Tuesday, January 16
9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m. | Coffee, Pastries and Conversation, Cat Cavern We will have coffee and a variety of tempting foods to nibble on while we converse with friends. |
10:30–11:30 a.m. | "Welcome from Willamette University," Carol Long, Kaneko Auditorium We will meet our new members and then have a welcoming talk from Carol Long.
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11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. | "Salem Public Library's 'Salem Reads' Program," Kate Van Ummersen [Jim McDonald], Kaneko Auditorium We will learn about the Salem Reads program, including the goals the program attempts to accomplish, how and why Salem Public Library became a part of the national program, the process of selecting each book and how the program's success is measured. Kate Van Ummersen is the Executive Director of the Salem Public Library Foundation. |
1:30–3:30 p.m. | "The Implications of Worsening EU-Turkey Relations for Regional Power Transition in Eurasia," Birol Yesilada, PhD [Paul Rice], Kaneko Auditorium This study examines how and why EU-Turkey relations went from good to bad within the last two decades and implications for global power transition. It looks at changing dynamics of Turkey's domestic politics and identifies causal factors in this country's reorientation of its foreign and defense policies. Finally, it will show how Turkey's shift towards a potential alliance with Shanghai Five would affect future of NATO.
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Thursday, January 18
10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. | "Music for Social Change," Peter Bergel [Tom Hibbard], Kaneko Auditorium
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1:30 - 2:30 p.m. | "Native American Flutes: More Than Just a Musical Instrument," Barbara McReal [Solveig Holmquist], Kaneko Auditorium
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2:30–3:30 p.m. | "The Oregon State Legislature: A Historical Perspective and Critical Issues," Jackie Winters [Jinx Brandt], Kaneko Auditorium Senator Winters will discuss how the Oregon Legislature manages being a divided group, how party affiliation affects the workings of the legislature, and how important bi-partisanship is. She will also address critical issues facing the state, including ballot measure 101. She will review recent successes of the Oregon Legislature. Jackie Winters was elected to the Oregon State Legislature in 1998 as the first African-American Republican to achieve this honor. She was re-elected in 2000. She was elected to the Oregon State Senate in 2002 and re-elected in 2006, 2010 and 2014. In 2017 she was elected to the position of Senate Minority Leader. She has lived in Salem for 40 years, has served on numerous boards and commissions, and has received many awards and recognitions. |
Tuesday, January 23
10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. | "Not Quite Everything You Need to Know About Refugees in Oregon," Jennifer Barischoff, Moderator, with Anya Holcomb and Allie West [Kay Gerrard], Kaneko Auditorium A panel of representatives of the refugee service organizations in Oregon will provide us with an update of the recent refugee arrivals in Oregon. We will learn who refugees are, where they come from, what resources they have when they arrive, and how services are provided. The panel members are in the front-line of providing services and resources and working with the volunteers who assist refugees. We will also learn about current refugee needs for goods and services.
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1:30 - 3:30 p.m. | Great Decisions: "Latin America's Political Pendulum," Jan Miller and Kay Gerard [Jeanette Flaming] , Kaneko Auditorium The pendulum of Latin American politics is swinging rightward once again. Yet as the ‘pink tide’ recedes, the forces of change have more to do with socioeconomics than ideology. Dramatic economic and political crises have coincided in countries like Brazil and Venezuela. Still, the final result for Latin America may be the emergence of centrist, pragmatic modes of governance, and with them, opportunities for the U.S. to improve relations. The new administration must look beyond the neoliberal model of the 1990s, and develop an approach to relations fit for the 21st century. Additional resources include our text, p. 79, www.greatdecisions.org/resources. Addition valuable readings in our text are pp. 5 and 6 by the president of the Foreign policy Association and ‘Continuity and Change in American Foreign Policy’ on pp. 7-14. These have not been part of our discussions of the topics, but provide an excellent overview. |
Thursday, January 25
10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. | "The Joshua Tree Genome Project and Darwin's Abominable Mystery," Chris Smith [Anne Bowden], Kaneko Auditorium Chris’s lecture will describe the biology of the Joshua tree – the iconic plant of the Mojave Desert – and it’s remarkable relationship with a tiny moth. The moths are the only things that will pollinate the Joshua tree, and the trees are the only food source for the moths. Charles Darwin described the relationship between Joshua trees and yucca moths as ‘the most remarkable fertilization system ever described.’ Chris will describe how research by Willamette University undergraduates is solving the mystery of how this pollination mutualism evolved, and how the trees and the moths have changed over time because of their interactions.
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1:30 – 3:30 p.m. | "Voices in Our Heads, Our Intellectual Landscape and the Cosmic Jokes," Michael Strelow [Tom Hibbard], Kaneko Auditorium I'll be bringing my newest book along, Some Assembly Required. It's a novel in the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut with some Jack Kerouac added and then funny (I hope). But it treats serious subjects, and these will be the topic(s) of my talk: A.I (Artificial Intelligence, everything from Alexa to the Spielberg movie--A.I.-- to the coming of robots); fractal art and Modernism (both the abstract creations sold as art and some of the math involved in making fractals); and voices. The voices part includes: the voices we hear in our heads (see The Hearing Voices Movement--non-psychotic voices heard by a percent of the population, see The New Yorker article, Jan. 9, 2017, titled, "The Voices in Our Heads"); the voices that writers hear while writing their books, the characters who come alive in the writing process, etc.; and in the case of my novel, add an A.I. experiment gone wrong in which the experiment appears to speak to the journalist trying to cover the experiment. That voice, Rex, comes to be the star of the book.
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Tuesday, January 30
10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. | "The ABCs of Abstraction," Ruth Armitage [Jinx Brandt], Kaneko Auditorium
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1:30–3:30 p.m. | "How Oregon's Correctional System Has Changed Over Time," Frank Thompson [Phil Sperl], Kaneko Auditorium Frank Thompson is credited with bringing a number of innovative approaches to Oregon’s Corrections system that helped improve overall operations. In the area of Human Resources Frank spearheaded activities to establish a policy prohibiting practices of the code of silence among staff. In the area of Jail Administration, Frank led the efforts that created an accredited self-audit Instrument for county jails throughout the state of Oregon. Frank also led the efforts that developed the Inmate performance reward and a non-cash Incentives system that was implemented department-wide.
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