Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty

The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues is establishing a series of programmatic events dedicated to the theme of leadership in an age of uncertainty. This initiative is grounded on the reality that today’s generation of Dickinson students confronts a large number of intractable political, economic, and social problems: terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, environmental pollution, global warming, a sustainable energy policy, the ongoing financial crisis, the federal deficit, the amount of public and private debt, the health care crisis, along with issues regarding race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, as well as technology and privacy. These issues and problems directly or indirectly pose challenges to the College and the local community that may in time require fundamental changes in institutions, values, and practices across the public, private, and non-profit sectors of American society. How Dickinsonians respond to these challenges presents us with an opportunity for reflection on the meaning of leadership in the contemporary world. This series is partially supported by a fund created by Betty R. ’58 and Dan Churchill.

Sarah McBride

McBride Poster FinalActivist

Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality

Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Sarah McBride is the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign and one of America’s leading public voices in the fight for LGBTQ equality. Her moving memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Different, chronicles her journey as a transgender woman, from coming out to her family and school community, to fighting for equality in her home state and nationally, to her heartbreaking romance with her late husband. A book sale and signing will follow the program.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Office of LGBTQ Services, the Women’s & Gender Resource Center, the department of women’s, gender & sexuality studies, the Churchill Fund, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Inclusivity and Outlaw at PSU -Dickinson School of Law. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Sarah McBride is a progressive activist and currently the national press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization. In 2016, Sarah made history when she became the first openly transgender Read more

Unveiling America: Addressing Issues of Contemporary Homelessness

Homelessness Panel Poster FinalThursday, February 28, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists

Jim Hoefler (moderator),  Dickinson College
Christina Kapp, Cumberland County Housing & Redevelopment Authorities (Panelists was unable to present due to unforeseen circumstances)
Beth Kempf, Community CARES
Scott Shewell, Safe Harbour
Tim Whelan, Cumberland County Housing & Redevelopment Authorities

A panel of community leaders will discuss their efforts to find sustainable solutions to homelessness in this region.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund; the departments of English; American studies; religion; and sociology; 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.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

MUGanelaJim Hoefler is professor of political science and coordinator of the policy studies program here at Dickinson where he has been teaching courses on politics and policy making since he joined the faculty in 1989.

Hoefler’s primary area of research is end-of-life care and end-of-life decision making. He has published several books and numerous articles in this area and has served on the UPMC Pinnacle Carlisle’s Biomedical Read more

Sharrell Luckett

Luckett PosterScholar & Performance Artist

Program is part of Love Your Body Week

YoungGiftedandFat: From Liberation to Creation

Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

YoungGiftedandFat author, Sharrell Luckett, outlines the journey towards self-love through the sharing of narratives that are at once specific and universal. A book sale and signing will follow the lecture.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund. This event is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Love Your Body Week events are co-sponsored by Clarke Forum; Women’s and Gender Resource Center; Office of LGBTQ Services, Student Life and Campus Engagement; Wellness Center; PALS; Psi Chi; Psych Club; Center for Service, Spirituality and Social Justice; Access and Disability Services; Departments of Theatre & Dance; Psychology; and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Creative Writing and the Waidner-Spahr Library.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Sharrell Smalldpi eSharrell D. Luckett, Ph.D. is director of the Helen Weinberger Center for Drama and Playwriting and assistant professor of drama and performance studies in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cincinnati. She is also affiliate faculty in the Read more

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Poster Hannah Jones FINALAward-winning Investigative Reporter for The New York Times Magazine

Morgan Lecture & KDP Spring Forum & MLK Jr. Symposium

Understanding the Impact of Modern Day Segregation

Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Award-winning The New York Times Magazine investigative reporter, Nikole Hannah-Jones, will explore the important roles schools play in their communities, how they’re affected by their surrounding neighborhoods, and how seeing race from the lens of education tells a whole new story of inequality in America.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Morgan Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by Dickinson’s Chapter of Kappa Delta Pi, the International Education Honor Society; the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity; the Churchill Fund, the Department of English; the Women’s & Gender Resource Center; and the Office of Institutional Effectiveness & Inclusivity.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Hannah Jones hi res downloadNikole Hannah-Jones covers racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine, and has spent years chronicling the way official policy has created—and maintains—racial segregation in housing and schools. Her deeply personal reports on the black experience in America offer a compelling case for greater equity. She has written extensively on the history of

Read more

Feminist Sorority Women: A Place for Intersectionality in Tradition?

Sorority Panel PosterThursday, November 29, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists

Donna Bickford (moderator), Dickinson College
Brontè Burleigh-Jones, Dickinson College
Diana Turk, New York University
Deborah Whaley, University of Iowa

Sororities can be both a place for women’s empowerment and a site that produces elitism and constructs stereotypical gender roles. This student-initiated panel of experts will address the history of sororities and the possibilities for activism within them.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of English, American studies, philosophy, sociology, women’s, gender & sexuality studies, the First Year Seminar Program, the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity, Kappa Delta Pi, and the Churchill Fund. This program was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s Student Project Managers and it is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

bickford Bickford Donna pixDonna M. Bickford has served as the director of the Women’s and Gender Resource Center at Dickinson since January 2016. She also teaches in women’s, gender and sexuality studies and serves as co-chair of the President’s Commission on Women, Gender and Sexuality. Previously she was the director of the Carolina Read more

Jane Mt. Pleasant

MtCornell University

The Paradox of Productivity: Lessons from an Indigenous Agriculture

Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) agricultural systems in the 17th and 18th centuries were three to five times as productive as their European counterparts at the same time. This lecture provides insights into this ‘paradox of productivity.’

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and a Civic Learning and Engagement Initiative Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the departments of anthropology & archaeology, American studies, environmental studies, philosophy, history and the food studies program. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and its semester theme, Indigeneity in the Americas.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

jane mt pleasantJane Mt. Pleasant, associate professor in the Horticulture Section of School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University, studies indigenous cropping systems and their productivity. Using her expertise in agricultural science, she examines agriculture from a multi-disciplinary perspective that includes history, archeology, paleobotany, and cultural/social anthropology. Although much of her work has focused on Haudenosaunee agriculture in the 16 through 18th centuries, more recently Read more

Daniel Ziblatt

Ziblatt poster FINALHarvard University

How Democracies Die

Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Is democracy in decline around the world? Is American democracy itself in trouble? Examining the history of democracy in the United States against a global backdrop of how democracies have died throughout history, Ziblatt comes to some surprising conclusions about the sources of vulnerability and strength in American democracy today. After Ziblatt’s presentation, Prof. David O’Connell will offer a brief scholarly counterargument that challenges certain aspects of Ziblatt’s book as they pertain to the American political system.  A book sale and signing will follow the program.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of political science and international studies, and the Churchill Fund. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

ziblattphotoDaniel Ziblatt is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University and a faculty associate at Harvard’s Minda De Gunzburg Center for European Studies. He researches and teaches in European politics, democratization, and historical political economy.

He is the author of three books, including two recent books, How Democracies Die (2018) (co-authored Read more

Eboo Patel

Patel PosterInterfaith Youth Core (IFYC)

Out of Many Faiths: Religious Diversity and the American Promise

Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

America is the most religiously devout country in the Western world and the most religiously diverse nation on the planet. Will America’s identity as a Judeo-Christian nation shift as citizens of different backgrounds grow in numbers and influence? In what ways will minority religious communities themselves change as they take root in American soil? In addressing these questions, Eboo Patel will explore how America’s promise is the guarantee of equal rights and dignity for all, and how that promise is the foundation of America’s unrivaled strength as a nation. A book sale and signing will follow the program.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by The Marjorie M. and Irwin Nat Pincus Fund in Honor of their Daughters, The Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life, the Division of Student Life, the Center for Service, Spirituality & Social Justice, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness & Inclusivity, the Departments of Judaic Studies and Religion, the First Year Seminar Program and the Churchill Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Read more

Congress to Campus

CongressCampus PosterMonday, October 15, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists

Don Manzullo, (R-IL, 1993-2013) (Replacing Jim Kolbe, R-AZ)
Betsy Markey, (D-CO, 2009-2011)
David O’Connell (moderator), Dickinson College

Live Stream Link

A bipartisan pair of former members of Congress will look back on their own experiences in government and reflect on the challenges currently facing the United States of America. This discussion will be moderated by political scientist David O’Connell.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the department of political science, the Churchill Fund, and the Office of Institutional Effectiveness & Inclusivity.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

px Don Manzullo Official PortraitDon Manzullo recently retired as president & CEO, KEI, Korea Economic Institute of America. During his  20  years  of  service  representing  the  16th District  of  Illinois,   Manzullo was  a  leading  voice  in  shaping  congressional  economic  and  foreign  policy towards  the  Asia Pacific region.  He  started  his  career in the  House  of  Representatives  in  1993  on  the  Subcommittee  on  Asia  and  the  Pacific  of  the  House  Foreign  Affairs  Committee  and  ended  his  tenure in Congress serving as the Republican leader of this pivotal subcommittee from 2007 until 2013,  including  chairing  the  Asia  subcommittee  Read more

Jacqueline Patterson

 Patterson poster finalNAACP

Environmental Racism in the Age of Climate Change

Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

Environmental racism proliferates throughout the climate change continuum from who is most likely to be exposed to the co-pollutants from facilities that spew the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, to who is most likely to be displaced or even killed from climate change induced disasters. The depth of the systemic inequities require a transformative response to ensure that civil, human, and earth rights are upheld. A book sale and signing will follow the program.

The program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity, the Churchill Fund, the departments of American studies, sociology, Africana studies, the program in policy studies, the Women’s & Gender Resource Center, the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM), and the Center for Sustainability Education. This program was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s Student Project Managers and it is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.  

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Jacqui Vote Solar IJacqueline Patterson is the director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program. Read more

Dan Longboat – Roronhiakewen (He Clears the Sky)

Longboat Poster FINALTrent University

Honoring Indigeneity: Indigenous Knowledge(s) and Indigenous Sovereignty

Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

For millennia Indigenous Nations have cared for and actively engaged with the landscape and through our respective cultures and unique ways of life have worked to create the bio-diverse richness of the Americas. Today, the Americas are confronted by a complexity of issues and problems that Indigenous Knowledge(s) can help to address. But we’ll need to start from the beginning, opening our minds to learning, understanding and honoring the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the departments of anthropology & archaeology, American studies, psychology, environmental studies, and earth sciences. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and its semester theme, Indigeneity in the Americas.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

IMGDan Longboat – Roronhiakewen (He Clears the Sky) is a Turtle Clan member of the Mohawk Nation and a citizen of the Rotinonshón:ni (Haudenosaunee – People of the Longhouse), originally from Ohsweken – the Six Nations community on the Grand River. Longboat is an associate professor in the Read more

Seeing = Believing?

VR PosterTuesday, April 3, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists

Eitan Grinspun, Columbia University
Steven Malcic, Dickinson College
Tabitha Peck, Davidson College
Graham Roberts, The New York Times
Gregory Steirer (moderator), Dickinson College

Where is computer-generated imaging and sound technology, including virtual reality, going next? Our panel of experts will discuss new developments in these technologies and what they mean for the politics of media production and consumption.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of English; International Business & Management; Philosophy; the Film Studies Program; and the Churchill Fund. This program was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s Student Project Managers and it is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

eitan previewEitan Grinspun is associate professor of computer science and applied mathematics at Columbia University, and co-director of the Columbia Computer Graphics Group. He was an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and NSF CAREER Award recipient, NVIDIA Fellow and a Caltech Everhart Distinguished Lecturer. Prior to joining Columbia University, he was a research scientist at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences from 2003-2004, a doctoral Read more

Gabriela González

Gonzalez PosterLouisiana State University

The Glover Memorial Lecture
Einstein, Black Holes and Gravitational Waves

Monday, January 29. 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.
(360 W. Louther Street, Carlisle, PA)

More than a billion years ago, the merger of two black holes produced gravitational waves  that were observed traveling through Earth on September 14, 2015. The talk will explain how Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves more than one hundred years ago, and describe the latest exciting discoveries with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Glover Memorial Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by department of physics & astronomy and the Churchill Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Gonzalez Gabriela LSU previewBiography (provided by the speaker)

Gabriela González is a physicist working on the discovery of gravitational waves with The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) team.  She was born in Córdoba, Argentina, studied physics at the University of Córdoba, and pursued her Ph.D. in Syracuse University, obtained in 1995. She worked as a staff scientist in the LIGO group at MIT until 1997, when she joined the faculty at Read more

Peterson Toscano

Toscano PosterTheatrical Performance Artist

Everything is Connected

Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Connecting contemporary issues to his own bizarre personal experiences, literature, science, and even the odd Bible story, Peterson Toscano takes his audience on an off-beat mental mind trip. A shapeshifter, he transforms right before your eyes into a whole cast of comic characters who explore the serious worlds of gender, sexuality, privilege, religion, and environmental justice.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Education, the Office of LGBTQ Services, the Center for Service, Spirituality and Social Justice, the Women’s and Gender Resource Center, the Department of Religion, the Department of Theatre & Dance, 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)

Toscano photoDrawing on comedy, storytelling, and history, Peterson Toscano creates original content for the stage and the Internet that inspires curiosity about climate change. Peterson’s unique personal journey led him into performance art. After spending 17 years and over $30,000 on three continents attempting to de-gay himself through gay conversion therapy, he came to his senses Read more

Alexander Heffner – “Constitution Day Address Lecturer”

heffner posterJournalist, Writer and Civic Educator

Winfield C. Cook Constitution Day Address

Civil Discourse in an Uncivil Age

Monday, September 18, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

WATCH LIVE

Heffner will discuss the millennial citizen, the space of old and new media, and the character of contemporary political discourse. How can we restore faith in democracy?

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Penn State’s Dickinson Law and co-sponsored by the Office of the Provost, Division of Student Life 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)

AHAlexander Heffner is the host of The Open Mind on PBS. He has covered American politics, civic life and Millennials since the 2008 presidential campaign. His work has been profiled in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Variety, Medium, and on NBC News, MSNBC, C-SPAN, CNN, BBC and NY1, among other media outlets. His essays, reviews and op-eds have appeared in TIME, Reuters, RealClearPolitics, NYT’s Room for Debate Read more

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz – “Morgan Lecturer”

Final Dunbar Ortiz PosterAmerican historian, writer and feminist

Morgan Lecture

The Genocidal Foundation of the United States

Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Dunbar-Ortiz will provide a history of settler colonialism and genocidal war that she argues forms the foundation of the United States. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Morgan Lecture Fund 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)
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma.  As a veteran of the Sixties reOrtiz Picvolution, she has been involved in movements against the Vietnam War and imperialism, union organizing, and was one of the founders of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the late 1960s. Since 1973, she has worked with Indigenous communities for sovereignty and land rights and helped build the international Indigenous movement. With a doctorate in History, she professor emerita at California State University East Bay, and author of numerous scholarly Indigenous related books and articles, including Roots of Resistance:  A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico and The Great Sioux Read more

Lila Abu-Lughod – “Morgan Lecturer”

Abu Lughod Poster finalProfessor, Columbia University

Morgan Lecture

Muslim Women and the Freedom to Choose

Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

What can we learn from public debates about Muslim women that hinge on a right – the “right to choose freely”- that has been enshrined in international feminist conventions and that animates the popular American imagination about such practices as veiling and arranged marriage?  Anthropologist Abu-Lughod will examine the everyday lives of young women in one Egyptian village to open up new ways of thinking about choice and to expose the politics of common fantasies about this right. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Morgan Lecture 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)

Abu Lughod Publicity c Martyn Gallina JonesLila Abu-Lughod is the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science at Columbia University where she teaches anthropology and women’s studies.  A leading voice in the debates about culture, gender, Islam, and global feminist politics, her books and articles have been translated into 14 languages. Her scholarship, mostly ethnographic and based Read more

Sonya Renee Taylor

Author/Poet

These events are part of “Love Your Body Week”

Your Body is Not an ApolTaylor Posterogy

Thursday, February 23, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

This performance by author/poet Sonya Renee Taylor uses popular education, performance poetry and media examples to introduce participants to the concepts of body terrorism and radical self-love.

Workshop: 10 Tools for Radical Self Love

Friday, February 24, 2017
(Open only to Dickinson community. RSVP to clarkeforum@dickinson.edu  – Space is limited)
TIME & LOCATION CHANGE: Noon – 1:30 p.m. in Althouse 106

Can you re-imagine a relationship with your body and your life that is not adversarial? In this two-hour workshop get practical tools and a step by step action plan that can dramatically shift your relationship with your body from enemy to gorgeous partner in creating your most unapologetic life of radical self-love!

These events are sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Churchill Fund, the Division of Student Life, the Women’s and Gender Resource Center, the Popel Shaw Center for Race and Ethnicity, the Office of LGBTQ Services, and the Departments of Sociology, Psychology and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Read more