George Takei to speak at UTRGV’s next Distinguished Speaker Series
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Media Advisory
By Ester Navarro
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BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – Best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in “Star Trek: The Original Series,” actor and activist George Takei will speak about his rise as a sci-fi celebrity icon and his fight for LGBTQ rights and marriage equality, as part of UTRGV’s Distinguished Speaker Series (DSS), Monday, Jan. 28, at the TSC Performing Arts Center in Brownsville.
Takei has made guest appearances on hit TV shows such as “The Big Bang Theory” and “Scrubs.”
Takei spent part of his childhood imprisoned with his family in a Japanese-American Internment Camp during WWII. Today, Takei is an actor, social media mega power and one of the country’s most popular leading figures in the fight for social justice.
He has more than 10 million likes and 3 million followers on Twitter, leading Mashable.com to name him the number one most influential person on Facebook in 2012.
“The DSS is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students and the community to listen to world class speakers,” said Lauren Contreras, program coordinator for UTRGV Student Activities.
“Many students and community members do not have the luxury or ability to travel and hear speeches like this, so it is our aim to bring the speakers to their front door.”
DSS is free and open to the public. Doors open at 7 p.m. for UTRGV students with a valid university ID, and 7:20 p.m. for the general public.
For more information or special accommodations, call 956-665-7364 (Edinburg) or 956-882-5111 (Brownsville).
ABOUT UTRGV
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.
UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island. UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.