Past Programs

Doris Fuller

Doris Fuller PosterTreatment Advocacy Center, Arlington, VA

The New Asylums: Mentally Ill and Behind Bars

Thursday, November 5, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

In the 1930s, barely one in 100 jail inmates had a serious mental illness. Today, the most conservative estimates are one in five jail inmates and even more of the prison population. With video, personal story and professional insight, Fuller will discuss the role of mental illness in turning the U.S. into the world leader in incarceration and discuss practical measures to curb this trend.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Division of Student Life, health studies and the department of psychology. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Inequality and Mass Incarceration in the United States. 

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Doris Fuller SeriousDoris A. Fuller is chief of research and public affairs, where she conducts and directs the Treatment Advocacy Center’s original studies abd research-driven communications, including public education related to mental illness.

Fuller has co-authored several recent studies from the Treatment Advocacy Center, including:

Read more

Nikki Jones

Nikki Jones Final PosterUniversity of California, Berkeley

How Things Fall Apart: Race and Suspicion in Police-Civilian Encounters

Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Drawing on years of field research among Black residents in urban neighborhoods, interviews with police, and videorecordings of police-civilian encounters, sociologist Nikki Jones illustrates how race, suspicion and bias shape the earliest moments of such encounters. She will also share findings from her research which reveals key interactional adjustments that could be used to improve the quality of police encounters with the public.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the departments of women’s and gender studies, educational studies, policy studies, and sociology. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Inequality and Mass Incarceration in the United States, and its Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

EmilyKiyomiPhotographyBiography (Link to UC Berkeley Web site)

Nikki Jones is an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a faculty affiliate with the Center for the Study of Law and Society. Her areas of expertise include urban ethnography, race and ethnic relations Read more

John Geer

GeerPosterVanderbilt University

The Bruce R. Andrews Lecture

Attacking Democracy

Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

Conventional wisdom says negative political attacks undermine democracy. This lecture will argue, instead, that “attack politics” advance democratic governance.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Bruce R. Andrews Fund and the Churchill Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

John G. Geer is vice provost for Academic and Strategic Affairs at Vanderbilt UniversitSGy, interim dean of the Graduate School, and the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science.  He earned his Ph.D. in 1986 from Princeton University.  Geer is past editor of The Journal of Politics. Geer has published widely on campaigns, elections, and public opinion.  He is author of In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns, which won Harvard University’s Goldsmith Prize in 2008.  Geer has recently published the third edition of Gateways to Democracy (2015).  He has provided extensive commentary in the news media about American politics, including live nationwide interviews for FOX, CNN, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, ABC, and NPR.  Read more

BREAKING ISSUE: The Syrian Migration Crisis

syrian migration crisis posterMonday, October 26, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Kristine Mitchell, associate professor of political science and international studies, Dickinson College
Magda Siekert, lecturer in Middle East studies, Dickinson College
Marybeth Ulrich, professor of government, U.S. Army War College
Andrew Wolff (moderator), assistant professor of political science and international studies, Dickinson College

Since March 2011, 49% of the Syrian population have migrated from the country, fleeing the brutal dictator, Bashar al-Assad, the rise of jihadists, and the proxy war between regional and world powers to seek refuge in Europe and most recently, the United States. This is the largest displaced persons population in history. With the war and turmoil in Syria only intensifying, Syrian refugees are continuing to make the treacherous journey to surrounding countries by any means possible. This panel, comprised of Dickinson and U. S. Army War College faculty members, will explore the international security, diplomatic and social implications of the displacement and how the world powers are responding to the crisis.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and is a Clarke Forum Student Project Manager initiated event.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

mitchelkKristine Mitchell is Read more

Cumberland County Commissioner Candidates’ Forum

Cumb Co Comm Forum PosterThursday, October 15, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Vince DiFilippo (R)
Gary Eichelberger (R)
Jim Hertzler (D)
Rick Rovegno (D)

The four candidates vying for the three seats on the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners will meet for a candidates’ forum. James Hoefler from Dickinson College will moderate.

The event is sponsored by the The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College, the Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce, American Association of University Women (AAUW) Carlisle Branch, Carlisle Young Professionals, Carlisle YWCA, League of Women Voters Carlisle Area and The Sentinel. Read more

Steven Strogatz – “Joseph Priestley Award Recipient”

Strogatz PosterCornell University

Joseph Priestley Award Celebration Lecture

Synchronization in Nature

Monday, October 12, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Strogatz will discuss spectacular examples of synchronization in nature, from rhythmically flashing fireflies to crowds of pedestrians that inadvertently caused London’s Millennium Bridge to wobble on its opening day.

The Joseph Priestley Award recipient is chosen by a different science department each year.  The Department of Physics and Astronomy has selected this year’s recipient, Steven Strogatz. The event is supported by the College’s Priestley Fund and is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Student Senate and the Churchill Fund  and co-sponsored by the departments of physics and astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth sciences, environmental studies, math & computer science, and psychology.

strogatz photo by John GrooBiography (provided by the speaker)

Steven Strogatz is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University. He works in the areas of nonlinear dynamics and complex systems, often on topics inspired by the curiosities of everyday life. He studied at Princeton, Cambridge, and Harvard and taught at MIT before moving to Cornell in 1994. A renowned teacher and one of the world’s most highly cited mathematicians, he has blogged about math for the New York Read more

Christopher Wildeman ’02

Wildeman Final PosterCornell University

With Comments by Lauren Porter ’06, University of Maryland

Family Life in an Era of Mass Incarceration

Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This lecture will consider the implications of mass incarceration for American families, focusing especially on the consequences of men’s incarceration for their parents, partner, and progeny.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and is part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Inequality and Mass Incarceration in the United States.

portrait cjw from Cornell Web siteBiographies (provided by the speakers)

Christopher Wildeman is an associate professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University. He is also currently a senior researcher at the Rockwool Foundation Research Unit in Copenhagen, Denmark (since 2015) and a visiting fellow at the Bureau of Justice Statistics in Washington, D.C. (since 2013). Prior to joining Cornell’s faculty, he was an associate professor of sociology at Yale University (from 2010-2014) and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the University of Michigan (from 2008-2010). He received his Ph.D. in sociology and demography from Princeton University in 2008 and his B.A. in philosophy, sociology, and Spanish from Dickinson College in 2002. His interests revolve around Read more

Patricia Hill Collins – “Morgan Lecturer”

PHC Final PosterUniversity of Maryland

Intersectionality, Black Youth and Political Activism

Thursday, October 1, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium (ATS), 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

This talk examines how intersectional frameworks shed light on new directions for anti-racist activism, especially among African American youth.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Morgan Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, Division of Student Life, the departments of sociology, women’s and gender studies, Africana studies, American studies, anthropology, English, history,  philosophy, and political science. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Inequality and Mass Incarceration in the United States and the Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

PatriciaHillCollins Head ShotBiography (provided by the speaker)

Patricia Hill Collins is Distinguished University Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park and Charles Phelps Taft Emeritus Professor of Sociology within the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Her award-winning books include Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (1990, 2000) which received both the Jessie Bernard Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and the C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems; Read more

Bob Weick

Weick PosterActor and Monologist, Featured as Karl Marx

Marx in Soho by Howard Zinn

Monday, September 28, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium (ATS), 7 p.m.

Karl Marx launches into a passionate, funny and moving defense of his life and political ideas in Howard Zinn’s brilliant and timely play, Marx in Soho.

The presentation is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of economics and sociology.

Marx Photo with ManifestoBiography (provided by the speaker)

Bob Weick, is the national touring actor of Howard Zinn’s, Marx in Soho. The celebrated actor and Barrymore Award nominee has presented over 250 performances of Zinn’s play from Maine to California. A farrier by trade, Bob began his acting career in 1995 and in the aftermath of the 2000 election, 9/11, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, chose to use his talent to contribute to the education and engagement of students and citizens.

Related Links
www.ironagetheatre.orghttp://phindie.com/howard-zinn-bob-weick-peoples-history-6757/

Video of Performance for Campus-Viewing Only

  Read more

Anthony Ingraffea

Ingraffea PosterCornell University

Shale Gas and Oil Development: Latest Evidence on Leaky Wells, Methane Emissions, and Energy Policy

Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium (ATS), 7 p.m.
(360 W. Louther Street, Carlisle, PA)

Ingraffea will discuss the myths and realities concerning large-scale development of unconventional natural gas/oil resources in shale deposits on both a local and global scale.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund,  Center for Sustainability Education, department of environmental studies and Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM). The program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s  Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Dr Ingraffea ithaca fallsBiography (provided by the speaker)

Dr. Ingraffea is the Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering Emeritus and a Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow at Cornell University where he has been since 1977. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, an M.S. in Civil Engineering from Polytechnic Institute of New York, and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado. Dr. Ingraffea’s research concentrates on computer simulation and physical testing of complex fracturing processes. He and his students performed pioneering research in the use of interactive Read more

Rush Holt

Final Holt PosterAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

The Glover Memorial Lecture
Advancing Science

Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium (ATS), 7 p.m.
(360 W. Louther Street, Carlisle, PA)

Science is, as physician and essayist Lewis Thomas wrote, the “shrewdest maneuver” for discovering the world. Asking questions that can be answered empirically and engaging in open communication so that others can collectively review and verify possible answers lead to the most reliable knowledge—a knowledge that is powerfully applicable in daily life. To thrive, however, science needs the support of the society it serves, and that support must be cultivated.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Glover Memorial Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the departments of physics, policy studies and political Science. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)holt aaas px

Rush D. Holt, Ph.D., became the 18th chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and executive publisher of the Science family of journals in February 2015. In this role, Holt leads the world’s largest multi-disciplinary scientific and Read more

Meet the Candidates

Meet the candidates running for Cumberland County Commissioner and for the Cumberland County Court of Common Pleas.

Cumb Co Candidates Forum Final

Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium

7:00 p.m. – Commissioner Candidates’ Forum

8:00 p.m. – Court of Common Pleas Candidates’ Forum

A meet and greet with all candidates will be held following the last forum.

Commissioner Candidates’ Forum – 7 p.m.

All three Cumberland County Commissioners seats are up for re-election this November. The primary election will be held on May 19, 2015 and the top two candidates from each party will be put on the ballot for the November election. The seven candidates running for County Commissioner are Barb Cross (R), Vince DiFilippo (R), Gary Eichelberger (R), Dashell Fittry (D), Jim Hertzler (D), Rick Rovegno (D) and Rick Schin (R). This forum will start with each candidate giving a brief introductory statement followed by rebuttals, followed by two written submitted questions from the public. Michelle Crowley, president and CEO of the Greater Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce will moderate and read the questions selected for this part of the program.

Court of Common Pleas Candidates’ Forum – 8 p.m.

The one open seat is Read more

Peterson Toscano – (Second Night of Two Performances)

Toscano Final PosterTheatrical Performer, Bible Scholar and LGBTQ Activist

Peterson Unplugged

Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

With sparkling social commentary, Peterson Toscano, a bible scholar, an LGBTQ activist, and a skilled actor, will share excerpts from his original one-person comedies. These comedies include:  Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House, Jesus Had Two Daddies, Transfigurations—Transgressing Gender in the Bible, and Does this Apocalypse Make Me Look Fat?

Tonight is the second evening of two performances. The first performance, Climate Change: What’s Faith Got to Do with It? is scheduled for Tuesday, April 21 at 7 p.m.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Division of Student Life, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, Office of Community Service and Religious Life, Center for Sustainability Education and Office of LGBTQ Services.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Toscano PicPeterson Toscano is a theatrical performance activist using comedy and storytelling to address social justice concerns. He spent 17 years and over $30,000 on three continents attempting (and failing) to change his same-sex orientation. He is the author of one-person comedies including, Queer 101–Now I Know My gAy,B,C’s, Jesus Read more

It Takes a Village: Home Rule for Carlisle, PA

Home Rule Poster WebMonday, April 27, 2015
Allison Hall, Community Room. 7 p.m.

Panelists:

John Sacrison, member, Carlisle Government Study Commission for Home Rule
Blake Wilson, member, Carlisle Government Study Commission for Home Rule
Robert Winston, member, Carlisle Government Study Commission for Home Rule
Ken Womack, chair, Carlisle Government Study Commission for Home Rule

On May 19, 2015, Carlisle residents will face a historic vote:  Whether or not to adopt a Home Rule Charter that will bring significant changes to the structure of our municipal government.  Four members of the Carlisle Government Study Commission, including two Dickinson faculty, will present and answer questions regarding the Home Rule Charter they have spent nearly two years drafting. Copies and summaries of the Charter will be available at the meeting.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Greater Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce, American Association of University Women (AAUW) Carlisle Branch, and the League of Women Voters Carlisle Area.

 


 Read more

Peterson Toscano – (First Night of Two Performances)

Toscano Climate Change PosterTheatrical Performance Activist

Climate Change: What’s Faith Got to Do with It?

Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

People are searching for new ways of looking at climate change. Peterson Toscano provides a lively, insightful, and hilarious presentation that helps his audiences wrap their heads and hearts around global warming.

Tonight is the first night of two performances. The second performance, Peterson Unplugged, is scheduled for Wednesday, April 22 at 7 p.m.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Division of Student Life, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, Office of Community Service and Religious Life, and Center for Sustainability Education.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Toscano PicPeterson Toscano is a theatrical performance activist using comedy and storytelling to address social justice concerns. He spent 17 years and over $30,000 on three continents attempting (and failing) to change his same-sex orientation. He is the author of one-person comedies including, Queer 101–Now I Know My gAy,B,C’s, Jesus Had Two Daddies, and Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House, which chronicles his two years in “gay rehab” in Memphis, TN. With his play, Transfigurations–Transgressing Gender Read more

Charles Brown

holocaust posterLeonard and Sophie Davis Genocide Prevention Fellow, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Thursday, April 16, 2015 – 7 p.m.
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium

Holocaust: Justice and Accountability

Following World War II, the Nuremburg trials convicted 22 principal Nazi leaders, sentencing 12 to death and seven to various terms in prison. Hundreds of lower-level concentration camp officials were also tried, but the total number convicted and sentenced was relatively small in comparison to the number who implemented the Final Solution, the Nazi term for the Jewish Holocaust. In response to this unprecedented attempt to exterminate an entire group based on racial, ethnic, and religious criteria, the United Nations unanimously adopted the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948. The pursuit of Nazi criminals continues to this day even though the passage of time and fading memories make successful prosecutions difficult.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum Contemporary Issues and the  Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) of the U.S. Army War College.

The PKSOI is distributing relevant essays about the Holocaust each week in preparation of this event. Here are links to these essays:
Week One – The Holocaust and Rule Read more

Akbar Ahmed

Ahmed posterAmerican University

Islam & the West: A Clash of Civilizations?

Wednesday, April 15 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Ahmed will explore Samuel Huntington’s thesis of a clash of civilizations and challenge it in light of his own research examining relations between the West and the World of Islam after 9/11.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Anthropology, Political Science,  Middle East Studies, Sociology and the Churchill Fund. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, War at Home, and the Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

akbar ahmed hi resBiography (provided by the speaker)

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. He has served as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and was the first distinguished chair of Middle East and Islamic studies at the U.S Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Ahmed belonged to the senior Civil Service of Pakistan and was the Pakistan High Commissioner to the U.K. and Ireland. Previously, Ahmed was the Iqbal Fellow (Chair of Pakistan Studies) and Fellow of Selwyn College at the University of Cambridge. He Read more

Catherine Clinton

Clinton PosterUniversity of Texas at San Antonio

Mary Lincoln’s Assassination

Monday, April 13, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865 proved a momentous evening for the people of Washington, for the people of the American nation – and its impact would be felt across the world. But perhaps the person most affected by this epic tragedy was Abraham Lincoln’s widow, Mary Lincoln– whose fate would be forever transformed by the death of her husband that Easter Saturday.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the House Divided Project and the Digital Humanities Advisory Committee.

Catherine ClintonBiography Forthcoming (provided by the speaker)

Catherine Clinton earned her undergraduate degree in African American studies from Harvard, her master’s in American studies from the University of Sussex and received her doctorate in history from Princeton in 1980. She now  holds the Denman Chair of American History at the University of Texas San Antonio and is an international research professor at Queen’s University Belfast. She has written and edited over two dozen books to date, including three biographies, Fanny Kemble Civil Wars (2000), Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom (2004)–which was named as one Read more

Paul Mayewski

Mayewski PosterUniversity of Maine

The Limits of Climate Change

Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

To understand and predict climate change requires more perspective than is available from a short instrumental climate record.  To expand the climate record in time and space, Mayewski and his teams have recovered ice cores from some of the remotest high and cold places on Earth.  These records tell us a great deal about where we are today in the climate system and enable us to chart the pathways for future mitigation, adaptation and sustainability in the decades ahead.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

MayewskiCroppedDr. Paul Andrew Mayewski is director and professor of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine and has academic affiliations with the university’s School of Earth and Climate Sciences, School of Policy and International Affairs, and School of Marine Sciences. He is an internationally acclaimed scientist and explorer, leader of more than 55 expeditions to some of the remotest reaches of the planet Read more

Stephen Ortiz

Ortiz PosterBinghamton University (SUNY)

Comrades in Arms: The Politics of War, 1939-1941

Monday, March 23, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This talk will explore how the two major veterans organizations, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, became part of the political battle over the Roosevelt Administration’s involvement in World War II during the two-plus years between the onset of World War II and the entry of the United States into this conflict.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Political Science, English, Film Studies and History. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, War at Home.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

DSCNStephen R. Ortiz is an associate professor of history at Binghamton University (SUNY). He is the author of Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era (NYU Press, 2010) and editor of Veterans’ Policies, Veterans’ Politics: New Perspectives on Veterans in the Modern United States (University Press of Florida, 2012). Ortiz is currently working on a new book project titled Comrades in Arms: Veterans Organizations and the Politics of National Security, 1919-1961. Read more