World-renowned primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall will be the featured speaker for Southwestern University’s 2013 Shilling Lecture. The event will be held on Tuesday, April 2, at 7 p.m. in the Corbin J. Robertson Center.

Goodall will speak at Southwestern as part of her 2013 “Sowing the Seeds of Hope Tour.” She will discuss her work with the chimpanzees in what is today Tanzania’s Gombe National Park from the 1960s to the present.

Goodall also will share information about the work of the Jane Goodall Institute, which continues her pioneering research and celebrates its 36th anniversary this year. The Institute is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. It also is widely recognized for establishing innovative community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa, and Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots, the Institute’s global environmental and humanitarian youth program.

Finally, Goodall will discuss the current threats facing the planet and her reasons for hope in these complex times, encouraging everyone in the audience to do their part to make a positive difference.

Ticket update: Tickets for the event are no longer available. Those who want to see the lecture but were unable to get tickets can watch it live on the Internet. For details on how to access the lecture online, go to http://www.southwestern.edu/about/shilling/webcast.php

Several pre-lecture events are planned, including two documentary screenings sponsored by Professor Laura Hobgood-Oster’s Paideia cohort. The day of the Shilling Lecture, Southwestern is hosting a talk by 2002 graduate Stephanie Braccini, who is a primatologist at Washington University in St. Louis, as well as the Zoological Manager of Great Apes at the St. Louis Zoo. The talk will begin at noon in the Dan Rather Room, Red & Charline McCombs Campus Center.

The A. Frank Smith, Jr. Library Center also has a display of books and DVDs by and about Goodall.

Goodall has written more than 250 books for adults and children. Her 1986 book The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior is recognized as thedefinitive work on chimpanzees. Her 1990 book Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe has been translated into more than 15 languages.

Goodall’s most recent book is Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink.

Goodall has been the subject of numerous television programs and films, including the 2002 film, “Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees.”

Goodall has received numerous awards, including the French Legion of Honor, France’s most prestigious honor, in 2006. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II named Goodall a Dame of the British Empire, the female equivalent of knighthood. In 2002, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan named Goodall a United Nations “Messenger of Peace.”

The Shilling Lecture Series at Southwestern University was established in 1999 by The Brown Foundation Inc. of Houston to honor Southwestern’s 13th president, Roy B. Shilling Jr., and his wife, Margaret. The series brings to campus internationally prominent speakers on topics relating to ethics, public service and public policy. Past speakers include Tom Friedman, Blake Mycoskie, Bill Foege, Wangari Maathai, Bill Bradley, James Baker III, Thomas Kean, Benazir Bhutto, Desmond Tutu, Bill Moyers, President Jimmy Carter, Marian Wright Edelman, William Sloane Coffin, John McGuire and Karen Hughes.