Goodall’s speaking engagement on Wednesday, April 20th - entitled "Gombe & Beyond" - is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. at the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts with doors opening at 7 p.m.
Tickets are free and open to the public and will be available at the Phillips Center box office. Students with valid UF ID may pick up a maximum of two tickets beginning at noon on Tuesday, April 19th. If there are any remaining tickets available, members of the general public may pick up a maximum of two tickets beginning at noon on Wednesday, April 20th. ACCENT Speakers Bureau will produce a live stream of the event for those unable to get tickets.
In the summer of 1960, Goodall arrived on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in what is now Tanzania to venture into the African forest to study wild chimpanzees. As Goodall first surveyed the mountains and valley forests of Gombe National Park, she had no idea her coming efforts would redefine the relationship between humans and animals or that the project would continue into the 21st century.
In the fall of 1960, Goodall witnessed a chimpanzee strip leaves off twigs to fashion tools for fishing termites from a nest – disproving the scientific consensus at the time that humans were the only species to make and use tools. Goodall defied scientific convention by giving the Gombe chimps names instead of numbers and insisted on the validity of her observations that animals have distinct personalities, minds and emotions.
In 1961, Goodall entered Cambridge University as a Ph.D. candidate, one of very few people to be admitted without a college degree. She earned her Ph.D. in ethology in 1966. In 1965, Goodall established the Gombe Stream Research Centre, which eventually became a training ground for students interested in studying primates. 55 years later, Gombe hosts a skilled team of researchers and field assistants, including many Tanzanians, and we are still learning so much about the famous chimpanzees of Gombe.
In 1977, Dr. Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute, which supports the continuing research at Gombe and is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. The Institute is also widely recognized for establishing innovative community conservation and development programs in Africa. In 1991, Dr. Goodall, along with 12 Tanzanian students founded the Institute’s global environmental and humanitarian youth program, Roots & Shoots. Celebrating it’s 25th anniversary this year, this global youth program is now in more than 130 countries with hundreds of thousands of young people helping Dr. Goodall make the world a better place for people, animals and the environment.
In 1986, after a conference session with startling news about deforestation and the rapidly dwindling chimpanzee populations across Africa, Dr. Goodall realized she would have to leave her beloved Gombe and begin working to save chimpanzees, which is a mission she continues to this day. Since then, Goodall has traveled nearly 300 days each year, not spending more than three weeks in one place for the last three decades.
Dr. Goodall’s scores of honors include the Medal of Tanzania, the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal, Japan’s prestigious Kyoto Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science, UNESCO Gold Medal Award, and the Gandhi/King Award for Nonviolence. In April 2002, Secretary-General Kofi Annan named Dr. Goodall a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2004, in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, Prince Charles invested Dr. Goodall as a Dame of the British Empire, the female equivalent of knighthood. In 2006, Dr. Goodall received France’s highest recognition, the French Legion of Honor, presented by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in Paris.
