Issue: Summer 2015 | Posted: June 8, 2015
Brooks to Headline 18th Annual Scholarship Banquet
David Brooks - © 2011 David Burnett
New York Times columnist and author David Brooks will be the keynote speaker for Union University’s 18th annual Scholarship Banquet Oct. 6 at the Carl Perkins Civic Center in Jackson, Tenn.
Brooks’ books include The Road to Character, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, Bobos in Paradise (a New York Times bestseller) and On Paradise Drive. He is a regular analyst on PBS NewsHour and NPR’s All Things Considered.
“David Brooks is a trusted and valued commentator on American life and culture,” Union President Samuel W. “Dub” Oliver said. “His most recent book, The Road to Character, is one that resonates with all of us who care about Union—a place committed to the virtuous life and to living a life filled with meaning and purpose.
“His presence at the 2015 Union Scholarship Banquet will, I’m convinced, be both an encouragement to us all and a challenge to press on as we seek to live out our mission and core values.”
Brooks served as senior editor at The Weekly Standard and has been a contributing editor at Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly. He worked at The Wall Street Journal for nine years in a variety of positions, including op-ed editor.
Brooks is currently teaching a course at Yale
University. He holds honorary degrees from Williams
College, New York University, Brandeis University
and Occidental College, among others. In 2010, Brooks
became a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences.
The annual Scholarship Banquet has become one of the premier events in West Tennessee each year and is Union’s primary fund raising event for its student scholarship fund. Previous speakers have included Tony Blair, George H.W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Condoleezza Rice, Mikhail Gorbachev, Laura Bush, Rudolph Giuliani, Colin Powell and Ben Carson, among others.
Dinner will begin at 6:30 p.m. and the program will start at 7:30 p.m. Sponsorship opportunities for the event are available at all levels. For ticket information, including table sponsorships and individual balcony seating, contact Union’s Office of Institutional Advancement at (731) 661-5050 or visit uu.edu/events/scholarshipbanquet.
Huckabee praises a Union education
Fox News host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee spoke about personal morality and the value of Christian education at Union University’s 17th annual Scholarship Banquet Oct. 7 at the Carl Perkins Civic Center.
Huckabee said he was delighted to assist Union because he graduated from another Southern Baptist liberal arts college, Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas.
As the first male in his family to attend college, Huckabee was dependent on scholarships.
“I didn’t have a trust fund,” he said. “All I could do was trust God to help me fund it, and that was my trust fund.”
Huckabee also worked full time as a disc jockey at local radio station, studying while the records played. His hard-earned education has paid off, he said.
“Students who go to a school like Union University will have an education that will put them on par with students who go to any Ivy League university in America,” Huckabee said, citing his personal experience debating Harvard Law graduates.
Union students will have an additional advantage over their secular peers, Huckabee said: “A person is far better off if they are prepared not only in their minds but in their spirits... We’re living in an age where people have utterly rejected God’s truth and are proud of it.”
Huckabee said students need to be able to defend their faith in an increasingly secular world, a skill Union will give them.