Assistant Professor of Sociology, Fordham University, Lincoln Center

**Breaking Issue**

The Occupy Movement

Monday, November 21, 2011
Stern Center Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Departments of Anthropology, American Studies, Sociology and Economics.

On September 17^th of this year, a relatively small group of protesters calling themselves “Occupy Wall Street” squatted a small park in Manhattan’s financial district to protest the role of Wall Street institutions in precipitating economic recession and alarming increases in social inequality. Within weeks, the movement has grown into a national phenomenon, spurring “Occupy” communities in nearly every major U.S. city, and entering issues of corruption and social welfare into mainstream political discourse.

Occupy Wall Street describes itself as a leaderless, post-political movement of the 99 Percent. The movement consists of local Occupys that operate as a kind of network: they organize rallies, demonstrations, and squatter communities in their immediate locales, but remain linked through a common antipathy to corporate power and interest in addressing issues of social inequality in a radically democratic way. Each Occupy employs a local decision-making body, or General Assembly, that operates by way of a unique consensus process, but Read more

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Penn State Dickinson School of Law
Lewis Katz Hall, Carlisle
Simulcast to Lewis Katz Building, University Park
2:00 p.m.

A distinguished list of speakers and panelists will discuss the consequences of an unfunded judiciary on democracy — whether in Pennsylvania or the other 49 states at both the state and federal levels. In addition, the forum will explore how Pennsylvania’s judiciary, as is true in other states, is joining with the other branches to be part of the solution, rather than a problem, in addressing the ongoing budget shortfalls.

The panel will be moderated by Dick Thornburgh, former Pennsylvania Governor and U.S. Attorney General, and will include Mary McQueen, President, National Center for State Courts, David Quam, Director Federal Relations, National Governors Association, The Honorable Dominic Pileggi, Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader, The Honorable Debra Todd, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and The Honorable Charles Zogby, Budget Secretary to Governor Tom Corbett.

Distinguished guests in attendance will include Chief Justice of Pennsylvania Ronald D. Castille, U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III, American Bar Association President William Robinson III, and Pennsylvania Bar Association President Matthew Crème.

The event Read more

Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology,
Harvard University

Low Cost Diagnostics

Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

* Professor Whitesides will sign copies of his book
No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale
Monday, November 7 at 4:00 p.m. in the Waidner-Spahr Library’s Biblio Café.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
George M. Whitesides has worked in an unusually broad range of areas, including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, applied enzymology, self-assembly, soft lithography, microfluidics, organic surface science, and nanotechnology. His current research interests include physical and organic chemistry, materials science, biophysics, complexity and simplicity, tools for biology, technology for developing economies, and the origin of life. His laboratory at Harvard University is noted for its diversity, creativity, and productivity, and for the quality of the students it produces.

He received an A.B. degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology under John D. Roberts. He was a member of the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1963 to 1982. He joined the Department of Chemistry at Harvard in 1982 and served as department chairman from 1986 to 1989. Read more

Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Saiko Miyamoto, Student, U.S. Army War College
Ben Edwards, Earth Sciences, Dickinson College
John Luetzelschwab, Physics and Astronomy (Ret.), Dickinson College
Jeff Niemitz (moderator), Earth Sciences, Dickinson College

During the fall 2011 semester, the Clarke Forum will sponsor two panel discussions on Japan’s “3/11” that will examine the powerful Tohoku earthquake, the ensuing tsunami, and the ongoing nuclear situation. This panel will examine the disasters from a scientific perspective.

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 and co-sponsored by the Department of East Asian Studies.

Biographies of the Panelists

Saiko Miyamoto is a student at the U.S. Army War College.  She holds a bachelor of arts degree in English literature from Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo; a master of arts degree in translation and interpretation for Japanese and English from Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, CA; and a master of business administration from University of Maryland University College, Adelphi, MD.  Most recently, she was the assistant deputy chief of staff for Host Nation Acitivies (G5), U.S. Army, Read more

Thursday, October 13, 2011 – 7:00 p.m.
Stern Center, Great Room

Candidates

Barb Cross (R)
Gary Eichelberger (R)
Jim Hertzler (D)
Joshua Monighan (I)
Sean Shultz (D)

The five candidates vying for the three seats on the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners will meet for a candidates’ debate. This event is being sponsored by the The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College, Carlisle YWCA, Carlisle and Harrisburg League of Women Voters, Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce and the AAUW.

The candidates are Commissioner Barb Cross, Commissioner Gary Eichelberger, East Pennsboro Township Commissioner Jim Hertzler, Carlisle Borough Council Member Sean Shultz and Hampton Township Resident Joshua Monighan.  Professor Andy Rudalevige from Dickinson College’s political science department will moderate. Read more

Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Satsuki Takahashi, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University
David Leheny, East Asian Studies, Princeton University
Alex Bates, East Asian Studies, Dickinson College
Shawn Bender (moderator), East Asian Studies, Dickinson College

During the fall 2011 semester, the Clarke Forum will sponsor two panel discussions on Japan’s “3/11” that will examine the powerful Tohoku earthquake, the ensuing tsunami, and the ongoing nuclear situation. This panel will situate the current disaster historically and explore its social, cultural and political impact.

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 and co-sponsored by the Department of East Asian Studies.

Biographies

Satsuki Takahashi is a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Rutgers University in 2010, and has served for three years as a research fellow at the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo. Based on her dissertation on fishing communities and on ongoing NSF RAPID-funded follow-up research, she is currently preparing a book manuscript on “unending modernization,” human-ocean relations, and Read more

Author-in-Residence, Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies

Political Parties and U.S. Foreign Policy

Thursday, October 6, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Description of Lecture
In election years, presidential candidates like to talk in stark terms about the differences between the Republicans and the Democrats. After a new president takes office, however, the differences sometimes don’t seem so profound as they were made to sound in the political campaign. So it has been with the Obama administration: there has been considerably more continuity from the George W. Bush administration to Obama’s than was expected during the 2008 election. There are, in fact, some longstanding differences between the two parties, but they are not always the ones the candidates of either party describe. And on some broad foreign-policy issues, both the Republicans and the Democrats have switched back and forth from decade to decade.

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of International Business and Management.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
James Mann is author-in-residence at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He was previously a Washington correspondent, columnist and Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times.

He has written five books: Beijing Jeep (Simon & Read more

Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

A panel of homeless and prior homeless individuals from Cumberland County will share their stories of how they fell through the social safety net and will answer questions on how they are recovering from their experiences.

There are more than a million homeless people in the United States living in shelters, on the street, in the woods, in storage units and doubled up with friends or relatives. Each story of homelessness is unique. While many folks suffer from addiction and mental health issues this is not the rule. In fact the average age of a homeless person (according to the National Coalition for the Homeless) is nine years old. Families with children is the fastest growing subset while veterans are the largest single subset.

This forum will allow for an opportunity to have candid discussions with individuals who have suffered from homelessness and to gain a better understanding of the issues that cause this condition.

For more information, visit www.safeharbouronline.org or www.facebook.com/groups/ilovesafeharbour

Biography (provided by the moderator)
Moderator, Pat LaMarche, is the voice of The Pulse Morning Show. It broadcasts in Maine and is available on the web Read more

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