February

Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture. Olmsted was famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his senior partner Calvert Vaux, including Central Park in Trenton. We will view a DVD about Olmsted, followed by a presentation from Priscilla Hibbard.

Frederick Law Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecticut, a member of the eighth generation of his family to live in that city. His mother died when he was four, and from the age of seven he received his schooling mostly from ministers in outlying towns, with whom he lived. His father, a successful dry-goods merchant, was a lover of scenery, and much of Olmsted's vacation time was spent with his family on "tours in search of the picturesque" through northern New England and upstate New York. As he was about to enter Yale College in 1837, Olmsted suffered severe sumac poisoning, which weakened his eyes and kept him from the usual course of studies. He spent the next twenty years gathering experiences and skills from a variety of endeavors that he eventually utilized in creating the profession of landscape architecture. He worked in a New York dry-goods store and took a year-long voyage in the China Trade. He studied surveying and engineering, chemistry, and scientific farming, and ran a farm on Staten Island from 1848 to 1855.

Description TBA

"The Youth Climate Movement" presented by Eddy-Binford Ross: For decades, climate scientists have been warning that time is running out to combat the climate crisis and prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. Frustrated with the failure of adults to create meaningful change, Eddy Binford-Ross is part of a generation of teenagers who have taken to the streets, courts, and capitals across the globe, demanding that systemic change take place immediately to ensure the future habitability of the planet. She will be sharing her work to combat the climate crisis and her generation's message to those in power.

Mihir Joshi will present "Preempting Global Climate Change: A Novel Mathematical Prediction Models for Moving Marine Protected Areas (MPA's) to Manage Moving Species". MPA's provide vital management of marine biodiversity, economic growth and food security, however, currently they are at risk due to global climate change. My talk is about using data science for predicting Marine Protective Area movement in order to take a preemptive stance on their change. Mihir developed an algorithm that predicts different marine environmental indicators and plots them on a graph using the Kullback_Leibler divergence for multiple different MPA's over the world.

Eddy Binford-Ross is a Junior at South Salem High School, where she is enrolled in the International Baccalaureate Program and is the Editor-in-Chief of the school's newspaper, The Clypian. She is the founder and lead organizer of Salem Climate Strike. She is also the Secretary of Live to Tell, a student-run mental health nonprofit, and an intern for Oregon Representative, Paul Evans. Mihir Joshi is a 9th grader at South Salem High School and states "I am addicted to learning about science. " He enjoys computer programming, environmental science and physics. He states "The first time I ever heard about learning about science was from my elementary school teachers, and they really started the spark in me". Some of my accomplishments are becoming a finalist at BROADCOM Masters' science program and winning second place in the engineering category. I also won first place in the Statewide science fair when in the 6th and 7th grades. For fun, I play the cello and piano, and also run Cross Country during the fall season."

Classes canceled due to no space being available on campus.

The first hour will track Buffalo Bill from his days as a buffalo hunter for the Union Pacific Railroad, scout with the U.S. 5th cavalry during the Indian war and as probably the greatest showman in American history. The Buffalo Bill stage show played across America for 10 years and in Europe for 33 years. Cody was seen in person by more Americans than any president, politician, or performer. The Buffalo Bill Wild West show played four times in Salem and serves as the model for the current Pendleton Roundup. The presentation will be augmented by dozens of period photographs from my personal collection. The second hour will be focused on Annie Oakley, another American icon. She was a featured performer with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show for 17 years and later a campaigner for women's rights. Her life story from poverty to becoming a role model for women in competition shooting is a true American success story. More Americans saw Annie Oakley in person than any other woman in our nation's history.

Tom Glass joined ICL in September 2019. He currently has a book in press titled "A Photographic History of Buffalo Bill and the Wild West".

August 18, 2020 will mark the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the United States. This is the date that Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th amendment passed by Congress the year before. Using vintage posters, cartoons, and photos, as well as the words of the remarkable women who made it happen, this presentation chronicles the 70-year, multi-generation struggle to attain suffrage.

Janet Adkins, ICL member, is retired from work as a Committee Administrator at the Oregon Legislature. She gave this presentation to ICL in 2010.

Marina McClure is the guest Director, Guest Faculty, Spring 2020. The play opens on February 21, 2020. This director creates emotionally-charged theater, opera, and spectacles by fusing striking visual design and physical performance.

Marina helms the multidisciplinary art lab, The New Wild, and teaches directing at the National Theater Institute. Marina received her MFA in Choreography at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, CA.

Brad Eagleston is the HR manager for Coleman AG which is a six-generation 8000 acre family farm in the valley. The main crops are hops, hazelnuts, and a variety of vegetables.

Brad Eagleston is the Sr. Manager of Human Resources at Coleman Agriculture and has over 25 years of senior-level human resource experience. He has a background in various modes in the transportation industry including ground transportation, brokerage, logistics management and air cargo as well as prior HR experience in retail and manufacturing. His objective is to develop human resources best practices through people, processes, and corporate culture development. He received his SHRM - Senior Certified Professional and HRCI Senior Professional in Human Resources certification in 2002, and is a graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University with a bachelor's degree in Business and Accounting.

Professor Knorr, Chair of Comparative Literature and History of Ideas, will discuss Philip Pullman's trilogy.

Professor Knorr joined the Willamette faculty in 2001, after teaching at Georg August University in Göttingen (Germany), the University of California Berkeley, the Johns Hopkins University, and Georgetown University.

Nearly 400 years ago, a group of English Separatists and Strangers made a treacherous journey across the north Atlantic arriving in Cape Cod Bay on November 9, 1620. They never reached their planned destination, didn't know where they would settle, and had no shelter other than the Mayflower. Why was the Plimoth site chosen for settlement and how were they able to survive that first harsh New England winter? This presentation outlines the difficulty of the journey and how this group of Pilgrims met those challenges.

Jerry Rogers is retired from the Oregon Water Resources Department, having served as watermaster, regional manager, and technical services administrator. His love of history comes from rich historical sites he explored growing up near Gettysburg, PA.

ICL Board Meeting.

 Janet Adkins will be presenting "Lady's Choice" and Wayne Wallace will be presenting the male counterpart "Singles Bars and Bachelor Pads".

"25 Classic Chinese Love Poems" is a delightful collection of poems/songs spanning two millennia that vividly exemplifies how the ancients expressed their heartfelt emotions through these exquisite verses. The bilingual presentation with the pinyin allows a reader to fully enjoy the poetic beauty of sound and rhythm while improving their language skills and cultural understanding. The insightful "poem in a nutshell" "background" and "analysis" for each poem provoke readers to open their imaginations and enter into their own sacred worlds.

William R. Long is a retired professor of law at Willamette University. Eurydice Chen is a former Willamette student who was active in the Chinese Taiwanese Culture Association.

Mr. Hockenhull has submitted the following description of his work. "I have worked digitally for forty years, using the computer as a collaborator in generating my artwork. My approach is analogous to genetics: I select packets of visual material to be the artwork's DNA. With the computer, each packet can be cloned, mutated, recombined recursively, with new forms selected for their survival value. It's also somewhat like gardening: preparing the bed, planting the seed, nurturing the growing organism to fruition. I'll explain what I am doing, how I am doing it, and why. Hopefully, we'll segue into a discussion of ways to expand our understanding and appreciation of art of any kind."

Mr. Hockenhull received his BFA at the University of Illinois, Urbana. (Sculpture & Drawing, with honors). MFA at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. (Sculpture). Jim Hockenhull bought his first computer in 1978, and became a pioneer in the nascent world of digital art. He has also written historical articles for automotive magazines, was once the US parts dealer for the Messerschmitt microcar, has fronted two rock-and-roll bands, and is five-time winner of the Oregon Old-Time Fiddlers Association Senior Championship. Presently he is an Associate Member of River Gallery, Independence, Oregon. His work has appeared in many Galleries across the United States, including the Bush Barn Art Center, Salem, Oregon.

Alfin Kraft loves his complicated family, but they talk about him: how slow he is, how they need to share the burden of his care, how tired they all are. He hides in the walls of the family's old house in Boston and listens to their laments. And he also discovers there a lead box of old papers. Slowly he reads them and finds they are the original manuscripts of Melville's Moby-Dick long thought to have been lost in an 1850's fire at his publisher. The manuscript is valuable enough to save the family's failing construction business if marketed properly. But Arvin wants more, and professor Thorne, a coast away, is Melville expert who can help. Arvin and the professor take turns telling this tale with its lyric resonances of Moby-Dick, the specter of the curse of Ahab and strange deaths, and the scramble of greed as the manuscript becomes more valuable by the hour. Be prepared to explore four worlds: collectors' selfish plotting, an academic's withdrawal to his tower, a young man's revenge, and eerie coincidences between art and life.

Michael Strelow is a Professor Emeritus of English at Willamette University. He has a Ph.D in Literature and has published poetry, short stories, and non-fiction essays in literary and commercial magazines. He hosts creative writing workshops in universities and writing groups, and his 2005 novel "The Greening of Ben Brown and a finalist for the Ken Kesey Novel Award. Moby-Dick Blues publication date if March 30, 2018. He has taught in the English Department from 1980-2015. He has also written children's books, "The Princess Gardener, "The Alyssa Chronicle " and Jake's Book".

We will show two half hour DVDs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection. The topics are Art of Oceania, Africa, and the Ancient New World.

By March 1939 - thanks to the collusion, miscalculation, and cowardice of the Western Powers - Hitler had managed to occupy and annex Austria and Czechoslovakia; convince some of his generals and most of his people that he was a genius leader, and put the fear of God into the rest of Europe. On Sept. 1, 1939, the "hot war" in Europe began when Germany invaded Poland. As we all know, World War II ended badly for Hitler and Germany. What many of us probably don't know is that the war in Europe did not end with the surrender of Germany in 1945. At that point, it was payback time and there was - particularly in Czechoslovakia- hell to pay.

Both of these Czech composers, whose birthrates were a mere 30 years apart, (Smetana: 1824-1884 and Janacek 1854-1927) exemplified primary characteristics of Bohemian nationalism: a study of the sounds of nature, as well as an interest in the rhythmic and melodic traits of peasant as heard in the folk tunes. We will compare Smetana's great symphonic poem "The Moldau" with Janacek's opera "The Cunning Little Vixen", noting the similarities of their Czech nationalism as well as the inevitable differences resulting from the musical style periods in which the two men lived and worked.

In 2016, for those of us who missed or dozed off during high school Civics 101, Lester Reed made a presentation of the process of how we elect a President. Today, in a two-part presentation, he provides a brief review of the process, an update on what has transpired in the process over the last four years, and a summary of significant events that are having a major impact on the 2020 election. For members who are sensitive to topics touching on political bias, Lester has tried to ensure the presentation will be as factual and politically neutral as circumstances allow. Remember, shooting the messenger does not alter the message.

Lester has been a member since 2015. He retired after 28 years in the military as an Air Force Colonel. He has a PhD in Educational Management from the University of Texas, Austin. Retiring from his second 32-year career as a senior college administrator, he had time to pursue his outside interests. They include travel, wildlife photography, classical music, opera, and theater. As a member of ICL, he has presented on a variety of topics, including Korea, The Longest War, On The Brink of Nuclear War - the Cuban Missle Crisis, The Big Cats Of The World, How We Elect a President, The Story of Bears, This Land is For The Birds, and most recently, Antarctica, Nature's Refrigerator. Lester currently serves, with his wife Ingrid Brandt, as ICL's Co-Director of Finance.

Climate change has become one of the defining issues of our time. As much of the world bands together to come up with a plan, the U.S. remains the notable holdout. What is the rest of the world doing to combat climate change? What impact will the effects of climate change have on global geopolitics? How will our lives and our world be affected? What can we do? What are we willing to do?

George Adkins has been a member of ICL since 2005. You can find George at the back of the classroom assisting the fabulous CCTV crew.

Ken Ash has been a member of ICL since 2012.