Temple Grandin to Speak Feb. 6 at St. Scholastica

Release Date: 01/30/12

Temple Grandin, a doctor of animal science, bestselling author, and advocate for people with autism, will speak at 7 p.m. Feb. 6, in Mitchell Auditorium on campus.

Tickets are $15 for the public, and free to St. Scholastica students. The event is sponsored by the All Abilities student club at St. Scholastica.

Grandin was the subject of an HBO film in 2010. She is considered a philosophical leader of the autism advocacy and animal welfare movements  She is a doctor of animal science and professor at Colorado State University, and a consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior. Her book "Animals in Translation" was a New York Times best seller.

A person with high-functioning autism, Grandin is the inventor of a squeeze machine designed to calm hypersensitive people. In 2010 Time magazine listed her in its Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world in the category "Heroes."

She has designed livestock handling facilities in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. In North America, almost half of all cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Curved chute and race systems she has designed for cattle are used worldwide and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many people to reduce stress on their animals during handling.

Grandin has authored over 300 articles in scientific journals and livestock periodicals on animal handling, welfare, and facility design.

The College of St. Scholastica is regularly recognized as one of the finest colleges in the Midwest. The 2012 "America's Best Colleges" survey by U.S. News & World Report magazine ranks St. Scholastica in the top tier of Midwestern universities. The Washington Post has rated St. Scholastica as one of the nation's 100 "hidden gems" among U.S. colleges and universities.