StoryCorps founder to speak at Berry

Dave Isay, the man who built a movement collecting ordinary people’s stories across the nation with StoryCorps, will speak at Berry College this Thursday.

The lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Cage Center Arena and is free and open to the public.

6WRU\&RUSV LV D QRQSUR¿W organization whose mission is “to record, preserve and share stories of Americans from all backgrounds and beliefs.”

Through StoryCorps, over 75,000 oral histories by ordinary Americans have been recorded and preserved at the Library of Congress. In addition, a conversation from the StoryCorps project is featured each Friday morning on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Isay has won numerous awards for his work, including the Peabody Award and a MacArthur “Genius” grant.

In 2015, he received the $1 Million TED Prize, which led to the creation of a StoryCorps app, which allows anyone with a smartphone to record and interview and upload it to the Library of Congress.

In addition to Callings, he has edited four other volumes of stories: “Listening is an Act of Love”, “Ties that Bind”, “All There Is”, and “Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work.”

All Berry College firstyear students received a copy of “Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work” early in the summer. During orientation in August, students joined their firstyear seminar classmates, instructor and mentor to discuss the book over dinner, usually in the instructor’s home.

The program is intended to give students a common intellectual experience at the start of their college careers, and to engage them in discussion. The author then speaks at the annual Conson Wilson lecture series.