Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Kim Colby, senior counsel, Christian Legal Society
Heather Weaver ’99, senior staff attorney, American Civil Liberties Union
David O’Connell, moderator, professor, Dickinson College

Colby and Weaver will debate the issues of two freedom-of-religion cases that are currently before the Supreme Court: Greece v. Galloway, which concerns the constitutionality of starting a town council meeting with a prayer; and Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, which addresses whether the Affordable Care Act can require a family-owned business to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives despite the religious objections of the owners.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Religion and Political Science. This is a Clarke Forum Student Project Manager initiated event.

Biographies (provided by the speakers)

Kim Colby has worked for Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1981. She has represented religious groups in several appellate cases, including two cases heard by the United States Supreme Court. She assisted in congressional passage of the Equal Access Act, 20 U.S.C. § 4071, et seq., which protects the right of Read more

Thursday, January 30, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Panelists

George Pomeroy, professor, Shippensburg University
Kirk Stoner, director of planning, Cumberland County
Nathan Wolf, attorney, Wolf & Wolf
John Henson, moderator, professor, Dickinson College

A panel of experts will discuss the complex array of environmental and economic-development issues surrounding the evolution of the Carlisle area as a major logistics center with the associated construction of mega-warehouses and the concentration of truck traffic.  The panel will be composed of representatives of academia, non-profit environmental groups, developers, the public sector, and the local community.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce, League of Women Voters and the Carlisle YWCA.

Biographies (provided by the speakers)

George Pomeroy is a professor of geography – earth science and director of the Center for Land Use at Shippensburg University.  His teaching and research interests speak to community, land use, and environmental planning.  His degrees are in geography (B.A. Ed., M.S., Western Washington University) and in urban studies and public administration (Ph.D., The University of Akron).  For his research, Dr. Pomeroy has received the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Regional Development Read more

Former U.S. Senator, Arkansas (D)

Washington Gridlock

Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:30 p.m.

Many public commentators are of the opinion that the election of President Obama in 2008 ushered in a new era of extreme partisanship. Senator Pryor will discuss and evaluate the state of politics in our nation’s capital.

The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues sponsored and planned this event in partnership with the Student Senate Public Affairs Committee.

Biography

David H. Pryor was born in Camden, Arkansas.  He received his B.A. from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and his LL.B. from the University of Arkansas School of Law.
In 1960 he was elected to the Arkansas State House of Representatives where he served three terms.  In November of 1966 he was elected to fill the unexpired term of Congressman Oren Harris and served three full terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.  In 1974 he was elected Governor of Arkansas, a position he held for four years.  In 1979 Governor Pryor was elected to the United States Senate and served until he retired from the Senate in 1996.

Since retiring from the Senate, he became a Fulbright Distinguished Fellow of Law and Public Read more

Professor, New School for Social Research

China-India Future Relations

Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Will India and China cooperate or compete?  Officials and experts have asked this question for over a century, and more often than not were wrong in their predictions.  This lecture explores why the predictions were wrong and suggests new ways of thinking about Sino-Indian relations.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Donald W. Flaherty Fund, and the Departments of International Studies and Political Science.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Mark W. Frazier is a professor of politics, and co-academic director of the India China Institute at The New School, a university in New York City. His research engages comparisons of China and India in terms of how each has coped with development challenges related to inequality and urbanization, historically and in the present. He is the author of Socialist Insecurity: Pensions and the Politics of Uneven Development in China (Cornell University Press 2010) and The Making of the Chinese Industrial Workplace (Cambridge University Press 2002). He has contributed op-eds to The New York Times and The Diplomat. Before assuming his current Read more

Professor, City University of New York, The Graduate Center

Emancipation Proclamation: Myths and Realities

Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

The Emancipation Proclamation is so shrouded in mythology that even today, 150 years later, we are unable to answer the simplest but most important question:  What did the proclamation actually do?

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the House Divided Project.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Currently a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, James Oakes has been teaching and writing about slavery, antislavery, and the origins of the Civil War for nearly thirty years. Most recently, he is the author of The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (2007) and Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865 (2012), winner of the Lincoln Prize.

Video of the Lecture

  Read more

Entrepreneur and Bestselling Author

Wholehearted Leadership

Thursday, October 17, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Job satisfaction around the globe is at a record low, which both reduces companies’ profits and negatively impacts the quality of human life. Based on an analysis of surveys of 10 million workers in 150 countries, Kruse shows how growth, recognition and trust are the three primary drivers of emotional commitment and satisfaction.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of International Business and Management.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Serial entrepreneur and bestselling author, Kevin Kruse, uses a relentless focus on talent and employee engagement to build and sell several, multi-million dollar technology companies, winning both Inc 500 and Best Place to Work awards along the way. Kevin is also the author of several books including the NY Times bestseller, We: How to Increase Performance and Profits Through Full Engagement, which was named one of the top leadership books in 2011 by 800-CEO-Read.

Kevin gives back to communities worldwide through the Kevin Kruse Foundation. Projects have included building libraries throughout China and Vietnam with The Library Project, mentoring social entrepreneurs in Kenya Read more

Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Participants:

State Representative Stephen Bloom (R), serving the 199^th Legislative District in Cumberland County

State Senator Larry Farnese (D), serving the 1^st Senatorial District in Philadelphia

The participants will discuss the merits of gun control provisions currently being considered by the Pennsylvania legislature.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues.

Biographies

Representative Stephen Bloom, of Cumberland County, was first elected to represent the citizens of the 199th Legislative District in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in November 2010. A practicing lawyer for more than 20 years, now of counsel with the Carlisle firm of Irwin & McKnight, P.C., Bloom focused on business and transactional matters. He was also an adjunct instructor of management and business at Messiah College, where he taught economics and business law.

His mission as a lawmaker is to cut the size and scope of government, reduce the burden of taxes and unnecessary regulation, protect and defend constitutional freedoms, and by doing those things, unleash the power of individuals and businesses to create and grow jobs and economic prosperity.
Full Biography

Senator Larry Farnese Read more

Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University

Lupus and Snurps: Bench to Bedside and Back Again

Thursday, April 18, 2013
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

This talk will trace the origins of our understanding of how small cellular particles contribute to the critical process of splicing and relate this knowledge to today’s quest for treatment of splicing diseases, such as Lupus.

The Joseph Priestley Award recipient is chosen by a different science department each year.  This year the recipient was selected by the Department of Biology.  The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Student Senate and co-sponsored by and the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Psychology, Physics & Astronomy and Environmental Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Joan Steitz is a Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; and Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University.

Steitz earned her B.S. in chemistry from Antioch College in 1963. Significant findings from her work emerged as early as 1967, when her Harvard PhD thesis with Jim Watson examined the test-tube assembly of a ribonucleic acid (RNA) bacteriophage (antibacterial virus) known as R17.

Steitz spent the next three years in postdoctoral studies at Read more

Professor, Georgetown University

U.S.-Russia: The Second Obama Term

Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

The U.S-Russian relationship faces new challenges as President Barack Obama embarks on his second term. Both countries will have to reassess the relative priority of interests versus values as they seek to move forward.

This event is jointly sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs, and the Constance and Rose Ganoe Memorial Fund for Inspirational Teaching, courtesy of Professor Russell Bova.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Angela Stent is director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University. She is also a senior fellow (non-resident) at the Brookings Institution and co-chairs its Hewett Forum on Post-Soviet Affairs. From 2004-2006 she served as National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council.  From 1999 to 2001, she served in the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State.

Stent’s academic work focuses on the triangular political and economic relationship between the United States, Russia and Europe.  Her publications include: Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, Read more

Professor, United States Military Academy at West Point

Preventive War and American Democracy

Monday, April 15, 2013
Althouse Hall, Room 106, 7:00 p.m.

Ten years after the United States launched the first preventive war in its history – against Iraq in 2003 – American leaders are once again wrestling with the preventive war temptation, this time directed at Iran and its nuclear program. This lecture will explore and explain this profound shift in American thinking about preventive war over the past sixty years.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Mellon Foundation Project on Civilian-Military Educational Cooperation.  It is also part of The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in a Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Dr. Silverstone is professor of international relations in the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he has been on the faculty since 2001. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999, and has also served on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and Williams College. Dr. Silverstone is a research fellow with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and is Read more

Professor, University of Havana

U.S. Role and Image in the World: A Cuban’s Perspective

Tuesday, April 9, 2013 (rescheduled from November 27, 2012)
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

This lecture focuses on the paradoxes that characterize U.S. role and image in the world: U.S. culture, technological development, civil society, economic influence and military power will be discussed and evaluated.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Center for Global Study and Engagement and co-sponsored by the Departments of Economics and Spanish & Portuguese.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Beatriz Diaz is a full professor at the University of Havana, and at the Cuban Program of the Latin American Social Sciences Faculty (FLACSO). She was the director of the Cuba FLACSO Program (2001-2008) and at present chairs the research group on Rural Development and the Environment at FLACSO. She obtained her BA in psychology at the University of Havana, followed by graduate work at the University of Paris X and Geneva. She obtained her Ph.D. at the Soviet Academy of Educational Sciences in Moscow.

Her main research interests focus on Cuban Social Development and Sustainable Development. She has conducted research on rural, urban and Read more