Acclaimed Expert on Human/Animal Relationship is Earth Day Speaker

Date: 4/9/07
Contact: Marc Lebovitz

Colorado State Professor Temple Grandin, whose keen observations of human/animal relationships have resulted in surprising insights on human’s need for nature, will speak at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 18, as part of Illinois State University’s Earth Day observation.

Grandin’s speech, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the Old Main Room of Bone Student Center.

The rest of the Earth Day programs will take place on Monday, April 16, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the ISU Quad. President Al Bowman will make his annual Earth Day address at noon. He will review the University’s environmental accomplishments of the past year and set directions for the future.

At 1:30 p.m., students from Thomas Metcalf School will perform. Other activities on the quad will include an Earth Day auto show featuring hybrid, flex-fuel and other “green” vehicles; educational displays by the McLean County Radon Project, Bloomington-Normal Public Transit System, the Ecology Action Center and others.

At 6 p.m. in room 130 of Schroeder Hall, Horizon Wind Energy Project Coordinator Marie Streenz will provide an update on the McLean County Twin Groves Wind Farm. She also will provide an overview of wind energy from the local to the international level.

Grandin, a prominent author and speaker on the subject of autism, is considered the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. She had been featured on many major television programs, in national magazines and featured in a half-hour biography on Bravo channel. She didn’t talk until she was 3 years old and was diagnosed as autistic as a child. As an adult she was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, a developmental disorder related to autism.

But also as an adult, Grandin in 1986 wrote a book, “Emergence: Labeled Autistic,” an accomplishment which shocked the “experts” who assumed that being autistic prevented achievement or productivity. She completed her Ph.D. in animal science in 1989 from the University of Illinois.

Despite the “autistic” label, Grandin eventually found a mentor who recognized her interests and abilities, which she later expanded into becoming a successful livestock handling equipment designer, one of very few in the world. She has designed the facilities in which half the cattle are handled in the United States, consulting for firms such as Burger King, McDonald's, Swift and others.