Media Advisory: ‘Mindset’ Author to Speak at Annual Ridley Lecture

Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of student motivation, will speak March 19 at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education on “Mindsets: Helping Students Fulfill Their Potential.”

The lecture, sponsored by the Curry School and the Ridley Scholarship Fund, will begin at 4 p.m. in Holloway Hall in Bavaro Hall, 405 Emmet St. South.

Dweck, Lewis & Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford, researches the critical role of mindsets in students’ achievement, and argues that praise for intelligence or talent can undermine motivation and learning.

Her lecture will discuss her recent book, “Mindset,” which has been widely acclaimed and translated into 20 languages. She will compare the differences between a “fixed mindset” and a “growth mindset.”

A fixed mindset is when people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits and that talent alone creates success, without effort.

On the other hand, in a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work; brains and talent are just the starting point. Dweck claims that virtually all great people have had these qualities.

This annual lecture honors the legacy of Walter Ridley, the first African-American to graduate from U.Va. with a doctorate in education from the Curry School.

A native Virginian and a respected, accomplished academic at one of Virginia's oldest public institutions of higher education (Virginia State College in Petersburg), Ridley was admitted to U.Va. three years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that ordered desegregation of public schools. Ridley became the University's first black graduate in June 1953, and the first African-American to receive a doctorate degree from a white Southern university.

Registration for the event is closed.

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REPORTERS: Carol Dweck will be available in the early afternoon for interviews before the lecture. Media are invited to cover the event.