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Past Events
Thursday, 13 Nov 2008
Our Changing Climate: Myths and Realities - Bill Gutowski
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Bill Gutowski, Iowa State University Professor of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, uncovers the myths and realities of our world's climate. He will present information on polar ice caps and weather patterns as well as temperature changes. His research focuses on the role of atmospheric traits in climate, especially the dynamics of the hydrologic cycle and regional climate. His work entails a variety of modeling and data analysis and has included regional modeling of African, Arctic and East Asian climates. Gutowski has a BS from Yale University in astronomy and physics and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Part of the Global Citizenship Symposium.
Wednesday, 12 Nov 2008
Excavating the Ancient Greek City - Peggy Mook
7:30 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Peggy Mook, associate professor of classical studies in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, will speak on the major excavation of a settlement that existed on the Greek island of Crete from the Late Bronze Age through early Archaic. Mook began work on the excavation as a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota and has continued to help the team expose and complete restoration of the architectural remains of the village. Her analysis of the pottery in particular has helped provide evidence for the nature of daily life in the village and indicate social and economic variation across the settlement and through time. Mook’s research has been funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Philosophical Society. College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's Lecture Series.
Tuesday, 11 Nov 2008
Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century - James Orbinski
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Dr. James Orbinski is a humanitarian advocate and former president of the world's largest independent medical humanitarian organization, Doctors Without Borders, for which he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. He offers firsthand testimony from the front lines in Peru, Somalia and Afghanistan as well as a compelling look at the ravages of genocide and civil war and the role of humanitarianism. He is the founder and president of Dignitas International, an NGO launched to research and provide community-based care for people living with HIV in the developing world. He is currently a research scientist and associate professor of family and community medicine and political science at St. Michael's Hospital at the University of Toronto and the author of An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the 21st Century. Humanitarian groups and student organizations will have tables with information, sign-up sheets, and displays before and after the lecture. Part of the World Affairs Series: Why Should We Care?
An audio tape of this presentation will not be available.
Monday, 10 Nov 2008
How the Media Teach about Diversity - Carlos E. Cortés
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Carlos E. Cortés is the author of The Children Are Watching: How the Media Teach about Diversity and The Making - and Remaking - of a Multiculturalist. He is Creative/Cultural Advisor for Nickelodeon's award-winning children's television series Dora the Explorer and its sequel, Go, Diego, Go!, as well as coauthor of the Houghton Mifflin Social Studies series and senior consultant for the McDougal Littell World History series. Cortés is professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Riverside. He also serves on the summer faculty of the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education and on the faculty of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication.
An audio tape of this presentation will not be available.
Thursday, 6 Nov 2008
An African Childhood - Alexandra Fuller
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood and Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier, grew up on several farms in southern Africa. Her father sided with the colonial government in the Rhodesian civil war and was often away fighting black guerilla factions. Her memoirs tell of a white family clinging to lives in Africa as Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and illustrate how turmoil and injustice in society distort the lives of families and individuals. Alexandra Fuller was born in England and in 1972 moved with her family to a farm in Rhodesia. After that country's war for independence in 1980, the Fullers moved first to Malawi, then to Zambia. In 1994, she married and moved to Wyoming, where she currently lives and writes. Her recent book is The Legend of Colton H Bryant, the story of a boy who comes of age in the oil fields and open plains of the American West. Part of the World Affairs Series: Why Should We Care?
One for All and All for One: The Rhetoric of Climate Change and Sustainability - Tarla R. Peterson
8:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Tarla Rai Peterson holds the Boone and Crockett Chair in Wildlife Conservation and Policy at Texas A&M University, where she is a professor in the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences. She is the editor of Green Talk in the White House: The Rhetorical Presidency Encounters Ecology. Her research focuses on the intersections between communication, environmental policy, and democracy. She will discuss the rhetorical strategies of 1Sky, a coalition dedicated to building a national movement for a set of comprehensive policies addressing climate change. Peterson earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from Washington State University. Part of the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities Series: Sustaining the Earth.
Understanding Energy Supply and Demand in the United States - Clair J. Moeller
7:00 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Clair J. Moeller is Vice President of Transmission Asset Management at Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, Inc. He is responsible for the transmission planning functions, transmission services and tariff administration. Moeller has more than twenty-five years of experience in the operation of power systems in the Upper Midwest and is particularly skilled at identifying and implementing best practices in transmission operations. Under his leadership, the Midwest ISO adopted an innovative business framework for the participation of independent companies in a regional transmission organization known as Appendix I. He completed the Executive Management program at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Business and earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University. Part of the Engineering Thematic Year on Energy and Sustainability.
Wednesday, 5 Nov 2008
An Outlook to Nature: Recovering Liberty Hyde Bailey's Agrarian Environmentalism - Ben Minteer
7:30 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Ben Minteer is the author of The Landscape of Reform: Civic Pragmatism and Environmental Thought in America; Reconstructing Conservation; and the forthcoming Nature in Common? Environmental Ethics and the Contested Foundations of Environmental Policy. He is currently at work on a book on the legacy of Liberty Hyde Bailey, one of the most important figures to have written in the field of agricultural and environmental ethics and the inventor of the idea of agricultural extension. Ben Minteer is an assistant professor in the Human Dimensions of Biology Program and affiliated assistant professor of philosophy at Arizona State University.
Monday, 3 Nov 2008
Putin's Petrostate: Power, Patronage and the New Russia - Marshall Goldman
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Marshall I. Goldman is a recognized authority on Russian economics, politics, and environmental policy and best known for his analysis of the careers of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. He is the author of over a dozen books on the former Soviet Union, including The USSR in Crisis: The Failure of an Economic System and Gorbachev's Challenge: Economic Reform in the Age of High Technology. His most recent book is Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia. Goldman is the Kathryn Wasserman Davis Professor of Russian Economics (Emeritus) at Wellesley College, and he served for more than thirty years as the associate director of the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University. Goldman received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Russian studies and economics from Harvard University. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Program Distinguished Speaker and part of the World Affairs Series.
Friday, 31 Oct 2008
Centering the Human in Virtual and Augmented Reality: The Role of Psychophysics - Roberta Klatzky
12:00 PM – Alliant-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Roberta Klatzky is a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, where she is also on the faculty of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Her research interests are in human perception and cognition, with special emphasis on spatial cognition and haptic perception, or, recognizing objects through touch. Her work has application to navigational aids for the blind, exploratory robotics, teleoperation, and virtual environments. She received a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Stanford University. Part of the Human Computer Interaction Lecture Series and Women in STEM Series.