Centre News

Noted scholar and author Clayton Christensen will speak at the
annual Board of Trustees Meeting on Friday, Jan. 27, and the
Capitol Steps will perform at the Associates Dinner that evening.
Above, President John Roush with a group of young alumni at
last year's Associates Dinner.

Centre College’s annual January Board of Trustees meeting and Associates Dinner will take place on Friday, Jan. 27 at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville. Noted scholar and author Clayton Christensen will speak at the Board luncheon on Friday afternoon, and the Capitol Steps will perform at the Associates Dinner that evening.

“Centre’s progress is fueled by generous private gifts and grants from the College’s alumni, parents of current students, friends, corporations and foundations. Our leadership donors are members of Centre Associates,” says Richard Trollinger, vice president for college relations. “The Associates Dinner celebrates the difference that philanthropy makes in the lives of Centre students. Given the excitement among our donors about the progress the College is making on all fronts, it is not surprising that we are expecting a record attendance — more than 350 people — at this year’s Associates Dinner.”

The Capitol Steps is a world-famous comedy group made up of former Senate staffers who now enjoy satirizing the people with whom they used to work. Altogether, the members of the comedy troupe have worked for eighteen Congressional offices and hold a combined 62 years of experience working in the House and Senate.

The group, which creates skits and songs parodying the nation’s politics and government leaders, has recorded over 30 comedy albums and is featured four times a year on National Public Radio’s Politics Takes a Holiday radio specials.

Clayton Christensen, Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, is the authority on the theory of disruptive innovation — which describes the process of a product or service using innovative ideas to move from the bottom of a market upwards, elbowing out established competitors. Christensen will speak to how disruptive innovation has affected education, both on the primary and secondary levels.

“Clayton Christensen is a remarkable blend of intellect, common sense and futurist,” says Centre President John A. Roush. “His clear interest is in building a better, stronger America, and he understands that our nation’s real secret is the strength of its people — their capacity to acknowledge change as opportunity and then, to dream, imagine, plan and execute.”

Christensen’s findings on disruptive innovation have been applied to Fortune 50 companies and even national economies.

His book The Innovator’s Dilemma, which first outlined his theory of disruptive innovation, won the Global Business Book Award for the Best Business Book of the Year in 1997, was a New York Times bestseller, has been translated into over 10 languages and is sold in over 25 countries. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010.

Have comments, suggestions, or story ideas? E-mail elizabeth.trollinger@centre.edu with your feedback.

Centre College, founded in 1819 and chosen to host its second Vice Presidential Debate in 2012, is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges, at 42nd in the nation, and ranks 27th for best value among national liberal arts colleges. Forbes magazine ranks Centre 34th among all the nation’s colleges and universities and has named Centre in the top five among all institutions of higher education in the South for three years in a row. Centre is also ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News for its study abroad program. For more, click here.