Past Programs

Donald Graham – Benjamin Rush Award Lecturer

Chairman of The Graham Group

The Liberal Arts in Today’s World

Wednesday, November 3, 2010 – Rush Award *
Stern Center, Great Room – 7:00 p.m.

Mr. Graham will speak about the vital importance of a liberal arts education and the need for broad-based thinking in today’s business and political climate.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Donald C. Graham founded Graham Engineering in 1960 with no capital in the basement of his rented farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania. Today, the Graham Group manages approximately $2.5 billion of internal and third party capital and is the anchor sponsor of four investment management businesses including the family investment office, Graham Capital Company located in York, PA and three private equity firms based in the Philadelphia area, Graham Partners, Inverness Graham and Striker Partners. The Graham Group manages a significant pool of marketable securities along with investments in over 100 private equity, real estate and hedge funds. The Graham Group also maintains a direct co-investment operation in businesses where it believes we have something to offer, other than just capital. The co-investments are in diverse industries and Read more

Charlie Savage

The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

Presidential Power: Barack Obama and the Bush-Cheney Legacy

Thursday, October 21, 2010
The Depot – 7:00 p.m.

How President Obama’s team has grappled with the executive powers they inherited from the Bush-Cheney administration presents a case study in the multi-generational, bipartisan trend toward escalating White House authority – and a warning sign for the future of American-style checks and balances.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage is a Washington correspondent for the New York Times. A native of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Savage graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1998 and later earned a master’s degree from Yale Law School while on a Knight Foundation journalism fellowship. He began his career as a local government and politics reporter for the Miami Herald, and covered national legal affairs for the Boston Globe from 2003 to 2008 before moving to the Times. Savage lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, the journalist Luiza Ch. Savage of Maclean’s Magazine, and their son, Will.

Savage’s work on the Bush-Cheney administration’s efforts to expand presidential power has been widely recognized. His articles in the Boston Globe received the Read more

Fred Greenstein

Professor of Politics Emeritus, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

Buchanan vs. Lincoln: A Presidential Comparison

Friday, October 29, 2010
Denny Hall, Room 317, 4:00 p.m.

No two presidents are viewed as having been more unlike than Buchanan and Lincoln. Historians typically rate Buchanan near the bottom of the list of presidents and Lincoln at the top. This lecture addresses whether these two presidents differed that much, whether the historians’ ratings are justified, and whether there is any merit to such ratings?

James Buchanan is an 1809 graduate of Dickinson College.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Fred I. Greenstein is Professor of Politics Emeritus at Princeton University. His books include Children and Politics (1965), Personality and Politics (1969), The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (1982), How Presidents Test Reality (1989, with John P. Burke), The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to Barack Obama (2009), and Inventing the Job of President: Leadership Style from George Washington to Andrew Jackson (2009). He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and past president of the International Society for Political Psychology. He received a BA from Antioch College in 1953 and a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1960.

Video of Read more

Carole Counihan

Professor of Anthropology, Millersville University

Italian Slow Food: Societal Change and Justice

Thursday, October 14, 2010
Stern Center, Great Room – 7:00 p.m.

This talk uses ethnographic interviews with members of the Italian Slow Food Movement – a coalition of 100,000 members around the world devoted to promoting “good, clean, and fair food” – to explore whether food practices can be the basis for advancing personal growth as well as social and economic justice.

This event is co-sponsored by the 2010: A Food Odyssey Learning Community and the First Year Seminar Program.

Biography (provided by speaker)
Carole M. Counihan is professor of anthropology at Millersville University in Pennsylvania. She has a BA in history cum laude from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Counihan’s research centers on food, culture, gender, and identity in the United States and Italy. Supported by a 2005-2006 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, she authored A Tortilla Is Like Life: Food and Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado (University of Texas Press, 2009), which is based on food-centered life histories collected from Hispanic women in the town of Antonito, Colorado. Counihan is also author of Around Read more

Debate: Pennsylvania's 199th District

Stephen Bloom (R) and Fred Baldwin (D)

Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium – 7:00 p.m.
The Republican and Democratic candidates running in the general November election for the 199th seat in the Pennsylvania state legislature will discuss the central issues confronting local voters and answer questions from the audience. The debate will be moderated by Prof. Andrew Rudalevige, political science department

Co-sponsored by the Greater Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce, the League of Women Voters and the YWCA Carlisle.

Biographies
Stephen Bloom (Republican)
Bloom has served as a business lawyer and community leader for 25 years. He is a 1983 graduate of Penn State University, with a B.S. in agricultural economics and rural sociology, and a 1987 graduate of the Penn State Dickinson School of Law. His first book, The Believer’s Guide to Legal Issues, was published in 2008. He has also served terms as president of the Downtown Carlisle Association and treasurer of the Greater Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce. In addition to his Carlisle law practice at the firm of Irwin & McKnight, P.C., he teaches economics and business law as an adjunct instructor of management & business at Messiah College. Visit www.stephenlbloom.com for Read more

Steven Aftergood

Project on Government Secrecy, Federation of American Scientists

WikiLeaks–A Flood of Secrets: National Security vs. Free Speech

Thursday, October 7, 2010
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

The recent disclosure of up to 90,000 classified documents relating to the Afghanistan War has underscored the difficult balance between preserving open government and preserving national security. Underlying issues that will be addressed include the problem of over classification, the scope of the Espionage Act, and the challenges of protecting sources and methods in the age of the internet.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Steven Aftergood is a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists. He directs the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, which works to reduce the scope of government secrecy and to promote reform of official secrecy practices.
He writes Secrecy News, an email newsletter (and blog) which reports on new developments in secrecy policy for more than 10,000 subscribers in media, government and among the general public.

In 1997, Mr. Aftergood was the plaintiff in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency which led to the declassification and publication of the total intelligence budget ($26.6 billion in 1997) for the first time in Read more

Eric Schlosser

Bestselling author of Fast Food Nation and co-producer of Food, Inc.

Thoughts on Food

Tuesday, September 28, 2010 *
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

Schlosser will discuss what effects food production, distribution, and consumption have on society’s health, environment and culture.

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

A reception will immediately follow the presentation in the lobby of ATS. Book signing by the author and the opportunity to purchase “Fast Food Nation” and “Chew on This” will be offered at the reception.

This event is co-sponsored by Student Senate, The Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life, The Division of Student Development, and the Departments of Religion, Judaic Studies, Environmental Studies and Psychology.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
As an investigative journalist, Eric Schlosser continues to explore subjects ignored by the mainstream media and gives a voice to people at the margins of society. Over the years he’s followed the harvest with migrant farm workers in California, spent time with meatpacking workers in Texas and Colorado, told the stories of marijuana growers and pornographers and the victims of violent crime, gone on duty with the New York Police Read more

Sandra Soto

Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Arizona

The Politics of Resentment in Arizona

Thursday, September 23, 2010
Stern Center, Great Room – 7:00 p.m.

Professor Soto will analyze the treatment of Latinos (both documented and undocumented) in terms of Arizona’s “show-me-your-papers law” and the “ethnic studies law.”

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Sandra K. Soto is co-coordinator of the Chicana/Latina Studies Concentration, and affiliate faculty of English, Mexican American Studies, and Latin American Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at Austin (with a focus in Ethnic and Third World Literature). Her interdisciplinary research agenda draws on Chicana/o and Latina/o literary and cultural studies, queer theory, and gender studies to offer innovative approaches to the overdetermined terrain of social relations, cultural representation, and knowledge production. Her book Reading Chican@ Like a Queer: The De-Mastery of Desire (University of Texas Press, 2010), replaces the race-based oppositional paradigm of Chicano literary studies with a less didactic, more flexible, framework geared for a queer analysis of the discursive relationship between racialization and sexuality. She is currently working on her second book tentatively titled Feeling Greater Read more

Erwin Chemerinsky – Constitution Day Address Lecturer

Dean and Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law

The Roberts Court and the Future of Constitutional Law

Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Rubendall Recital Hall, 12:00 p.m. – 1:10 p.m.

The Roberts Court will address the most contested and divisive issues polarizing American society, including gay marriage, state immigration reform, and the new federal health care legislation. What direction will the Court take on these and other important issues?

Biography (provided by speaker)<
Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine, School of Law. Prior to assuming this position in July 2008, was the Alston & Bird Professor of Law and Political Science, Duke University. Joined the Duke faculty in July 2004 after 21 years at the University of Southern California Law School, where he was the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. Before that he was a professor at DePaul College of Law from 1980-83. Practiced law as a trial attorney, United States Department of Justice, and at Dobrovir, Oakes & Gebhardt in Washington, D.C. Received a B.S. from Northwestern University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Author of six books and over 100 law Read more

Debate: 19th U.S. House District

Monday, September 13, 2010
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

Congressman Todd Platts (R), Ryan Sanders (D) and Joshua Monighan (I)

Moderated by Jim Hoefler, Political Science Department

The candidates running in the general November election for the 19th congressional seat will participate in a debate. The debate will be moderated by Prof. James Hoefler, political science department.

This event is co-sponsored by the Greater Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce, and the League of Women Voters, and the YWCA Carlisle. Read more

Eric Schlosser: A Preview

Faculty Panel Discussion on Eric Schlosser prior to his visit to Dickinson College

Thursday, September 16, 2010
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Scott Boback, Biology Department
Helen Takacs, International Business & Management Department
Karen Weinstein, Anthropology Department
Susannah Bartlow, Women’s Center, will serve as moderator

How has Eric Schlosser, co-producer of the film Food, Inc. and author of Fast Food Nation, contributed to the ongoing national debate concerning the quality of food in the United States? This panel will address this question as a way to preview Mr. Schlosser’s visit to Dickinson’s campus on September 28, 2010.

Video of the Program

A Mosque Near Ground Zero? A Panel Discussion

Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Hussein Ibish, Ph.D., senior fellow, American Task Force on Palestine
Michelle Boorstein, religion reporter, The Washington Post
Erik Love, adjunct faculty member, sociology department
David Commins, professor, Middle East studies, Moderator

The panelists will discuss the nature and extent of American Islamophobia in the context of the ongoing controversy regarding whether an Islamic community center should be built near Ground Zero, focusing in part on the proper balance between religious freedom, the concerns and rights of the victims and survivors of the 9/11 attacks, and the needs of national security.

This event is co-sponsored by the Departments of Religion and Sociology, Middle East Studies and the Community Studies Center.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)
Michelle Boorstein , a native of suburban Boston, graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied history and journalism. She worked what was once the traditional print journalism path, starting at a small city newspaper before joining the Associated Press where she spent eight years in bureaus including Providence, Phoenix, New York City, Nairobi and Afghanistan. She was a general reporter and a foreign editor at the AP before coming Read more

Crime in Carlisle? Just the Facts Please

A Panel Discussion

Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Stern Center, Great Room – 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Mayor Kirk R.Wilson, Carlisle
Judge Edward Guido, Cumberland County Court of Common Pleas
Chief Dolores “Dee” Danser, Public Safety, Dickinson College
Lieutenant Michael Dzezinski, Carlisle Police Department
Matthew T. Bennett, prevention specialist, Cumberland-Perry Drug and Alcohol Commission
Moderator: Prof. Susan Rose, Sociology, Dickinson College

A panel of experts will discuss the topic and answer questions. The event will be of special interest to students new to the Harrisburg/Carlisle area, which Forbes Magazine recently identified as the fifth-most desirable place to live in the nation.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Kirk R. Wilson is serving his 25th year as mayor of Carlisle. He was first elected in November of 1985 and has been re-elected to six more consecutive four-year terms. As mayor he has played an active role in this community’s public safety, economic development, housing and downtown revitalization initiatives.

Under state law, the mayor is responsible for the operation of the Carlisle Police Department. He also approves or vetoes all ordinances and has the authority to break tie votes of the borough council.

He is past president of the Read more

Candidates Forum for PA's 199th District

Wednesday, April 28, 2010 – 7:00 p.m.
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium

Candidates running in the primary elections for the 199th seat in the State Legislature will discuss the central issues confronting Pennsylvania voters and answer questions from the audience related to these issues.

Co-sponsored by the Greater Carlisle Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters.

Candidates
Fred Baldwin (D) – Carlisle School Board Member
Stephen Bloom (R) – North Middleton Twp. Attorney
Abe Brown (R) – Landscaper
John Gatten (R) – Newville Attorney
Denny Lebo (R) – Cumberland County Clerk of Courts
Jay Mowery (R) – Upper Mifflin Twp. Businessman
William Piper (R) – West Pennsboro Twp. Supervisor
Ken Sheaffer (R) – Penn Twp. Supervisor Read more

So, You Think You Can Choreograph?

Vincent Paterson ’72

Choreographer, director and producer; Metzger-Conway Fellow

COMMON HOUR
Thursday, April 1, 2010 – Noon
Weiss Center, Rubendall Recital Hall

Watch students from Professor Skaggs’ Applied Choreography class get professional feedback from professional dancer and choreographer, Vincent Paterson ’72.

Vincent Paterson is a world-renowned director and choreographer whose career spans just about every genre of the entertainment industry including film, theatre, Broadway, concert tours, opera, music videos, television and commercials.

“What I try to do with my work is to fill the audience with an energy that alters their being in a positive way. The work is the stone thrown into the pond. The ripples emanate from the audience. If the audience is affected even infinitesimally in a positive way, they might make something positive happen in the next five minutes, or tomorrow, or next week. That action will vibrate into the ether and the better the world will be.”

Vincent directed the critically acclaimed opera Manon with soprano Anna Netrebko and conducted by Placido Domingo. His direction of Anna Netrebko: The Woman, The Voice received a nomination for “Best Television Arts Program” at the Montreaux Film Festival. The DVD is the top selling classical DVD in Read more

Chris Maccabe

Former Political Director of the United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland Office (NIO)

NORTHERN IRELAND: The Long Road to Peace

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

In 2007, two groups that had hated each other for decades joined together to form a new government for Northern Ireland. Chris Maccabe, former political director of the British government’s Northern Ireland Office, was at the center of the negotiations that brought to an end forty years of sectarian murder and paramilitary terrorism (the “Troubles”) in an area sharply divided by religion, class, and nationalism.

Topical Background
In 1920, near the end of the Irish War of Independence, the British parliament divided the Irish isle in two, establishing a home rule government in each part. The six northeastern counties of the isle became Northern Ireland; the southern twenty-six counties eventually became the independent Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland remains within the United Kingdom (UK) today.

Since this division of the Irish isle, Irish nationalists, organized in a political party, Sinn Féin, and a paramilitary organization, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), have fought for uniting Ireland into an independent, thirty-two-county Irish republic. The unionists of Northern Ireland, organized in political parties, such as Read more

Mehdi Bozorgmehr

Associate Professor of Sociology, City University of New York

Backlash 9/11

Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

For most Americans, September 11, 2001 symbolizes the moment when their security was altered. For Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans, 9/11 also ushered in a backlash in the form of hate crimes, discrimination, and a string of devastating government initiatives. From the viewpoint of the targeted populations, the backlash spoke louder than official proclamations to the contrary. Instead of capitulating, however, organizations representing Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans mobilized to demonstrate their commitment to the United States while defending their rights. They distanced themselves from terrorists and condemned their actions; educated the public about the Middle East and the Muslim faith; and actively involved their constituents in voter-registration, know-your-rights forums, and civic and political integration activities.

This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of the post-9/11 events on Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans as well as their organized response for inclusion in America’s social, religious and political mosaic. Through fieldwork and interviews with leaders of community-based organizations across the country, the authors have researched the unfolding of this process since its inception. Backlash 9/11 introduces a Read more

John Stuhr

Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and American Studies, Emory University

Against Forgiveness

Thursday, April 22, 2010
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Drawing on philosophy, religion, psychology, medicine, political theory, and law, this lecture begins with the explosion of contemporary popular and scholarly concern with forgiveness in both personal and social settings. It analyzes the behavioral and affective nature of forgiveness and charts recent changes in our understanding of forgiveness from the largely theological and ethical to the primarily psychological and medical. These consequences, and the serious practical problems they involve, are considered in the context of atrocities often characterized as unforgivable. The lecture concludes by raising critical questions about the consequences of this change for justice and for hope in the face of atrocities, and for our understanding of ourselves. Through this criticism, the lecture points at an ethics and politics that would be beyond forgiveness.

This event is co-sponsored by the Departments of Philosophy, Psychology and Religion.

About the Speaker
John J. Stuhr is the Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and American Studies and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Emory University. He received his B.A. from Carleton College—a very selective liberal arts Read more

Alicia Sams

Documentary Film Director and Producer

The Obama Election

Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

By the People: The Election of Barack Obama is a behind-the-scenes documentary of the Obama campaign. Director Alicia Sams will discuss the making of the film and the insights she gained from being on the campaign trail with the candidate, organizers and the traveling press.

Co-sponsored by the Departments of Political Science and Film Studies.

About the Speaker
Alicia Sams has extensive experience working in both documentary and fiction films. Her most recent film as director is By the People: The Election of Barack Obama, which chronicles the journey of Barack Obama from before the announcement of his Presidential campaign to the White House, and premiered on HBO in November, 2009. Also released in 2009 was the award-winning narrative feature AMREEKA, for which she was executive producer. In 2006, she produced two feature-length documentaries: Wanderlust, a film about road movies for IFC; and the theatrical release Toots, about legendary NY saloonkeeper Toots Shor. Prior to that, she produced the Sony Pictures Classics release Grateful Dawg, independent documentary Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s (released by Read more

America’s Role and Image in the World

Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

The panel will assess how the United States is viewed around the world, particularly given the United States’ current foreign policy.

Panelists include:
Beth Paige, senior foreign service officer and mission director for USAID in Nepal
J. Sherwood McGinnis, professor in the Department of National Security Studies at U.S. Army War College

Andrew Wolff, professor of political science, Dickinson College
Mark Ruhl, professor of political science, Dickinson College.
Moderator: Stephen DePaul, executive director of Global Education and associate provost, Dickinson College.

Co-sponsored by the Office of Global Education. Read more