Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Digging into the Past to Find the Future: Paleoecology Meets Restoration Ecology

dnorris10 April 21st, 2009

David A. Burney, Director of Conservation at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii, will present “Digging into the Past to Find the Future: Paleoecology Meets Restoration Ecology” at the 28th annual Richard G. Osgood Memorial Lecture on Wednesday, April 15, at The College of Wooster. The event, which is free and open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. in Gault Recital Hall of Scheide Music Center (525 E. University St.). A dessert reception will follow this lecture in the lobby of Scovel Hall (944 College Mall).

Burney’s past research has focused on endangered species, paleoenvironmental studies, and causes of extinction. He has more than 30 years of practical experience in conservation, including serving as a technical consultant for Wildlife Conservation Society, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, BBC Natural History Unit, National Museums of Kenya, United Nations Development Program, USDA, US Fish & Wildlife Service, and other organizations.

Burney is also an adjunct professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa and the Université d’Antananarivo (Madagascar). Prior to moving to Kauai, he was a professor at Fordham University in New York for 15 years. He received an M.Sc. in conservation biology from the University of Nairobi (Kenya) and a Ph.D. in zoology with a minor in botany from Duke University. He is author of more than 100 scientific articles and monographs, many concerning the processes of extinction and environmental change. In 2006 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to write a book on his work at Makauwahi Cave on Kauai, coming out soon at Yale Press. His research has been featured on National Geographic Television, Discovery Channel, Hawaii Public Television, NOVA, and National Public Radio.

With his wife, Lida Pigott Burney, he has established the Makauwahi Cave Reserve on Kauai to protect, research, and restore Hawaii’s richest fossil and archaeological site and reestablish thousands of native plants on the surrounding landscape. He is currently carrying out large scale native plant restorations at Kilohana Crater, Nualolo Kai, Lehua Islet (Niihau), and NTBG’s Limahuli and Lawai gardens.
The Richard G. Osgood, Jr., Memorial Lectureship in Geology was endowed in 1981 by his three sons in memory of their father, a paleontologist with an international reputation who taught at Wooster from 1967 until 1981. Funds from this endowment are used to bring a well-known scientist interested in paleontology and/or stratigraphy to the campus each year to lecture and meet with students.

The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Geology and the Richard G. Osgood, Jr., Memorial Lecture Endowed Fund. Additional information is available by phone (330-263-2380) or e-mail.

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The Morality of Mercy

dnorris10 April 16th, 2009

Heidi Hurd, the David C. Baum Professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Illinois College of Law, will present “The Morality of Mercy” at the 12th Annual Bell Distinguished Lectureship in Law on Thursday, April 9, at The College of Wooster. The free public lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Lean Lecture Room of Wishart Hall (303 E. University St.). A dessert reception will precede the event at 7 p.m.

Hurd is a scholar in the areas of criminal law, torts, political theory, and general jurisprudence. She served as the University of Illinois College of Law’s 11th Dean from 2002 through 2007 and is currently co-director of the College’s Program in Law and Philosophy and the co-editor-in-chief of Law and Philosophy (Kluwer Press). Hurd received her B.A. from Queen’s College, her M.A from Dalhousie University and her J.D., and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. She has taught law and political theory in Hungary, Germany, and Ukraine; was a Visiting Research Fellow in the Law Program of Australian National University’s Research School of Social Sciences in Canberra, Australia; and held the post of visiting professor at the University of Tel Aviv School of Law. Hurd has authored a number of articles that have appeared in the nation’s top law and philosophy journals, including Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Legal Theory, Law and Philosophy, Chicago Law Forum, and Notre Dame Law Review. Hurd is also the author of Moral Combat (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

The Bell Distinguished Lectureship in Law was endowed in 1999 by Jennie M. Bell and Samuel H. Bell, a 1947 College of Wooster graduate and a Federal Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The purpose is to engage students, faculty, members of the legal profession, and members of the community in a legal issue that has broad implications for society. The Bells hope, by way of this lectureship, to bring the best minds of the legal profession to Wooster students and the local community. This lectureship also joins their long-held affection for the law and faith in the values derived from a liberal arts education.

The Bell Distinguished Lectureship is sponsored by The Bell Lectureship Endowed Fund and The College of Wooster’s Pre-Law Advising Program. For additional information, call 330-263-2380.

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American Reform Judaism - Too American or Too Jewish: Solomon Freehof, the ‘Decider’

dnorris10 February 12th, 2009

Joan S. Friedman, assistant professor of history and religious studies, presented “American Reform Judaism - Too American or Too Jewish: Solomon Freehof, the ‘Decider’” at the second lecture in The College of Wooster’s Spring Faculty at Large series on Tuesday, Feb. 10. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 11 a.m. in Lean Lecture Room of Wishart Hall (303 E. University Street).For more than a thousand years, when Jews have not known how to apply the teachings of the Torah to a new situation (e.g. embryonic stem-cell research), they have sent questions to distinguished rabbis, who researched the traditional texts and sent back answers. The collected questions and answers are known as responsa. From the 1940s until his death in 1990, Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof wrote hundreds of responsa for adherents of the Reform movement in Judaism. Reform had arisen in the 19th century as a rebellion against the authority of Jewish law. Nevertheless, it could not sustain itself without reference to the rabbinic texts whose authority it rejected. Freehof’s responsa reveal the tensions inherent in the struggle to create an intellectually and socially sustainable form of Judaism in the face of the homogenizing pressures of modern American life.

Friedman joined the Wooster faculty in 2004, where she teaches courses in Jewish studies and the Holocaust. She also advises Hillel, the Jewish student group on campus, through the Office of Interfaith Campus Ministries. She earned her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her M.A. and rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City. She also earned her Ph.D. in Jewish history from Columbia University. Friedman is currently writing a book on Freehof’s responsa for the Hebrew Union College Press.

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Racial Justice

dnorris10 November 13th, 2008

Charles W. Mills, the John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University, will present “Racial Justice” at the second Lindner Lecture in Ethics on Friday, October 31, at The College of Wooster. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held Lean Lecture Room of Wishart Hall (303 E. University St.) beginning at 7:30 p.m. A dessert reception will precede the presentation.

Mills received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He specializes in the general area of social and political philosophy, particularly in oppositional political theory as centered on class, gender, and race. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters and has written four books, the most recent being, Contract and Domination (2007). He is currently working on a collection of Caribbean essays, Radical Theory, Caribbean Reality: Race, Class, and Social Domination.

Mills’ lecture is sponsored by The Lindner Lecture in Ethics Endowed Fund, which was established in 2007 by Carl H. Lindner of Cincinnati.

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Evaluation and Species Preservation

dnorris10 April 7th, 2008

Bryan Norton, professor of philosophy at Georgia Institute of Technology, will address “Evaluation and Species Preservation” at the third lecture on Monday, March 31. Norton specializes in the philosophy of science and conceptual change in, and across, scientific disciplines. He writes on inter-generational equity, sustainability theory, bio-diversity policy and valuation methods. In addition to his duties as a professor in the School of Public Policy, Norton is an associated scientist at Zoo Atlanta and the author of several books, including Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management.

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The Earth’s Turmoil of the Last Deglacial Period

dnorris10 March 26th, 2008

James Kennett, professor of geological science at The University of California, Santa Barbara, discussed “The Earth’s Turmoil of the Last Deglacial Period” on Thursday, March 6, at The College of Wooster. The presentation, which is free and open to the public, is part of The Consortium for Ocean Leadership Distinguished Lecturer Series. It began at 7 p.m. in Lean Lecture Room of Wishart Hall (303 E. University St.). A dessert reception followed the lecture.

Kennett’s research focuses on earth system history during the Cenozoic based on the analyses of the deep-sea sedimentary record and the uplifted marine record on land. One of his primary objectives is to help develop a better understanding of past global changes. He received a B.S. from the University of New Zealand and from Victoria University of Wellington, and a Ph.D. from Wellington as well as a D.Sc. degree. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow with the American Geophysical Union and Geological Society of America. He also serves on the editorial advisory boards of The Island Arc, Marine Micropaleontology, and Paleoceanography.

The Consortium for Ocean Leadership is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that represents 95 of the leading public and private ocean research education institutions, aquaria, and industry with the mission to advance research, education, and sound ocean policy. The series brings the scientific explorations and discoveries of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program to students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and to the geoscience community in general.

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Indigenous Peoples Creating, Managing and Conserving Biodiversity

dnorris10 March 26th, 2008

Jan Salick, curator of ethnobotany at Missouri Botanical Garden and professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, visited campus to present the second lecture, “Indigenous Peoples Creating, Managing and Conserving Biodiversity” on Wednesday, March 5. Salick’s research interests include ethnobotany, conservation biology, tropical ecology, and agroecology. She has published a number of articles, including “Tibetan Sacred Sites Conserve Old Growth Trees in the Eastern Himalayas” in Biodiversity and Conservation.

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Mega Eruptions, Mega Impacts, Mass Extinctions, and the Shape of Life*

dnorris10 March 26th, 2008

Paul E. Olsen, the Arthur D. Storke Memorial Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, presented “Mega Eruptions, Mega Impacts, Mass Extinctions, and the Shape of Life” at the 27th annual Richard G. Osgood, Jr., Memorial Lecture on Wednesday, Feb. 27, at The College of Wooster. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, was held in Lean Lecture Room of Wishart Hall (303 E. University St.), beginning at 7:30 p.m.

Olsen’s research focuses on the evolution of continental ecosystems, especially the pattern, causes and effects of climate change on geological time scales, mass extinctions, and the effects of evolutionary innovations on biogeochemical cycles. His projects include (1) drilling and studying 22,600 feet of core from 210 million-year-old lake beds to understand the influence of variations of the earth’s orbit on climate; (2) analysis of the mass extinction 201 million years ago that set up dinosaurian dominance; (3) excavations at major fossil vertebrate sites throughout North America and Morocco; and (4) the evolutionary events mediating the carbon cycle and climate change. Olsen, who has a B.A. in Geology and a Ph.D. in Biology (both from Yale University), is the author of more than 170 publications and has appeared in numerous documentaries on the history of life and climate.

The Richard G. Osgood, Jr., Memorial Lectureship in Geology was endowed in 1981 by his three sons in memory of their father, a paleontologist with an international reputation who taught at Wooster from 1967 until 1981. Funds from this endowment are used to bring a well-known scientist interested in paleontology and/or stratigraphy to campus each year to lecture and meet with students. The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Geology and the Richard G. Osgood, Jr., Memorial Lecture Endowed Fund.

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* - Due to a technical error the first few minutes of the lecture were not captured

Tropical Biodiversity: An Endangered Natural Treasure

dnorris10 March 26th, 2008

Rodolfo Dirzo, professor of biology at Stanford University, opened the Environmental Analysis and Action Symposium series on Wednesday, Feb. 20, when he presented “Tropical Biodiversity: An Endangered Natural Treasure.” Dirzo studies plant-animal interactions in an effort to better understand how the ecology and evolution of plants are affected by their biotic environment. His work is focused on tropical forest ecosystems, and he has written extensively on the topic, including a book, titled Tropical Forests: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning. In addition, he has received numerous honors, including the Presidential Award in Ecology from the Secretary of Environment of Mexico.

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Democracy and Access to Higher Education

dnorris10 March 25th, 2008

On Feb. 19, Catharine Bond Hill, President and Professor of Economics at Vassar College, examined “Democracy and Access to Higher Education.” Hill co-authored “Access to the Most Selective Private Colleges by High-Ability, Low-Income Students: Are They Out There?” in College Access: Opportunity or Privilege? and “Affordability: Family Incomes and Net Prices at Highly Selective Private Colleges and Universities” in the Journal of Human Resources. She has been selected for a number of scholarly awards, grants, and fellowships from such organizations as the American Council of Learned Societies, the Brookings Institution, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. She graduated summa cum laude from Williams College, and also earned B.A. and M.A. degrees at Brasenose College, Oxford University, with first-class honors in politics, philosophy and economics. She completed her Ph.D. in economics at Yale University.

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