Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Featuring:
- Alexandra Hudson, Civic Renaissance curator and adjunct faculty member, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
- Una Osili, Ph.D., associate dean for research and international programs, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
- A.J. Jacobs, author of Thanks a Thousand
Watch a video replay below.
What is gratitude? How might gratitude reinvigorate American civic life, and lend more meaning to our lives? Join Civic Renaissance curator and Lilly Family School of Philanthropy adjunct faculty member Alexandra Hudson as she facilitates a conversation with Dr. Una Osili, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy associate dean for research and international programs, and bestselling author A.J. Jacobs about his remarkable adventure in gratitude: Jacobs traveled the world to thank every person involved in making his morning cup of coffee.
About Alexandra Hudson
Alexandra Hudson is the curator of Civic Renaissance, a newsletter and intellectual community dedicated to moral and cultural renewal. She is an award-winning writer based in Indianapolis, currently writing on a book on civility and civic revival for St. Martin’s Press.
She earned a master's degree in social policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and has served at the local, state and federal levels of government and public policy—most recently holding an appointment at the U.S. Department of Education.
From Vancouver to Orlando, and from Sydney to Paris, Alexandra is an in-demand speaker, frequently engaging audiences both across America and around the word. A former Novak Journalism Fellow, she contributes to Fox News, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, Newsweek, and other national television and print media outlets.
About A.J. Jacobs
A.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, lecturer and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor and a dash of self-help. Among his books are The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically, and Thanks a Thousand, in which he travels the globe to thank everyone who had even the slightest role in making his morning cup of coffee.
He is a contributor to NPR, The New York Times, and Esquire, among others. He has given several TED talks, including ones about living biblically, creating a one-world family, and living healthily that have amassed over 10 million views.
About Una Osili
Dr. Una Osili is the Efroymson Chair in Philanthropy and the associate dean for research and international programs at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, the world’s first school dedicated to the study of philanthropy. She also serves as Dean’s Fellow for the Mays Family Institute on Diverse Philanthropy.
An internationally recognized scholar in economics, Osili leads the research and publication of Global Philanthropy Tracker and the Global Philanthropy Environment Index, which are prominent sources of global development and social innovation data trends that collaborate with over 100 experts in 79 countries.
At IU, she leads the research and publication of Giving USA, the annual report on American philanthropy, and is the founder of Generosity for Life, a digital platform providing new data tools for financial decision making in the area of philanthropy and social impact. She chairs the School's signature research project, the Philanthropy Panel Study, the most comprehensive study of the generosity of American families over time.