Series delivers perspectives on most urgent questions facing our democracy

Green Bay, Wis.—Dubbed “America’s most powerful flight attendant,” Sara Nelson will be the first in a new speaker series named in honor of UW-Green Bay Emeritus Professor Harvey J. Kaye.

Nelson—the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO since 2014, representing 50,000 of aviation’s first responders at 17 airlines—made headlines in 2020 in a historic fight to ensure aviation workers retained their paychecks, health care, and other benefits for 16 months during the COVID pandemic, while banning stock buybacks and dividends across the industry and capping executive compensation for two years after the relief period ends.

Nelson’s presentation at 7 p.m., Oct. 26, 2021 in Ft. Howard Hall of the Weidner Center, launches the first in a series of public lectures by prominent national figures at the University to speak about issues connected to democracy, justice, and labor.

The Harvey J. Kaye State of Democracy Speaker Series will consist of four featured speakers each year that span the subject matter and intellectual spirit of UW-Green Bay’s problem-focused mission. Commemorating the public engagement and broad intellectual spirit of Prof. Kaye’s career, future speakers will engage with some of the most urgent questions facing our democracy, including in the fields of workers’ rights, racial inequality, public health, technology, and journalism.

With a lens that expands beyond the political class, this series will deliver fresh subject matter and perspective to the campus and Northeast Wisconsin.

About Harvey Kaye
Kaye, the Ben & Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Democracy and Justice Studies, retired from UW-Green Bay in August 2020, following a 42-year career of distinguished scholarship, teaching, and service to the profession and the polity.

Throughout his career, Kaye engaged dozens of academics, journalists, and performing and visual artists to speak at the University, including renowned scholars and public intellectuals like E.P. Thompson and Frances Fox Piven; political writers and thinkers like David Brooks, E.J. Dionne, and Thomas Frank; and journalists like Michael Tomasky and Richard Brookhiser. This series seeks to recognize and continue this important forum for thought and discussion.

An award-winning scholar, Kaye’s interests and influence range widely. He is the author of Take Hold of Our History(2019), The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great (2014), Thomas Paine and the Promise of America (2005), and Are We Good Citizens? (2001). His 18 books demonstrate this range, as do his vast array of articles for scholarly journals, his columns for publications such as the Washington Post and The Guardian as well as his many appearances on television and radio shows like Bill Moyers Journal, The Young Turks, and Turner Classic Movies. Kaye has won numerous awards, recognitions, and fellowships, including the Wisconsin Library Association Outstanding Book Award (2006), the New York Public Library Award for the Best Book for the Teen Age (2001), the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize (1993), and the UWGB Founders’ Awards for Institutional Development (2002) and Scholarship (1985).

About the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Established in 1965, UW-Green Bay is a public institution serving 8,970 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students and 79,604 continuing education enrollees each year across all campus locations. We educate students from pre-college through retirement and offer 200+ degrees, programs and certificates. UW-Green Bay graduates are resilient, inclusive, sustaining and engaged members of their communities, ready to rise to fearlessly face challenges, solve problems and embrace diverse ideas and people. With four campus locations, the University welcomes students from every corner of the world. In 2020, UW-Green Bay was the fastest growing UW school in Wisconsin. For more information, visit www.uwgb.edu.

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