What was Dr. Temple Grandin up to?

If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you are well aware that we hosted Dr. Temple Grandin on campus at Kansas State University recently. The main lecture, which you can view online here, was given to an overflow crowd in Forum Hall at the Student Union. So overfilled, in fact, that people were filed into the food court and Grand Ballroom to watch the lecture via projection screens.

Besides the main lecture being so full, I feel that Dr. Grandin's impact on campus was very widespread at the multitude of activities we had planned for her. Here are some pictures of what she was up to while visiting Kansas State University. I believe this is a testament to Food For Thought really making the most of our Diversity Programming Committee grant that we received to help facilitate Dr. Grandin's interactions with students and community members of the K-State family! To the best of our ability, we tried to keep track of all the people in attendance at the various lectures and forums. The grand total?

2,451!

That doesn't count the numerous amounts of people who will be viewing the lecture online. Our website crashed the night of the main lecture as over 1000 people tried to log on to view the live feed. We now have the video posted here for your viewing pleasure. Speaking of viewing pleasure...check out these photos!!!

Standing ovation that the crowd gave Dr. Temple Grandin following the first official Upson Lecture in our Food For Thought Upson Lecture Series.

Dr. Grandin being swarmed by a crowd of people. She stuck around after the lecture to visit with people and sign autographs. One young man exclaimed to me, "This was better than any Christmas, she thinks like I do!"

Here is a look inside the overflow Grand Ballroom during the main lecture.

Dr. Grandin even took time to have lunch with our Food For Thought group. We enjoyed the opportunity to discuss our group's goals with such a proactive member of the agriculture industry. We each took a lot out of this session and the food was great too!

If you have ever had a chance to interact with Dr. Grandin, you'll agree with what this photo captured! She has an uncanny sense of humor and we enjoyed it!

Dr. Grandin spoke to a group of architecture students who are working on building plans for an autistism center in the community. She offered insight on different aesthetics in a room or building that can make it more comfortable for people with autism.

The following two pictures are from the open forum held with parents, educators and members in the community interested primarily in speaking with Dr. Grandin about the challenges that autism presents. There were 90 people in attendance at this question and answer session. In the first picture, Miss C, a girl with autism who attended the forum, was talking to Dr. Grandin and getting her advice on learning how to drive.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Pictured below (Back, L-R): Hyatt Frobose, Dr. Dan Thomson, DJ Rezac, Miles Theurer, Garrett Stewart. (Front, L-R): Brandi Buzzard, Dr. Temple Grandin, Tawnya Roenbaugh, Chelsea Good, Tera Rooney, Kiley Stinson. All of our photos were taken by Wrenn Pacheco. Wrenn works at the Beef Cattle Institue with Dr. Dan Thomson and she is an amazing photographer. Go check out her work at www.wrennbirdphotography.com!

If you are interested in contributing to our cause, we have launched a 500 for $500 Campaign to help fund our Upson Lecture Series. We are going to use this series to bring relevant and crowd-gathering speakers to campus. Whenever we have a speaker we will provide a live feed to the internet or DVD copies will be made available to those interested in watching the lectures.

Thanks for checking out our photos of the events!

Tera Rooney