Students, faculty, staff and administrators can join a national conversation on "Shaping a National Agenda for Women in Higher Education" through a teleconference planned for March 27-29. University Park will be a satellite downlink site for this national teleconference, hosted at the University of Minnesota.
Penn State is a program affiliate for this teleconference, which will focus on ways to access women's talents and to work in a multicultural world. It will also highlight key issues that affect the education, advancement and success of women in higher education.
A local conference also is being planned for University Park by the Penn State Commission for Women to coincide with the national teleconference. The local sessions will begin in the afternoon on Monday, March 27. Details of the local conference, which has received funding from the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, will be announced in the near future.
The national teleconference will feture keynote speaker Johnnetta B. Cole, presidential distinguished professor of anthropology, women's studies and African American studies at Emory University. Cole, president of Spelman College from 1987-97, is a nationally recognized administrator, researcher and advocate for people of color and women.
She was the first African American woman to lead the historically black women's college in Atlanta. She will speak on "Women's Voices: Imagining Ourselves into the 21st Century."
Also featured during the national teleconference will be moderated panels, with real-time feedback from satellite sites. The teleconference also will include caucus sessions focused on developing clear action strategies.
For more information on the national teleconference, visit the Web at http://www.umn.edu/women/wihe.html.
"The
Snowball Earth: A Climate Catastrophe that Life Survived" is the topic of a
lecture to be given by Paul Hoffman, the Sturgis Hooper professor of geology
at Harvard University and a member of the Harvard/Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Astrobiology Consortium. Hoffman will speak on Saturday, Feb. 5,
from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in 101 Thomas Building on the University Park campus.
The lecture is the third of six on "Astrobiology: Looking for Life in the Universe," the theme of the 2000 Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science. The free public lectures take place on consecutive Saturday mornings and are designed for the enjoyment and education of central Pennsylvania residents of all ages.
Hoffman will discuss the many lines of evidence supporting the theory that the entire Earth has been covered by glaciers for periods that each lasted millions of years before ending violently under extreme greenhouse conditions.
Hoffman received his doctorate degree in geology from Johns Hopkins University in 1970. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the U.S. American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The next lecture, "The Search for Life on Mars," will be held Feb. 12.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher will speak on the topic of "School Violence" at Penn State Fayette on Feb. 11 from 1:15-2:45 p.m. in the Williams Building Auditorium. Fisher's visit will be part of the campus's spring Administration of Justice Day, which also will feature campus tours and an open house for prospective students. The talk is free to the public.
Fisher will begin his day at Penn State Fayette with a private lunch, after which he will speak on the problem of violence in our schools. His day will conclude with a tour and visit to the new Administration of Justice Crime Lab on campus.
Fisher was elected attorney general of Pennsylvania in 1996. As the state's chief legal and law enforcement officer with broad responsibilities in both criminal and civil law, Fisher has worked to halt the rise of drug use across Pennsylvania. Other priorities have included stopping fraudulent telemarketers and scam artists and promoting education and safety.
Denise Von Glahn, professor of music at Florida State University, will give a lecture, "Charles Ives and the Musical Landscape: Hearing the Aural Path," at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4, in Room 122, Music Building II on the University Park campus. Her lecture will look at one of Ives's works and consider the ways it combines a 19th-century attitude toward place with a 20th-century aesthetic sensibility.
Her talk is part of the College of Arts and Architecture Critical Studies Colloquium, a new initiative to foster more cross-disciplinary dialogue among artists and scholars. The speakers share a general interdisciplinary approach to research and the free talks are held every other Friday of spring semester.
Von Glahn received her doctorate in music history from the University of Washington.
Four public forums on Feb. 7 and 9 at Penn State Harrisburg will offer an inside glimpse of women and politics in Russia. Guest speaker will be Nadezhda Shvedova, senior scholar at the USA/Canada Institute of the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow.
On Monday, Feb. 7, Shvedova will speak on "Chechnya: The Unknown War" at 11 a.m. in the Gallery Lounge of the Olmsted Building.
On Wednesday, Feb. 9, she will make three presentations, beginning at 11 a.m. in the LaGrone Cultural Arts Center when the topics will be "Russia Between Elections." At 2 p.m. in the Gallery Lounge, her focus will be on "Women's Issues in Russia," and at 7 p.m. in the Gallery Lounge she will address "Women in Politics in Russia."
Shvedova has worked since 1971 at the Soviet Union's and now Russia's premier think tank on the U.S. and Canada. Currently, she is director of the institute's Task Force on Comparative Gender Studies: Women in Elections in Russia, Canada and the U.S.
James Turner, founding director of Cornell University's Africana Studies and Research Center, will give a presentation on "New Millennium Challenges for African Americans" in Heritage Hall in the HUB-Robeson Cultural Center at 6 p.m. on Feb. 18. The program, which is free, will include a performance by United Soul Ensemble and Nommo African Dancers as well as a buffet of ethnic food prepared by Gwen Dunn.
In addition to having founded the Africana Studies and Research Center in 1969, James Turner is a professor of African and African American politics and social policy at Cornell. He also organized Cornell's Council on African Studies.
Turner was a founding member of TransAfrica, an African American lobbying organization. During the 1970s, he was a national organizer of the Southern Africa Liberation Support Committee, which pressed the anti-apartheid campaign in the United States.
As a Schomburg Research Fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Turner conducted research on the political philosophy of Malcolm X that served as the basis for his work on the prize-winning PBS series "Eyes on the Prize."
Pamela Trotman Reid from the University of Michigan will be speaking on "African American Women: Images, Issues and Ideas for the Future" on Wednesday, Feb. 23, at 7:30 p.m. in Heritage Hall at the HUB-Robeson Cultural Center on the University Park campus.
Reid is professor of education and psychology and research scientist at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan. She was the first person of color to be elected president of the American Psychological Association Division on Women. She is considered the leading scholar in psychology on African American women and is well-known for her work on gender, race and class.
For those interested in game birds or the operation of a hunting resort, the College of Agricultural Sciences will hold a three-day conference, "Pennsylvania Game Breeders and Hunting Preserves," Feb. 20-22 at The Nittany Lion Inn, University Park.
The conference will cover tips for beginners on how to raise birds and establish a safe and successful hunting club. Presentations will be given on game bird health; hatchery management; brooding and rearing game birds; the use of computers in game bird production; and a variety of other related topics.
To request registration materials and a detailed schedule, call (814) 865-8301. The registration fee is $55. For more information on conference content, call Michael Hulet at (814) 863-8934.