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Friday, November 13, 2026Nov 13

Hollywood success stories among 40 presenters at Lee Celebration

Oscar-winning sound engineer Ben Burtt works on "WALL-E" in his office at the Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif., in this February 2008 photo. Burtt will be at Lee University on Friday, Sept. 30, to lead a one-hour seminar on "The Magic of Sound."
Oscar-winning sound engineer Ben Burtt works on "WALL-E" in his office at the Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif., in this February 2008 photo. Burtt will be at Lee University on Friday, Sept. 30, to lead a one-hour seminar on "The Magic of Sound." Oscar-winning sound engineer Ben Burtt works on "WALL-E" in his office at the Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif., in this February 2008 photo. Burtt will be at Lee University on Friday, Sept. 30, to lead a one-hour seminar on "The Magic of Sound."
photo “The Story of Jordan Smith” will be related in an interview with “The Voice” winner at 9 a.m. Friday at Lee University. The seminar is one of 40 taking place across campus for Celebration 2016.
photo Celebration 2016 at Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn., will include a Ceremony of Celebration on Friday morning, Sept. 30, to dedicate the new School of Nursing building.

Have you ever wondered how Hollywood made Darth Vader’s voice sound the way it does, what it’s like to be on a reality television show or what a day looks like for the speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives?

On Friday, Sept. 30, you can discover the answers to these questions and many others as more than 40 speakers present Celebration Seminars, taking place all over the Lee University campus from 9 to 10 a.m.

The speakers – Lee alumni, faculty, community leaders and other guests – represent diverse experience and knowledge from a variety of fields and topics, including filmmaking, global challenges, nursing, state government, the music industry, foster parenting, songwriting, marriage and getting to the Grammys.

Ben Burtt, four-time Oscar-winning filmmaker and sound designer, is best known for creating the sound effects in the Star Wars films, Indiana Jones, Pixar’s “WALL-E” and other familiar features. In his seminar, “The Magic of Sound,” Burtt will recount career episodes, anecdotes in Hollywood filmmaking, the history of sounds, and discoveries and theories of sound and editing in motion pictures.

Annie Sandberg Douglas, a Lee alumna and Ph.D candidate at Vanderbilt University, works to solve problems concerning global climate change, the need for clean water and renewable energy technologies. In her seminar, “Nanotechnology: Using God’s Smallest Building Blocks to Solve Global Challenges,” Douglas will share research-based ideas with her audience to show how the tiniest of materials can solve global issues.