Head of Tech chess program begins column
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Story last updated at 4/20/2008 - 4:04 am
Welcome to my weekly chess column!
My name is Susan Polgar. I was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. I moved to the United States in 1994, and I lived in New York until August of last year when I relocated to Lubbock to join the Texas Tech family and the Lubbock community.
I am a professional chess player. More information about my work can be found through http://www.susanpolgar.com/.
Some of the highlights:
• Breaking the gender barrier to be the first woman ever to qualify for the Men's World Championship tournament.
• Breaking the gender barrier to become the first-ever woman to earn the title of Grandmaster.
• Winning four world championships and becoming the only chess player in history to win the triple-crown (which includes Blitz, Rapid and Classical time controls).
• Winning 10 Olympiad medals including five gold, four silver and one bronze.
I first visited Lubbock in the fall of 2005 as part of my national chess exhibition and lecture tour. Little did I know at the time that less than two years later I would call Lubbock home. My family and I absolutely love the city and region.
In 2006, I received an invitation to be the commencement speaker at the May 2007 TTU graduation ceremonies. At the ceremony, President Jon Whitmore announced SPICE (Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence), which has four main goals:
1. To put SPICE, Texas Tech University and Lubbock on the chess world map (more than 700 million people play chess worldwide).
2. To introduce chess as an educational tool in all local and regional Lubbock area schools as part of our outreach program, with the goal of going national and international.
3. To conduct research projects connecting chess and other important fields such as education, computers, medicine, psychology, math and writing.
4. To recruit talented chess players worldwide who want to combine their academic studies with continuing to study chess. We hope to be able to put together in the near future a championship-caliber chess team that could compete nationally and internationally for high honors.
Here is the full article.
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