Themes

Barry W. Lynn ’70 – “Constitution Day Address Lecturer”

Executive Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State

Celebrating a Dead Letter or a Living Document?

Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Watch Live Stream

“Originalism” in Constitutional interpretation is often characterized as the only legitimate way to understand the Constitution. If that were true, the “Constitution” would be a dead letter by now, unable to protect the rights of Americans in rapidly changing times.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Penn State’s Dickinson Law 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)

Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution’s religious liberty provisions.

In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues.

An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer Read more

Karen Nakamura

Haas Distinguished Chair of Disability Studies and professor of anthropology, University of California Berkeley

Disability Rights in Global Perspective

Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Grassroots disability movements such as mad pride and crip pride have pushed themselves to the forefront of conversations across the world about diversity and inclusion, but there has also been considerable setbacks in recent years. Nakamura discusses disability rights social movements and how they have fundamentally changed the social contract and fabric in various countries.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Office of Global Study and Engagement and the departments of East Asian studies and women’s, gender and sexuality studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Karen Nakamura is the Haas Distinguished Chair of Disability Studies and professor of anthropology at the University of California Berkeley. Her first monograph was titled Deaf in Japan: Signing and the Politics of Identity (2006). Her next project resulted in two ethnographic films and a monograph titled, A Disability of the Soul: An Ethnography of Schizophrenia and Mental Illness in Contemporary Japan (2014). She is Read more

David Paternotte

Lecturer in Sociology at the Université libre de Bruxelles

From the Vatican to Madrid, Paris and Warsaw: “Gender Ideology” in Motion

Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

After decades of steady progress in terms of gender and sexual rights, several parts of Europe are facing new waves of resistance. These oppose the so-called ‘gender ideology,’ and unveil a crucial role of the Roman Catholic Church. This talk will give an overview of anti-gender movements in Europe.

The program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Resource Center and the Departments of Sociology and Italian Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

David Paternotte is a lecturer in sociology at the Université libre de Bruxelles. After many years of research on same-sex marriage, his work concentrates the processes of Europeanisation, globalisation and NGOisation of LGBTQI activism. He has recently started a project on new forms of opposition to gender, feminist claims and LGBTQI rights, with a focus on the Catholic Church. In addition to articles in journals like the Canadian Journal of political science, social politics, sexualities, or social movement studies, he is the author of Revendiquer le “mariage Read more

Breaking Issue – iPhone vs. the FBI: Government Surveillance in the Post-Snowden Era

Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Allison Great Hall, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Amy Gaudion, Penn State Dickinson School of Law
John MacCormick, (panelist and moderator) Dickinson College
Tony Williams, Dickinson College

Should Apple help the FBI unlock the iPhone used by the shooter in the recent San Bernardino attack? These panelists will address this question and the significant security, legal, and technological issues it raises, particularly those connected to privacy and security.

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

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Amy C. Gaudion is the director of Graduate & International Education and a visiting assistant professor of law at Penn State’s Dickinson Law. Her scholarly and teaching interests focus on national security law, homeland security law and civilian-military relations. Her recent works have appeared in the Penn State Journal for Law & International Affairs, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, and the Western State Law Review. Recent presentations have included The Constitutionality and Consequences of America’s Use of Drones and the NSA Spying Program (2014, Western State College of Law), Beyond Print: New Models for Scholarly Publishing in Law (2014, Annual Conference of the American Association Read more

Lance Wahlert

Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics & Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania

Disability Studies and Contemporary Bioethics for HIV-Positive Persons

Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

In this talk, Wahlert will discuss the prominence of HIV-positive persons in the history of medicine, paying special attention to their impact by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of women’s and gender studies, American studies, biology and the health studies certificate program. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

An historian of medicine and literary/cinema/queer studies scholar by training, Dr. Lance Wahlert is assistant professor of medical ethics & health policy and director of the Master of Bioethics (MBE) program in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds affiliated standing-faculty appointments in Penn’s departments of: Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies; English; Cinema Studies; and, the History and Sociology of Science.

Dr. Wahlert’s scholarly interests include narrative medicine, clinical ethics, the history of LGBTQ medicine, disability theory, cinema studies, and Irish and Norwegian literature. Accordingly, he has held residential Read more

Manju Banerjee

Vice President and Director of Landmark College Institute for Research and Training (LCIRT) and Associate Professor at Landmark College

Universal Design and Diverse Learners

Thursday, March 3, 2016
Holland Union Building, Social Hall West, 7 p.m.

This presentation will address issues, experiences, challenges and alternatives in pedagogical practice for today’s diverse population of college students. Starting with an overview of neurodiversity and learner differences, the presenter will share practical hand-on techniques, eTools, and strategies as guided by the Universal Design mindset.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, American Studies, Kappa Delta Pi, the Wellness Center and the Office of Disability Services (ODS). It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Manju Banerjee, Ph.D., is vice president and director of Landmark College Institute for Research and Training (LCIRT) and associate professor at Landmark College. Dr. Banerjee has over 29 years of experience in the field of learning disabilities and postsecondary education, and is a certified diagnostician and teacher-consultant on learning disabilities. She has published and presented extensively, both nationally and internationally, on topics including Universal Design Read more

Perri Klass

Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics, New York University

Poverty as a Childhood Disease

Thursday, February 25, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This talk will look at what poverty does to children, through lenses ranging from fairy tales to health statistics, and discuss the ways in which we can look at childhood poverty as a disease, stunting and depriving children’s minds and bodies–and use that perspective to find ways to think about mitigating the damage and reducing the disease itself.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, department of economics, educational studies and the health studies program. It was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s student project managers and is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

A children’s book drive is associated with this program and it runs from February 18 – February 25. New and gently used children’s books are being accepted. Bins are located at the Clarke Forum, Waidner-Spahr Library and the Whistlestop Bookshop (Whistlestop is offering a 10% discount on books being donated for this drive.)

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Perri Klass, MD, is professor of journalism and Read more

John Englander ’72

Oceanographer

Melting Ice, Rising Seas, Shifting Shorelines…The New Reality

Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Sea level rise is now unstoppable. Englander will explain the latest science, put sea level rise into historic perspective, and explain what we can expect and how we should plan for the future.

A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, the Center for Sustainability Education and the departments of earth sciences, biology, international business and management, international studies and policy studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

John Englander is an oceanographer, consultant and leading expert on sea level rise. He brings the diverse points of view of an industry scientist, entrepreneur and CEO to this critical issue. For over 30 years, he has been a leader in both the private sector and the non-profit arena, serving as CEO for such noteworthy organizations as The Cousteau Society and The International SeaKeepers Society.

Englander graduated Dickinson College with a double major in geology and economics. His bestselling book, Read more

Emma Kaufman

Researcher, University of Oxford Border Criminologies Project

Prisons Built to Expel

Monday, February 15, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Kaufman will examine the rise and consequences of the “all-foreign” prison in the U.S. Is it legal to segregate American prisons by citizenship status? How are non-citizens treated inside prison systems in the US and Europe? What can we learn—about punishment, ethics, and immigration policy—by studying prisons that are built to expel?

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)

Emma Kaufman received her J.D. from Yale and her Ph.D. from Oxford, where she was a Marshall and Clarendon Scholar. Her new book, Punish and Expel, draws on a year of research inside men’s prisons to examine the treatment of incarcerated non-citizens. Emma has published articles on American immigration imprisonment, the relationship between gender and punishment, and British prison policy.

Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Professor of English, Disability and Human Development, and Medical Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Morgan Lecture

The Americans with Disabilities Act: Civil Rights Then, Now, and in the Future

Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

The Americans with Disabilities Act recently reached its 25th year anniversary. This lecture looks at the history of how the most encompassing civil rights act of the 20th century, affecting the largest US minority, came to be passed; what its effects were and are; and what more work remains to be done. A book sale and signing will follow.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Morgan Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the Department of History. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability and the Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Lennard J. Davis is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences and teaches in the English Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he had also served as the department’s Head. In Read more

Sandra L. Steiner Ball ’84 – “Wesley Lecturer”

Bishop, West Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church

Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Wesley Lecture

We Are More Than We Have Become:

John Wesley’s Call to Holiness and Service

In this lecture, the first woman bishop of the United Methodist Church’s West Virginia Conference, Sandra Steiner Ball, will address Wesley’s desire to reform the Church and to move women and men from a passive connection with the Divine, to an active, relational, and accountable life of holiness and service to God. This subject is relevant for today as it was in the 18^th Century.

This lecture is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Center for Service, Spirituality and Social Justice, and the Office of the President, and co-sponsored by the Department of Religion, Women’s and Gender Resource Center, Dickinson Christian Fellowship 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)

Sandra L. Steiner Ball, the daughter of Edward J. and Marjorie W. Steiner, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and raised in Milford, Delaware. She is a graduate of Dickinson College, (B.A. in Religion, 1984), Read more

Zach Leverenz ’01

Founder and CEO, EveryoneOn

Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Allison Great Hall, 7 p.m.
(Reception to follow)

Launch for New Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) Certificate

Business as Unusual: Shared Strategies for Accelerating Change

Leverenz will apply a practitioner’s lens to examine how social entrepreneurs can design shared-value strategies and build cross-sector partnerships that accelerate social impact with immediate scale and sustained success.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) Certificate Program, and the Office of Provost and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Zach Leverenz serves as founder and CEO of EveryoneOn, and has led the growth of the organization into a national force for social impact and inclusion.

With a singular focus on providing access to opportunity for all, the organization has adopted a broad, integrative agenda that harnesses the collective expertise and scale of more than 250 cross-sector partners to accelerate meaningful technology adoption for all segments of the unconnected population, including students, families, adults, and seniors.

Through the work of EveryoneOn, Leverenz has become a Read more

Elizabeth Hinton

Harvard University

Federal Policy, Urban Policing, and the Roots of Mass Incarceration

Thursday, November 19, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Shedding light on the devastating outcomes and the deep racial disparities within American law enforcement and penal institutions, Hinton traces the development of the War on Crime from its origins in the War on Poverty through the rise of mass incarceration and the War on Drugs in the 1980s. Hinton’s historical account situates the punitive policies of Ronald Reagan not as a sharp policy departure but rather as the full realization of the shift towards surveillance and confinement implemented by previous administrations.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of American studies, history, philosophy and sociology. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Inequality and Mass Incarceration in the United States.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Elizabeth Hinton is assistant professor in the Department History and the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Hinton’s research focuses on the transformation of domestic social programs and urban inequality in the 20^th century United States. She is the author of a forthcoming history Read more

Doris Fuller

Treatment 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 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:

“The Treatment of Persons with Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails: A State Survey” –

University 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.

Biography (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

Vanderbilt 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 University, 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

Steven Strogatz – “Joseph Priestley Award Recipient”

Cornell 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.

Biography (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

Cornell 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.

Biographies (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”

University 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.

Biography (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

Anthony Ingraffea

Cornell 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.

Biography (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