Past Programs

Michael Chertoff – Constitution Day Address Lecturer

Chertoff Poster FinalFormer Federal Judge and Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Understanding Today’s Threat Environment

Wednesday, September 21, 2011 *
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, **5:00 p.m.**

Despite recent counterterrorism successes, including the death of Osama bin Laden, our world remains threatened by terrorist organizations whose members hate freedom, justice and liberty for all. Ten years after September 11, 2001, former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff discusses why we must not take our attention away from these significant dangers and the threat they pose to our future.

This event is jointly sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Penn State University Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs.

* This event is part of The Clarke Forum’s series on Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty.
ChertoffBiography (provided by speaker)

As Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009, Mr. Chertoff led the country in blocking would-be terrorists from crossing our borders or implementing their plans if they were already in the country. He also transformed FEMA into an effective organization following Hurricane Katrina. His greatest successes have earned few headlines – because the important news is what didn’t happen.

At Chertoff Read more

Philip Zelikow

Twilight War Poster Final

Former Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission

The Twilight War

Tuesday, September 13, 2011 *
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.
The program will begin with a brief memorial service, followed by the lecture, book sale/signing and reception.

Zelikow will take stock of the ten years of conflict since 9/11 and discuss the agenda now. He will reflect on the Commission’s work and on the way a “paradox of prevention” before 9/11 has now been replaced by a “paradox of adjustment.” Zelikow will offer an assessment of the ongoing fights in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the rest of the Arab and Muslim world. In addition, he will review what has gone right, and not so right, in the changing organization of American government to deal with dangers like terrorism.

* This event is part of The Clarke Forum’s series on Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty.

Philip Zelikow JHBiography (provided by the speaker)

Philip Zelikow is the White Burkett Miller Professor of History and Associate Dean of Graduate Programs at the University of Virginia.  Zelikow began his professional career as a trial and appellate lawyer in Texas. His Ph.D. is from Tufts University’s Fletcher School.  He was a career diplomat, posted overseas and Read more

Candidates for the Cumberland County Bureau of Commissioners: A Forum

Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium – 7:00 p.m.

The seven candidates vying for the three seats on the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners will meet for a candidates’ forum. This event is being sponsored by the Greater Carlisle Area, Shippensburg, Mechanicsburg, West Shore Chambers of Commerce, the Harrisburg Regional Chamber and The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College.

The candidates are Commissioner Barb Cross, Commissioner Gary Eichelberger, area labor leader Michael Fedor of Hampden Township, South Middleton Township Supervisor Bryan Gembusia, East Pennsboro Township Commissioner Jim Hertzler, Carlisle Borough Council President Sean Shultz and Carlisle Mayor Kirk Wilson.

Cross, Eichelberger, Gembusia and Wilson are Republicans. Fedor, Hertzler and Shultz are Democrats. Read more

Carlos Ball

Carlos Ball posterProfessor of Law, Rutgers School of Law

Same-Sex Marriage and the Future of Civil Rights

Thursday, April 28, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.
A book signing will follow.

As a result of the efforts of the marriage equality movement, the country for the last two decades has been debating the purposes of marriage and the place of LGBT people in our society. Those who are against gay marriage have relied on historical, moral, and institutional arguments about why marriage must remain the union of one man and one woman. In contrast, those who favor the recognition of same-sex marriage have relied on considerations of fairness, justice, and equality to argue, in effect, that there should be no gender-based barriers to marriage. This debate requires all of us to choose among these irreconcilable positions. The fact that a growing number of Americans, especially young ones, favor a more expansive definition of marriage bodes well for those committed to protecting the basic civil rights of sexual minorities.

The event is co-sponsored by the Women’s Center and the Office of Institutional and Diversity Initiatives.

Biography (provided by the speaker)CBall Photo
Carlos A. Ball is a professor of law at Rutgers University (Newark). Read more

A Town Meeting on the Federal Budget Battle: The Republican Perspective

republican poster** Breaking Issue **

Thursday, April 21, 2011
Holland Union Building, Social Hall, 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Congressman Bill Shuster ’83, U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania’s 9th Congressional District
Congressman Jim Gerlach ’77, U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District
Ted McCann, Budget Analyst at House Budget Committee
Moderator: Molly Hooper, Staff Writer for The Hill

The current budget battle at the national level reflects the ongoing contentious debate over the future role of government in American society. This town meeting will explore the perspective of the Republican party on issues involving the federal deficit, taxes, entitlements, spending cuts, and debt ceilings.

Biographies
Congressman Bill Shuster ’83
Throughout his ten year career in the House, Congressman Shuster has proven himself to be a leader on local and national issues, and an outspoken advocate for the people of the 9th Congressional District in Washington, DC.

Congressman Shuster is committed to bringing greater opportunity and a better standard of living to the people of the 9th district through his focus on economic development and transportation infrastructure. As a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Shuster continues to work to secure important funding for roadway projects in the 9th Read more

Hedelberto López Blanch

Americas role posterAuthor and Journalist

America’s Role and Image in the World: A Latin American Perspective

Thursday, April 21, 2011
Althouse, Room 106 – 12:00 p.m.

This event will explore how foreign countries and cultures perceive the role that the U.S. plays in the world in contrast to what role it should play.

This event is co-sponsored by the Office of Global Education.

HedelbertoBiography (provided by the speaker)
Hedelberto López Blanch, born and currently living in Havana, Cuba, is a journalist and a doctoral candidate in Communication Sciences at the University of Havana. He currently writes a weekly column on international economic affairs for Opciones, a weekly publication of Juventud Rebelde (one of the three national newspapers in Cuba).

His journalistic researches have taken him all over the world, including several times to the United States. He has also authored many books [all in Spanish], including La Emigracion cubana en EE. UU. – Descorriendo Mamparas ; Miami, Dinero Sucio ; Bendicion Cubana en Tierras Sudafricanas ; Historias secretas de Medicos Cubanos en Africa ; Cuba, Pequeno Gigante contra el Aparteid. His latest book Las Mascotas de la Guerra, oral histories of children in Nicaragua who participated in the fight Read more

Michael Shenkman ’68

Shenkman posterFounder and President, Arch of Leadership; Metzger-Conway Fellow

Leading Greatly: Why a Liberal Arts Education Matters

Wednesday, April 20, 2011 *
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Great leaders tap into people’s diverse aspirations and forge collaborations in pursuit of visions that invigorate the human endeavor. Many kinds of creative efforts are needed when the challenge is daunting. A leader with a liberal arts education is prepared to recognize, appreciate and harness a diversity of creative talents, which increases the likelihood of success.

* This event is part of The Clarke Forum’s series on Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty.

Topical Background (provided by the speaker)
Dr. Shenkman has devoted his life to studying people who have accomplished great things for the human endeavor. This search began in earnest during his time at Dickinson College from 1960 – 1964. His studies, especially in philosophy, but also in religion, history, literature and science and his work as an organizational consultant, led him to this conclusion: It takes many kinds of aspirations, diverse talents and divergent lifeways to put a new and great endeavor on the map. A liberal arts education provides leaders with insights into this necessary diversity, opening the way Read more

David Blight

DavidBlight

Professor of History, Yale University

American Oracle: The Memory of the Civil War

Saturday, April 16, 2011
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.
Book signing to follow.

Blight will be providing a keynote address for the opening of the Civil War 150th anniversary and the House Divided Project launch weekend. Renowned author of Race and Reunion: The American Civil War in American Memory (2001), Blight will explore the meaning of the conflict on its 150th anniversary. A book signing will follow.

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of History.

Visit http://www.dickinson.edu/news-and-events/news/2010-11/House-Divided-Project-Launches/ for details about the House Divided Project and the weekend activities.

Biography
David W. Blight is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of numerous books, including A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (for which he received the Bancroft, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass prizes), and Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory, and the American Civil War. He is also the co-author of the bestselling American history textbook, A People and a Read more

Marion Nestle

marion nestle posterProfessor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New York University

Thought for Food

Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Agricultural sustainability is intimately linked to public health because agricultural production methods not only affect food availability, but also food product development, food distribution systems, climate change, as well as the health of farm animals, communities and individuals.

Topical Background (provided by the speaker)
Many of the problems in our current food system can be traced back to changes in agricultural policies in the 1970s. Soon after, changes in the U.S. food environment—agricultural as well as corporate–promoted a culture in which it became socially acceptable to consume more calories than expended. The resulting “epidemic” of obesity threatens the health and security of Americans, strains the health care system, and creates a substantial economic burden on society. Underlying these changes is an overabundant and overly competitive food system in which companies are required to expand market channels in order to meet corporate growth targets. The contradiction between public health goals and corporate goals has led to a large and growing food movement in the United States aimed at changing the system in order to promote healthier and Read more

Uprisings and Interventions in the Arab World

** BREAKING ISSUE **

Thursday, April 7, 2011
Denny Hall, Room 317 – 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Larry Goodson – professor of Middle East studies, U.S. Army War College
W. Andrew Terrill – professor of national security affairs, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
David Commins – professor of history and Middle East Studies, Dickinson College

Protest movements continue to spread in the Arab world, taking different shape according to local political structures and social dynamics and posing knotty challenges to US policymakers to keep up with the breakneck speed of developments.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)
Goodson LarryLarry P. Goodson is professor of Middle East Studies at the U.S. Army War College. He is regularly consulted by senior government officials about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East. In 2008-2009 he served on a four-month temporary assignment with the U.S. Central Command Assessment Team, where he focused on U.S. strategy and policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan for General David Petraeus. As U.S. Central Command Fellow in 2004, he served as a senior adviser to General John Abizaid on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Prof. Goodson held the General Dwight D. Eisenhower Chair of National Security at the U.S. Army War College from 2004 Read more

Major General John D. Altenburg, Jr, U.S. Army, Retired

Altenburg Poster

Omar N. Bradley Joint Chair in Strategic Leadership

Guantanamo Dilemmas: What’s Next?

Wednesday, March 30, 2011 *
Penn State Dickinson School of Law
Lewis Katz Hall Auditorium, Carlisle
6:30 p.m.

Major General John D. Altenburg, Jr, this year’s Omar N. Bradley Joint Chair in Strategic Leadership, will discuss the ethical, policy (both foreign and domestic), and legal dilemmas regarding detention, rendition, interrogation, and the use of military commissions in the ongoing war against al Qaeda and associated groups.

Following opening remarks, General Altenburg will respond to questions posed by two experts, Dr. Jeffrey D. McCausland, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council and retired U.S. Army Colonel, and Dr. Harold L. Pohlman, the A. Lee Fritschler Professor of Public Policy and executive director of The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College. After fielding questions from the interviewers, General Altenburg will take questions from the audience.

The event is co-sponsored by Dickinson College, Penn State Dickinson School of Law, the Penn State School of International Affairs, and the United States Army War College.

The Omar Bradley Chair is a joint initiative of the United States Army War College, Dickinson College, and Penn State Law to advance the study of Read more

Arlen Meyers ’68

Meyers PosterProfessor of Otolaryngology, Dentistry and Engineering, University of Colorado, Denver; Metzger-Conway Fellow

Developing Entrepreneurial Graduates

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 *
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Entrepreneurship is not only about creating new businesses. It is a facilitating mindset that should permeate all academic disciplines, not just those that have a technological basis. Meyers will discuss how colleges and universities looking for a competitive edge should place entrepreneurship at the center of their academic programs.

* This event is part of The Clarke Forum’s series on Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty.

Biography (provided by the speaker)Meyers color headshot
Arlen D Meyers, MD, MBA is professor of otolaryngology (ear nose and throat surgery), engineering and dentistry at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus and a bioentrepreneur. He is the founding CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs.

Dr. Meyers is an award winning clinician, researcher and teacher. He has created four companies, including several medical device companies, www.medvoy.com, a medical travel company, and consults to several other life science firms producing drugs, devices, diagnostics,healthcare IT solutions and medical services. He is the former director of the Bioentrepreneurship education program and the MD/MBA program at the University of Colorado Read more

Colson Whitehead

whitehead poster webAuthor of The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, Sag Harbor and other novels

The Art of Writing

Thursday, March 24, 2011
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m

Whitehead will provide micro-lectures on craft, style, and what we can all learn from the Donna Summer version of “MacArthur Park.”

The event is co-sponsored by the Department of English, the Office of Student Development and the Office of Institutional and Diversity Initiatives, the Department of American Studies, the Office of Diversity Initiatives and the Department of Sociology.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Colson Whitehead is the author of The Intuitionist, his accomplished debut novel that received widespread and enthusiastic critical praise for its quirky and imaginative writing and complex allegories of race. The Intuitionist won the Quality Paperback Book Club’s New Voices Award and was a finalist for the Ernest Hemingway/PEN Award for First Fiction.

Recipient of the MacArthur Foundation “genius award” given to scholars, artists, and others to free them to pursue their work, Whitehead has been praised for writing novels with inventive plots that weave American folklore and history into the stories.

His most recent work is Sag Harbor: A Novel. Before this, he wrote Apex Hides Read more

Mary Cappello ’82

Cappello posterAward-Winning Author

Autobiography of Illness/Biography of Cure

Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

An illustrated reading that brings together writing about self in the form of “rituals in transfigured time” and writing about the other in the form of lyric biography. Cappello will discuss her entry into cancer treatment as a patient-writer and her new book on Chevalier Jackson, a Pennsylvania physician-artist, a pioneering laryngologist, and a foreign body specialist.

This event is co-sponsored by the Departments of English, Sociology and American Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker)MarySAuthorPhotos
Mary Cappello (class of ’82) is the author of Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration and the Curious Doctor who Extracted Them (The New Press, 2011). Her three previous books of literary nonfiction are Awkward, a Los Angeles Times Bestseller; Called Back, a critical memoir on cancer that won a ForeWord Book of the Year Award and an Independent Publisher Book Award; and the memoir, Night Bloom, set in the suburbs of Philadelphia. A recipient of the Bechtel Prize for Educating the Imagination from Teachers and Writers Collaborative, and the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize from Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, she is former Fulbright Read more

Paul Campos

Campos Poster webProfessor of Law, University of Colorado Law School

The Politics of Fat

Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

America is in the grip of a moral panic about fat. The “obesity epidemic” is the “reefer madness” of our time, and the sooner we recognize this fact the sooner we will stop demonizing body diversity.

The event is co-sponsored by the Women’s Center and the Departments of Sociology and Psychology.

Topical Background (provided by the speaker)
A wide range of cultural authorities, that includes such disparate figures as First Lady Michelle Obama, leading public health officials, and the National Football League, are assuring Americans that we are in the midst of an “obesity epidemic,” that presents a major public health crisis, which requires a strong response from both the government and the private sector. In fact these claims are symptoms of a classic moral panic. Moral panics occur when social anxieties focus on a marginalized group, that is blamed for causing a serious social problem. Such panics feature responses that are disproportionate to the actual threat posed by the group (which indeed, as in the case of fat, may well be largely or completely imaginary). Professor Campos’ Read more

Ellen McLaughlin

Ellen McLaughlin poster final webPlaywright and Actress

Readings by Ellen McLaughlin

Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

McLaughlin will read excerpts from several of her plays, including Infinity’s House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, Helen, The Persians, Oedipus and Ajax in Iraq. She is most well known for having originated and developed the part of the Angel in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, having appeared in every U.S. production from its earliest workshops through its Broadway run.

The event is co-sponsored by the Departments of Classics, Theatre & Dance and English.

color book jacketBiography (provided by the speaker)
Ellen McLaughlin’s plays have received numerous national and international productions. They include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity’s House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, The Trojan Women, Helen, The Persians, Oedipus, Penelope, Kissing the Floor and Ajax in Iraq.
Producers include: Actors’ Theater of Louisville, The Actors’ Gang L.A., Classic Stage Co., N.Y., The Intiman Theater, Seattle, Almeida Theater, London, The Mark Taper Forum, L.A., the Public Theater in NYC, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The National Actors’ Theater, N.Y., Read more

Feeding Dickinson

feeding dickinson poster webPanel Discussion

Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Jennifer Halpin, director of the college’s organic farm
Jay Myers of the food distributor, Feesers, Inc.
Keith Martin, director of dining services
Ben Riggs ’86, Four Seasons Produce Distributors
Scott Wagner, John Gross & Co.
Moderated by Andy Skelton, professor of psychology, Dickinson College

Each day, Dickinson College provides thousands of meals for students and employees. How does an institution feed so many people, with such a variety of tastes and needs? Where does all this food come from and how is its quality assured? Our panel will address these and related questions, offering a glimpse behind the scenes of how a residential college feeds its population.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

HalpinJennifer Halpin
Halpin manages the production and educational aspects of the Dickinson College Farm, in addition to working cooperatively with students and faculty to create meaningful educational experiences on the farm. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA), is an active member of the South-central Buy Fresh, Buy Local Campaign and is the board president of Farmers on the Square, a producer-only Read more

Heidi Skolnik

Eating you way to athletic success webSports Nutrition Consultant to the New York Giants, New York Knicks, The Juilliard School and The School of American Ballet

Eating Your Way to Athletic Success

Thursday, March 3, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Nutrient Timing for Peak Performance is a strategic approach in what, when, and how much to eat of selected foods to maximize athletic conditioning, training and performance. Learn some of the tools that athletes can use to reduce risk of injury, maximize muscle repair, maintain a healthy immune system and increase endurance.

This is event is co-sponsored by the Department of Athletics.

Biography (provided by the speaker)Skolnik
Considered a thought leader in the nutrition, Heidi is the Sports Nutrition Consultant to the The NY Knicks Basketball Team, The Juilliard School, School of American Ballet and Fordham University Athletics. She was the team nutritionist for the past 18 years for The Football Giants and continues to see clients one-to-one one day a week at The Women’s Sports Medicine Center at Hospital of Special Surgery. Heidi is a contributing advisor to Men’s Health magazine and is co-author of Nutrient Timing for Peak Performance; the right food, the right time, the right results (Human Kinetics, 2010) and Read more

Elaine Pagels – “Mary Ellen Borges Memorial Lecturer”

Pagels poste colorHarrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion, Princeton University

The Cultural Impact of the Book of Revelation

Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 6:00 p.m.

Pagels will address who wrote the Book of Revelation, why it was written, how it became a part of the Bible, and how it became influential in politics, art and culture over the last 2,000 years.

pagels pictureBiography (from Princeton.edu)
Elaine Pagels joined the Princeton faculty in 1982, shortly after receiving a MacArthur Fellowship. Perhaps best known as the author of The Gnostic Gospels, The Origin of Satan, and Adam, Eve and the Serpent, she has published widely on Gnosticism and early Christianity, and continues to pursue research interests in late antiquity. Her most recent books include Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (was on the New York Times best-seller list) and Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity, co-authored with Karen King of Harvard.  Her current project is working on a book entitled Revelations which will explore the New Testament Book of Revelation and other Jewish, Christian, and Pagan books of Revelation written around the same time.  She will be on leave for the 2010-11 Read more

L. Randall Wray

Minskian bannerProfessor of Economics, University of Missouri–Kansas City

A Minskian Explanation of the Economic Crisis

Thursday, February 24, 2011
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

Relying upon the theories and assumptions of Hyman Minsky, Wray will explore and expound upon the factors that contributed to the current economic and financial crisis.

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Economics.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
L. Randall Wray is a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City as well as research director, the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, and senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, NY. A student of Hyman P. Minsky while at Washington University in St. Louis, Wray has focused on monetary theory and policy, macroeconomics, financial instability, and employment policy. He has published widely in journals and is the author of Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability (Elgar, 1998) and Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies (Elgar 1990). He is the editor of Credit and State Theories of Money (Edward Elgar 2004) and the co-editor of Contemporary Post Keynesian Analysis (Edward Elgar 2005), Money, Financial Instability and Stabilization Policy (Edward Elgar 2006), and Keynes for Read more