew of Pride and Prejudice helped her to unpack who Bennet is and how she might interact with other characters through their collaboration.

“The No. 1 thing, though, is you can only do so much work on your own before you get into a space, but the people here – my castmates and company members – they have really helped me develop the character because we’re all creating a story with one another, so it would be nothing without them,” she said.

Roman said she feels that Hamill’s adaptation brings a more accessible plot to audience members. 

“This adaptation makes everything for everyone,” she said. “That’s a really beautiful thing to bring us all together.”

Roman said she hopes the audience will experience the range of emotions that the play brings to the table, and that they will enjoy the fun, playful nature of the production. 

“It’s very fun; it’s very fast,” Roman said. “Blink and you’ll miss it.”

Arden Ryan
contributing writer

Cécile McLorin Salvant takes old songs and makes them new.

Putting fresh and often humorous spins on classic jazz standards from the American canon and rare tracks from musical theater, Salvant has made a name for herself as a top vocalist in contemporary jazz. Acclaimed for her originality, she won a Grammy Award in 2016 for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

Salvant puts particular care into crafting her show repertoire, creating an engaging mix of revamped standards and compositions from her catalog.

“Mostly I choose songs that surprise me, that have an interesting lyric, that have a twist somewhere,” she said, trying always to be “playful with music choices.”

At 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater, Salvant will share her originals and interpretations with Chautauqua, songs that bubble with humor, wit and self-reflection. Backed on the road by a pianist, drummer, bassist and djembe player, Salvant’s performance will express her distinctive musical approach, unfolding each song with personality and verve.

Salvant has a flair for extracting emotional depth from songs that might seem lighthearted on first listen, uncovering layers of complexity below their surface. 

She said she relishes “bringing out the contrast, the humor and sarcasm” in the songs she performs.

The element of humor has become a mainstay in her artistry, alongside an exploration of identity, feminism and race. Salvant will begin by taking a song from American music history — one with onerous or offensive themes — and draw out the humor from it. Putting a spin on songs with sexist or racist undertones is to satirize them, she said, and to detract from their power and sting.

“I often laugh at things that are meant to be offensive towards me,” Salvant said. “Laughter has always been my shield and refuge.”

Having spoken as part of the Chautauqua Lecture Series in 2016 on the storytelling power of jazz, Salvant will be performing at Chautauqua for the second time. Her lecture, which explored the jazz canon, its rich heritage and its power to fight oppression, included both spoken and sung portions.

This time around, with her jazz concert this evening, Salvant said she hopes to musically translate many of the same themes. She looks to pass on her musical tradition with her performance, educating the audience as before, “making the words (she sings) clear, making the meaning of the song come through.”

Her musical creation, Salvant said, conveys her personal story, background and musical tastes. Released earlier this year, Salvant’s latest album Mélusine is grounded in French folklore while also reflecting Salvant’s ancestry, she said, sung in a mix of French and other languages.

“My family history, my first language, my Haitian heritage, my maternal roots in Southern France, the rituals and myths tied to my heritage” are all enveloped in song, Salvant said, an echo of how she was raised and her experience growing up in a culturally mixed environment.

As much as her work focuses on her own history and identity, Salvant explores the identity of others and how that identity is formed and challenged. The theme of identity is a throughline in her work, she said.

“I am interested in the question of identity, how people self-identify, how they are defined by others, and the push and pull of those opposing forces,” Salvant said.

Talking about identity and exploring her history comes naturally through her music, sometimes without conscious effort. When it comes to writing and performing personal songs, she said she follows her instincts.

Sometimes it’s years after performing a song that Salvant realizes how much her music relates to her moment, “how tied certain musical choices I’ve made are to the personal place I’m in.”

James Buckser
Staff writer

Leslie Dewan is changing the world of nuclear energy

A World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, CEO of RadiantNano, and one of TIME magazine’s “30 People Under 30 Changing the World,” Dewan is actively working toward new breakthroughs in nuclear power.

Dewan will bring her knowledge to Chautauqua at 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater as a part of this week’s Chautauqua Lecture Series theme “Infrastructure: Building and Maintaining the Physical, Social and Civic Underpinnings of Society.”

She earned bachelor’s degrees in mechanical and nuclear engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a doctorate degree in nuclear engineering. She is the youngest person to serve on MIT’s board of trustees, and serves on the advisery board of the University of Michigan Engineering School’s Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences program.

Dewan is also the vice-chair of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, a nonprofit think tank “working to enable advanced nuclear power as a global solution to mitigate climate change,” according to its website.

Before starting RadiantNano, Dewan co-founded Transatomic Power in 2011 with Mark Massie. The company aimed to utilize a molten salt reactor, according to its website, which would use a “liquid fuel salt” instead of water to carry heat from the reactor, since water brings the risks of steam or hydrogen explosion.

After setbacks and delays, Transatomic suspended operations in 2018 and went open-source, allowing anyone to make use of its intellectual property.

“This is not a decision we take lightly,” Dewan wrote in a paper on Transatomic’s website. “We’re extremely proud of the great scientific and engineering work we’ve done over the past seven years, and want to make sure that it can continue to further the development of the next generation of nuclear reactors.”

Now, she leads RadiantNano, a “nuclear startup developing next-generation radiation detectors” with uses across national security, medicine and clean energy, according to Dewan’s bio at the NERS website.

In a 2022 TED Talk, Dewan said the company’s detectors could “identify and visualize nuclear material.”

Dewan called secrecy and isolationism the “original sin” of the nuclear industry, a mistake because people are concerned about things, like radiation, that they don’t understand.

“By helping people see radiation, you can help people understand radiation,” Dewan said in her talk. “It’s really turning the lights back on and giving people a sense of ownership of the radiation that’s all around them.”

The technology Dewan’s company creates can be used for monitoring nuclear facilities to make sure they are operating safely, which will allow for the faster development of advanced reactors, as well as scanning cargo for illegal smuggling of nuclear materials, she said in the talk.

“The future is uncertain, but I believe it’s a time of great optimism and opportunity as we work to find sustainable and scalable and resilient ways to power our world,” Dewan said in 2022. “It’s a time where we’re going to need everyone’s ideas, and have a willingness to take calculated risks, so let’s start thinking big again, and choose curiosity and communication to help make the world a better place.”

Sarah Russo
Staff writer

The 20th century was filled with the creation of new genres of music, from jazz to rock, but for African American composers, the time presented many challenges to gain recognition in the musical space. 

Florence Price and William Dawson are two Black composers who persevered to share their musical talents with the world, and now the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra will perform their works at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater under the baton of Musical Director and Principal Symphonic Conductor Rossen Milanov. 

Tonight’s concert will begin with Price’s Concert Overture No. 2. 

For decades, it was nearly impossible to hear a piece of her music. Despite her immense talent and drive, many classical music, performers and gatekeepers put her outside, and her work failed to gain traction with the large, almost exclusively white institutions that had the power to catapult her to the mainstream. 

“Certainly Florence Price was a pioneer, to put it mildly, and she was an inspired musician — an inspired, prolific composer,” said Timothy Muffitt, artistic director of the School of Music and conductor of the Music School Festival Orchestra, who led the CSO in a Price performance ealier in this summer. “Naturally, she had a hard time getting her music played. People wouldn’t look at it, they wouldn’t even consider it, but she’s a composer of just extraordinary historical significance.” 

As a Black female composer of the 19th century, Price comes from a different background than other composers of the time period. She uses her own individual perspective, while integrating a well-known and well-established musical vocabulary. 

“I think that’s where a lot of the interest in her music lies,” Muffitt said. “It’s not like she’s inventing a whole new musical language. She’s using a language that’s already established. How that comes through in her music … she’s speaking a language we recognize, but it has an inflection and a spirit that is fresh still today, even though this piece is almost 100 years old.” 

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1887, Price wrote four symphonies: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor won first prize in the Rodman Wanamaker Competition in 1932; Symphony No. 2 in G Minor is presumed lost; Symphony No. 3 in C Minor; and Symphony No. 4 in D Minor. 

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in her work. A recording of her symphonies performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2022. Her music has been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and now the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. 

Price’s Concert Overture No. 2 was composed in 1943. Two librarians at the University of Arkansas, Tom Dillard and Tim Nutt, found this piece in an abandoned Chicago residence of Price’s where she lived before her death in 1953; the overture may have been lost without their work. 

“This masterpiece brilliantly intervenes the popular melodies,” Milanov said. “… And it concludes with an impressive climax.” 

The CSO will also perform William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony. Dawson was a Black composer, choir director and professor specializing in Black religious folk music of the mid-1900s. Dawson himself wrote that his symphony was “symbolic of the link uniting Africa and her rich heritage with her descendants in America,” and gave each of its three movements a title. The three movements are: “The Bond of Africa”, “Hope in the Night” and “O, “Le’ Me Shine, Shine Like a Morning Star!” 

“The themes are taken from what are popularly known as Negro Spirituals,” Dawson wrote for the program notes of the Carnegie Hall performance.

“I am glad that Chautauqua is one of the few places that this work could be heard live in this new edition,” Milanov said.  “The orchestration style of Dawson is really impressive.” 

Both Price and Dawson faced racism, but Milanov said the time during which the two composers lived was one of comparatively better circumstances. 

“(There are) interesting connections here because both composers are Black and they were living in the 1930s in the United States,” Milanov said. “An interesting time and perhaps a little bit more open and encouraging for diverse voices to express themselves than following years.” 

The program selection was purposefully chosen, Milanov said. Each piece by Dawson and Price holds a deep, historic narrative. 

“Both works on the program will give us an opportunity to hear important music created by African American composers,” Milanov said. “(The composers) were inspired by themes that were very close to their cultural traditions.” 

Kaitlyn Finchler
Staff writer

Infrastructure has a plethora of meanings, playing a role in all parts of everyday life. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will discuss statewide infrastructure in his lecture at 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater.

“Physical infrastructure is simply the skeleton of any society,” Huckabee said. “If we don’t have roads and bridges, water systems and sewer systems, electricity and gas lines, we don’t have a skeletal system. A body without a skeletal system collapses.”

He continues the Week Five conversation in the Chautauqua Lecture Series theme, “Infrastructure: Building and Maintaining the Physical, Social and Civic Underpinnings of Society.”

Huckabee said his talk will remain nonpartisan and nonpolitical, as he wants it to be “both informative and entertaining.” In addition to his previous governmental duties, Huckabee has written 19 books and hosts his own political commentary show, “Huckabee.” A Fox News contributor, he  ran twice for president, placing second in the 2008 Republican primary.

Whether it’s on the playground or at a corporate board meeting, he said there has to be a set of agreed-upon principles to constitute a social contract.

“We abide by that in order to have some resemblance of order,” Huckabee said. “Otherwise, we really are living out what is nothing more than the law of the jungle.”

The ultimate understanding of the human experience is the strong will dominate over the weak. Huckabee said this is “somewhat a violation of most of the animal kingdom.”

Physical and social infrastructure can’t be separate, both thrive off of each other, he said. 

“(When) people begin to make their own rules and abide only by their own personal interests, it results in absolute chaos and destruction,” Huckabee said. “Don’t think you can have one without the other. Both become necessary in every aspect of life.”

Huckabee said a “sense of order and a sense of expectation” is incumbent upon a society in order to survive. In his term as Arkansas governor, Huckabee led a “massive” highway reconstruction program. 

“That was an important part of making sure that we can carry on commerce,” he said. “If trucks can’t move, goods don’t get from point A to point B. … You have significant economic consequences from that.”

His campaign also worked on natural resources. He and his wife, Janet Huckabee, campaigned to set aside one-eighth of the center sales tax “strictly for conservation.” 

The purpose of the natural resources campaign was to ensure a balance between “enjoying the environment” and infrastructure. 

“I truly believe that a balanced life is proper relationships to God, to self, to others and to the world around us,” Huckabee said. 

While he wanted to create campaigns for a better society, some things weren’t in Huckabee’s control, such as design and the federal budget.

“For our highway program, we leveraged those funds to create a bond program, took it to the people for a vote (and) had 82% of the people in the state vote for that program,” he said. 

Arkansas residents wanted better highways, Huckabee said, so they were willing to put a tax on themselves to cover the bonds. 

Most people, when presented with “reality,” are told “if you want better (and safer) highways, we have to pay more,” Huckabee said. Depending on “if people aren’t stupid, they said yes.”

American people are “very civic, fair and good,” he said. He wants Chautauquans to be reminded there is “much hope” left in the world.

“I don’t want them to walk out, heads down, saying, ‘Oh, this may be our last gasp of breath,’ ” Huckabee said. “I want to leave them optimistic and having joy, (to) be reminded that not everything is what they see on the cable news channel about how horrible things are.”

James Buckser
Staff writer

The Rev. Christian Peele is an expert in organizations. Now the chief of staff at ImpactAssets, Peele has held a number of prestigious positions, including some in the White House, and led congregations in New York City and Washington, D.C.

Peele will bring her knowledge to the Interfaith Lecture Series at 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy, as a part of Week Five’s theme, “Religious and Ethical Infrastructure.”

ImpactAssets is an organization with the goal “to maximize the potential of impact investing to make the world better,” Peele said.

“We have more than $2 billion in assets under management,” Peele said. “We use the private markets to invest those funds in opportunities that amplify racial justice, climate solutions and gender equality.”

Outside of ImpactAssets, Peele has worked at nonprofits like the Riverside Church and the Harlem Children’s zone. She also served in the White House, as special assistant to the president and deputy director of management and administration for Joe Biden, and served as Barack Obama’s director of the White House internship program and deputy director for White House operations.

Peele is a theologically trained organizational strategist. She said she believes that “organizations have the potential to do really good things” for people and the planet. In addition to her secular work, she is also ordained, and has worked in faith-based nonprofits and churches, she said.

“My career is melding those two things,” Peele said. “My theological training informs how I think about work inside organizations and what orgs can do.”

Peele’s faith inspires her, she said, and she likes to “take that into work” with her, “for better or worse,” and “try to do something good with it.”

“My faith makes me crazy enough to believe that things can be better,” Peele said. “That belief sort of drives the work I do in secular spaces, so I like to work for organizations that are really powerful, because I think they have the time and the resources and the scale to actually change the world.”

When Peele thinks about spiritual infrastructure, she thinks about “what a religious practice imparts into someone,” she said. 

Attending church every Sunday is worthwhile, Peele said, but if you leave without a “renewed infrastructure within you” about your relationship with the world, then “something’s been lost.”

She said she is searching for ways to build that “spiritual infrastructure” in secular spaces.

“People of faith, we come from a tradition that makes us really well-suited for that kind of work if we’re willing to kind of think about it,” she said. “It’s not like Sunday Mass, but there are other ways to kind of inspire within people that kind of infrastructure or framework.”

In her talk, Peele said she will reflect on what it means to be “spiritually formed,” and how that has “shown up” for her in her work.

“I hope people are inspired to think about spiritual infrastructure in a new way,” Peele said, “to ask questions about their own spiritual frameworks, and to ask questions about how those frameworks are or aren’t moving them to do good things in the world.”