Please join us!

Mark your calendars for October 27! The Charter Oak State College Foundation is sponsoring its annual Shea Lecture, which is FREE and open to the public. This yearly event is offered in memory of the College’s first President, Dr. Bernard Shea. The topic of this year’s lecture is a timely and fascinating one - the reliability of eyewitness testimony. The presentation will be delivered by Associate Professor of Psychology Jennifer Dysart of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who is an expert in eyewitness testimony. She will share her research into how we see and how we remember what we see. She is often asked to testify at major trials, and we are thrilled she can lend her expertise on this fascinating topic. Professor Dysart will be joined by a panel of police chiefs from Connecticut’s three largest cities.

We chose this topic for this year’s Shea Lecture because we believe it will resonate with our public safety students and alums. As many of you know, the College has a vibrant public safety program that has graduated nine Connecticut police chiefs. In fact, the panel of respondents includes Hartford Chief of Police Daryl K. Roberts, a COSC alum, and the recipient of the 2011 Charter Oak State College Foundation Innovation Award. This award will be given to the Chief, who recently announced his impending retirement at the end of the year, at the fundraising reception that will follow the Shea Lecture. Chief Roberts will be joined on the Shea panel by Bridgeport Chief of Police Joseph Gaudett , who is a current COSC public safety student, and New Haven Chief of Police Frank Limon. The lecture will be moderated by retired Branford Chief of Police and COSC alum John DeCarlo, PhD.

This thought-provoking event will be held at the Hartford Tower Auditorium, 22nd floor, 1 Hartford Plaza, Hartford, CT. This magnificent room is part of the Hartford Insurance Company’s building and the fun begins at 5:30 PM. We hope that those of you who live within driving distance of Hartford will come out for the lecture. In addition, we will be filming the talk so that it can be used in police training across the state. And if you would like to thank Chief Roberts for his 30 year career serving the citizens of Hartford, the fundraiser will give you a chance to shake his hand.

Our website has more information about the Shea Lecture. The staff and I are very excited about this event - will you be joining us?