University Park, Pa. -- Internationally renowned sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer is the next speaker in Penn State's 2004-2005 Distinguished Speaker Series at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 15, in Eisenhower Auditorium. The event is free to the public, but tickets are required.
Westheimer helped pioneer media psychology with her radio program, "Sexually Speaking," which began as a 15-minute taped show airing late Sunday nights in 1980 and grew into a popular hourlong live call-in show. Soon thereafter, it became a part of a communications network to distribute the expertise of Dr. Ruth, as she came to be known, via television, books, newspapers, home video, computer software, Web sites and games.
Born in Germany in 1928, Westheimer was sent at age 10 to a school in Switzerland that became an orphanage for most of the German Jewish children sent there to escape the Holocaust. At 16, she went to Israel and fought for the country's independence as a member of the Haganah, the Jewish Freedom Fighters. She moved to Paris where she studied psychology at the Sorbonne, then moved to the United States, earning a master's degree in sociology from the New School of Social Research and a doctorate of education from Columbia University.
During her career, she has made wide use of the mass media to help spread what she has labeled "sexual literacy." She also is an adjunct professor at New York University and frequent lecturer at universities throughout the country.
Tickets will be available to students attending the University Park campus on Monday, Feb. 7. Faculty, staff and students from other Penn State campuses can pick up their tickets on Tuesday, Feb. 8. The general public may pick up any remaining tickets beginning Wednesday, Feb. 9, on a first-come, first-served basis.
Tickets may be obtained from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. from the Eisenhower Auditorium box office. Tickets also are distributed from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday-Friday at the HUB-Robeson Center outlet; and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday at the Downtown Theatre Center. Individuals are limited to two free tickets each.
The Distinguished Speaker Series will welcome writer Alice Walker to the stage of Eisenhower on March 21 and actor James Earl Jones on April 14.
The series is sponsored by the University Park Allocation Committee, coordinated by the Distinguished Speaker Series Committee and the Office of Student Activities, and funded by student activity fees. For more information, contact the Office of Student Activities at (814) 863-3786.