2026 Prince Lecture: Beyond Mindfulness… Humanness with Lee Carlson '76

Join us on Monday, March 16 at 6 p.m. for our Prince Lecture at Nichols School in the Class of 1961 Student Commons. The Prince Lecture series was established in the mid 1970’s by S. Warren Prince, Jr., a Nichols graduate of the class of 1947 and President of Prince Rubber & Plastics Co, in honor of his father, Sidney Warren Prince, Sr. Each year a person of national renown is invited to Buffalo to serve as speaker for this long-standing series.

This year we will be discussing what does the future hold for us, our children, and our society as AI, bots, and ever more powerful computers take over tasks that were once the sole province of humans? How do we adapt? How do we reclaim our humanity? How do we navigate this existential crisis?

Journalist, author, thought leader, and Zen teacher Lee Carlson, class of ’76, will give a TED-style lecture on what it means to be human in an anxiety-provoking age of rapid technological change, examining what we can do to take control of our lives instead of letting this new technological wave push us under.

The lecture will be preceded by a remembrance of Warren Prince, class of ’47, who originated and supported the Prince Lecture series for more than 50 years, and who passed away this past August.

About Lee Carlson:

Lee Carlson began exploring what it means to be human while taking a class on existentialism from Sue Schapiro at Nichols. He went on to study writing under the well-known author and teacher Clark Blaise, director of the famous International Writer’s Program at the University of Iowa. He spent 14 years as a student of the celebrated writer and Zen master Peter Matthiessen, the only person ever to win the National Book Award for both fiction and non-fiction. Carlson has been editor in chief of a computer magazine and a physics magazine, as well as senior editor at Skiing magazine. As a freelance writer his clients have included The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Outside Magazine, NBC Sports, ESPN, Men’s Journal, and many others. He is the author of two books: Passage to Nirvana, A Survivor’s Zen Voyage: Reflections on Loss, Discovery, Healing & Hope, about his recovery from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and A Single Excellent Night: A Man, a Mentor, & a Moment in Time, about his apprenticeship with Peter Matthiessen, which was a #1 best seller on Amazon.