Arts & Humanities Speaker Series
Springfield College will host Karine Jean-Pierre, former press secretary and senior advisor to President Biden, author, activist, and media personality. Jean-Pierre served in President Biden’s administration and is the first Black person and first openly queer person to serve as the White House Press Secretary, and she remains the longest serving female in that role.
This event is free and open to the Springfield College community and the public.
Jean-Pierre is a long-time political advisor, having served in senior communications and political roles in both the Biden and Obama administrations. Jean-Pierre was named the Regional Political Director for the White House Office of Political Affairs during the Obama-Biden administration, and also worked as the Deputy Battleground States Director for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. In addition, she served as Southeast Regional Political Director for President Obama’s 2008 campaign.
Prior to her roles with the Biden and Obama campaigns, Jean-Pierre served as Chief Public Affairs Officer for MoveOn.org, while also spending time as a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC.
Jean-Pierre has demonstrated a commitment to serving her community, highlighted by her role with the Center for Community and Corporate Ethics, and pushing for major companies to change their business practices.
She is the author of a 2019 memoir titled, Moving Forward: A Story of Hope, Hard Work, and the Promise of America, which looks back and examines her life as a first-generation Haitian American, as well as the forthcoming book Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines (October, 2025).
Born in Martinique and raised in New York, Jean-Pierre is a graduate of Columbia University.
If you would like to support the Arts & Humanities Speaker Series, make your gift now.
The Arts & Humanities Speaker Series is supported by Carlton '63 and Lucille Sedgeley, whose generosity and vision makes possible this extraordinary series, which showcases the transformative cultural, social, and political potential of the arts and humanities. Drawing a broad audience from the city of Springfield and surrounding areas, together with our College community, this series began in 2014 with guest Richard Leakey, and succeeding speakers have been Sherman Alexie, Angelique Kidjo, Mitch Albom, Jessie Close and Calen Pick, Fabien and Celine Cousteau, Ibram X. Kendie, Celine Gounder, Anna Deveare Smith, Jemele Hill, and Jason Reynolds. Visit the Past Speakers page
This lecture series has a compelling origin story. Carlton Sedgeley was a student at Springfield College, he attended a lecture that was not connected to his major and that he was not required to go to. That lecture changed him and the way he viewed the world – he remembers it as a transformative moment in his education. That speaker was famed anthropologist Margaret Meade, and the Sedgeleys went on to build a literary agency and speakers bureau. Their life’s work has been to connect writers, artists, and thinkers with audiences – to make it possible for more people to be transformed, through encounters with interpretations of the world as it is and dreams of the world as it should be.
