Gloria Steinem presentation on March 28 sold out; Atwood and Chase lecture in April

All of the tickets for Gloria Steinem's Youngstown State University Centofanti Symposium in Stambaugh Auditorium have been distributed.

The lecture by the iconic visionary of the women’s movement is 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 28,

Meanwhile, YSU welcomes two additional featured speakers in Stambaugh Auditorium in April – Start-up Woman of the Year Robin Chase on April 3 for the Thomas Colloquium, and award-winning author Margaret Atwood on April 21 for the Skeggs Lecture.

The lectures are free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets are available at the Stambaugh box office or online at www.stambaughauditorium.com. Tickets for Chase’s presentation will be available starting Feb. 20, and tickets for Atwood’s appearance will be available starting March 10.

Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, political activist, feminist organizer and a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of equality. In 1968, she helped found New York magazine, and in 1972 she co-founded Ms. magazine. She has produced a documentary on child abuse for HBO, a feature film about the death penalty for Lifetime, and been the subject of profiles on Lifetime and Showtime.

The author of several bestselling books, Steinem helped found the Women's Action Alliance, the National Women's Political Caucus, the Women's Media Center and Choice USA. She also is the founding president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, and also a founder of its Take Our Daughters to Work Day.

She has received numerous honors, including the National Gay Rights Advocates Award, the Liberty Award of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Ceres Medal from the United Nations, and a number of honorary degrees. Parenting magazine selected her for its Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in promoting girls' self-esteem, and Biography magazine listed her as one of the 25 most influential women in America. In 2013, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Rutgers University is now creating the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies.

Robin Chase, a transportation entrepreneur, is co-founder and former chief executive of Zipcar, the largest carsharing company in the world; Buzzcar, a peer to peer carsharing service in France; and GoLoco, an online ridesharing community. She is also co-founder of Veniam, a vehicle communications company building the networking fabric for the Internet of Moving Things.

She is on the boards of the World Resources Institute, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the National Advisory Council for Innovation & Entrepreneurship for the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Intelligent Transportations Systems Program Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Transportation, among others.

Chase lectures widely, has been frequently featured in major media, and has received many awards in the areas of innovation, design and environment, including Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Fast Company Fast 50 Innovators, and BusinessWeek Top 10 Designers. Chase graduated from Wellesley College and MIT's Sloan School of Management, was a Harvard University Loeb Fellow, and received an honorary Doctorate of Design from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Margaret Atwood, winner of many international literary awards, is the author of more than 40 books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her latest book of short stories is Stone Mattress: Nine Tales. Her MaddAddam trilogy – the Giller and Booker prize-nominated Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013) – is currently being adapted for HBO. The Door is her latest volume of poetry (2007). Her novels include The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; and The Robber Bride, Cat’s Eye, The Handmaid’s Tale – coming soon as a TV series with MGM and Hulu – and The Penelopiad. Atwood lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.