Richard Rodriguez gave the 22nd Annual Charles W. Kegley Memorial Lecture on Thursday, April 17, 2008. Speaking to an overflow crowd of nearly 600 students, community members, faculty and staff, Rodriguez eloquently, and humorously, challenged accepted notions of race, ethnicity, class, and social privilege.

Rodriguez refuses to speak in the ideological jargon of the left or the right, but instead motivates a new conversation, one that sees truth and vision emerging from cultural contradiction. He took questions well into the evening and in the end received a standing ovation, testifying to the power of his message and of his person.