Economic and Social Development of Regions Seminar Series (2006 - 2011) View the complete history of the Fall Seminar Series . 2012 Facing Conflict: Voices from the Field. A Panel on Peace, Security and Education. Introduction by Chancellor Meehan and Professor Paula Rayman April 11, 2012 Featuring: Linda Bishai, Senior Program Officer, United State Institute of Peace & Tony Gallagher, Pro Vice Chancellor, Queen's University Belfast Co-sponsored by: Peace and Conflict Studies, Center for Irish Partnerships, Middle East Center for Peace, Development, and Culture, Gradute School of Education and the History Department. Whose Art Is It Anyway? Intellectual Property and the Arts April 5, 2012 Panelists: Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Professor, Art Andre Dubus III, Assistant Professor, English Alan Williams, Associate Professor, Music & Coordinator - Music Business This event is part of the seven-month event series, Dickens In Lowell, featuring exhibitions, performances, speakers, and family programs, celebrating the bicentenary of Charles Dickens's birth and his vist to Lowell in 184. On that visit the celebrated author strongly advocated for the establishment of an international copyright law. John Prendergast UMass Lowell Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies "Days Without Violence" - Featured Speaker April 3, 2012 Human-rights activist John Prendergast – a nominee for TIME’s 100 most influential people of 2012 – is UMass Lowell’s 2012 Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies. Mr. Prendergast recently testified on Capitol Hill and was arrested along with actor George Clooney to protest conditions in Sudan and South Sudan. He is featured in the “KONY 2012” documentary – viewed more than 80 million times online – that seeks to bring accused Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony to justice. Mr. Prendergast has spent 25 years working to stop human-rights violations around the world and foster peace in Africa. Co-founder of The Enough Project, he is also a board member and adviser to Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Don Cheadle’s humanitarian-aid group, Not on Our Watch. Prendergast has worked for the Clinton administration, the U.S. Department of State, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the National Intelligence Council, the International Crisis Group and the U.S. Institute of Peace, among others. Marie-Claire Blais March 21, 2012 As part of the annual celebrations of Francophonie in New England, internationally acclaimed Quebec author Marie-Claire Blaise give a reading (in English) or her work arournd the topic "A vision of our tormented times." The event was sponsored by the Quebec Delegation in New England and the UML Department of Cultural Studies. 2011 Tory Fair December 1, 2011 Guest Artist Lecture Series Tory Fair creates objects and installations that address the gap between the real and imagined and what is physical and what is felt. Her recent work explores the relationship between the body and nature through cast, figurative sculpture. This series brought to you by the Arts Research Collaborative @ Printer on Prescott and the student Art Union of UMass Lowell. Supported by Lowell Cultural Council, Mass Cultural Council. Event hosted by UML Center for Arts and Ideas. Election 2011 November 7, 2011 Martin Meehan, Chancellor, UMass Lowell Panelists: Charlie Baker, Joe Battenfeld, Jennifer Meyers, & Glen Johnson Sponsored by Economic and Social Development of Regions/Center for Industrial Competitiveness College of fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (FAHSS) School of Health and Environment Fall Seminar Series: Instability, Fragility and Sustainable Recovery: From Global to Local Melissa Broderick November 1, 2011 Mediation in a World of Conflict Co-sponsored by the Office of Undergardate Admissions, Criminal Justice Department and the Peace and Conflict Studies Program. Melissa Brodrick, Ombudsperson at Harvard Medical School, and former mediator for Fortune 500 companies, the State of Massachusetts and non-profit organizations, led an interactive presentation on how mediation can reduce conflict in our world. She spoke about her experiences as a mediator and how mediation looks at conflict as an opportunity for change. She compared mediation to other forms of dispute resolution such as arbitration and explained how mediation is different: it is voluntary, the parties have self-determination to make any decisions, it is confidential and the mediators are neutral.   Lynda Barry October 25, 2011 Fall 2011 UMass Lowell Artist in Residence A Program at the Center for Arts and Ideas Author, cartoonist, painter and illustrator Lynda Barry is the Fall 2011 Artist in Residence for the Center for Arts and Ideas. Ms. Barry’s syndicated weekly comic strip, “Ernie Pook’s Comeek,” is nationally known. She has published several illustrated novels, such as The Good Times are Killing Me, which won the Washington State Governor’s Award. Barry’s bestselling book, What It Is, won the Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Graphic Novel. The Innocence Project October 21, 2011 Co-sponsored by the Departments of Psychology and Criminal Justice and the Office of the Dean of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences University of Massachusetts Lowell Dennis Maher spent 19 years incarcerated for crimes he did not commit after being convicted of two attacks on women in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison. He was later exonerated by DNA evidence and is now married with two children. The Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organization that strives to exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and judicial-system reform. Geoffrey Haines-Stiles Old Media, New Media: The Promise and Perils of Communicating Climate Change The UML Climate Change Teach-In October 20, 2011 Sponsored by the Climate Change Initiative Mr. Haines-Stiles is currently the Project Director of the NSF-supported EARTH: The Operators’ Manual project whose first program, on the reality of climate change and the potential of renewable energy and hosted by IPCC-contributor Richard Alley, premiered nationally in the US on PBS on April 10th, 2011. In addition he was a Senior Producer for Carl Sagan’s classic COSMOS series as well as the producer and director of the PBS special, THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE. He has collaborated with then Senator Al Gore on “Earth in the Balance” and Lily Tomlin (The Cosmic Telephone Operator). Karl "Chip" Case Professor Emeritus of Economics, Wellesley College Co-author of the Case-Shiller Index, the leading measure of home prices in the US. October 3, 2011 "The Housing Market and the Macro Economy" The Parker Lecture Series in conjunction with the Fall Seminar Series put on by Economic and Social Development of Regions and the Center for Industrial Competitiveness International Women Leaders Summit April 11, 2011 They came from Colombia, Egypt, Israel, Liberia, Northern Ireland and South Africa to meet and learn from each other, forging friendships and building understanding about what it takes to advance democracy and peace. The delegates from around the world spent three days together at UMass Lowell, presenting on their experiences in their home nations and crafting the Lowell Declaration, a pledge to work jointly and with others on a global network with the common goal of creating non-violent solutions to conflict. The International Women Leaders’ Summit on Security through Economic and Social Development – held April 10 through 12 at the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center – grew out of an idea formed by the 2010 Greeley Scholar for Peace Prof. Gavriel Solomon and UMass Senior Vice President Marcellette Williams. The event was presented by a committee of UMass Lowell faculty, students and staff led by Prof. Paula Rayman and with the support of Provost Ahmed Abdelal.   Roger Cressey '87 F. Bradford Morse Distinguised Lecture on International Relations April 7, 2011 Renowned counter-terrorism expert Roger @. Cressey '87 is a former member of the United States National Security Council staff where he managed the U.S. Government's response to the Millennium terror alert, the USS Cole attack, and the 9/11 attackes. He is a recipient of the State Department's Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards. Roger is an on-air counter-terrorism analyst for NBC NEws and has been an advisor to President Obama. He is the president of the Good Harbor consulting group and a graduate of UMass Lowelland George Washington University. He is currently on the faculty of Georgetown University. Leymah Roberta Gbowee, Peace Activist UMass Lowell Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies "Days Without Violence" - Featured Speaker Co-Recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize April 4, 2011 Leymah Roberta Gbowee is an African peace activist who organized a peace movement that helped end the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. Gbowee organized the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, bringing together Christian and Muslim women to pray and sing for peace, and eventually forcing national leaders to create a peace process. Gbowee is now the executive director of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa in Ghana. In 2007, the Women's Leadership Board at Harvard University's JFK School of Government honored her with the Blue Ribbon Peace Award, and in 2009, she and the women of Liberia were awarded the Profiles in Courage Award by the Kennedy Library Foundation. She is the central character of the award winning documentary "Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Lily & Honglei: New Media Art April 4, 2011 Lily Xiying Yang and Honglei Li are new media artists from Beijing, currently based in New York City. Since 2005, they have been working under the collective name Lily & Honglei. They create new artistic expressions by integrating traditional and digital art forms. Utilizing online virtual world applications and digital animation, Lily & Honglei reinterpret Chinese folkloric traditions that metaphorically reflect current global cultures and societies. Lily & Honglei have exhibited internationally, including: FILE (Brazil), SIGGRAPH, Jamaica Flux (New York), Museum of Art and Design (New York), Microwave New Media Fest (Hong Kong), Eyebeam Art + Technology Center (New York), Terna 02 Prize (Rome), and 404 international festival of electronic art (Argentina). Lily & Honglei both received their BFAs in Painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing) in 1997. In 2007, Honglei earned his MFA in painting from UMass Dartmouth, while Lily received her MFA in Digital Media in UMass Dartmouth in 2008 2010 David Macaulay, Author, illustrator, MacArthur "Genius" fellowship recipient, Caldecott medalist. Creating books for young readers October 25, 2010 David Macaulay is perhaps best known for the award-winning international bestseller The Way Things Work, which was expanded and updated in 1998 and renamed The New Way Things Work. His detailed illustrations and sly humor have earned him fans of all ages. His books have sold more than three million copies in the United States alone, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. His many awards include the Caldecott Medal and Honor Awards, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Christopher Award, and the Washington Post–Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award. In 2006 he was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, given “to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations.” As “an individual of distinction in the field of children’s literature,” Macaulay delivered the esteemed 2008 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture, an honor bestowed on him by the American Library Association. Deborah Cramer Internationally known author and science writer. The Ocean's Impact on Climate Change & Health: What's it got to do with us? November 15, 2010 Deborah Cramer is a visiting scholar with MIT's Earth System INitiative. She is the author of two books: Great Waters: An Atlantic Passage and Smithsonian Ocrean: Our Water Our World, which is the official companion volume for the Smithsonian's new, permanent exhibit in the Sant Ocean Hall of the National Museum of Natural History. She has written about the ocean and fresh water for the Boston Globe and the New York Times. She will discuss her recent experience with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the wider implications of our changing ocean and its impact on our health.
2008 Embracing Ethnic Media to Promote Health and Environment Sponsored by the School of Health and Environment May 7, 2008 Moderator: John Rudolph (award winning journalist "Feet in Two Worlds" Panelists: Dahlia Diaz & Alberto Suris (Rumbo Newpaper) Sidney Liang (Voices of Cambodian Children radio show) Eduardo De Oliveira (EthnicNewz.org UMass Boston)
Select examples of earlier on campus talks: 2006-07 Steve Ellner Universidad de Oriente, Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela Venezuela and Shifting Geopolitics: Global, Regional, and Local Flash Video October 30, 2006 Elizabeth Grossman Author & Journalist High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health Flash Video October 23, 2006 Patricia Stevens University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Women Living with HIV Flash Video October 23, 2006 Alexander Sachs UMass Lowell, Physics Department Zoltan Fried Memorial Lecture Solitary Waves Flash Video October 18, 2006 John R. Nelson Department of English, UMass Amherst Overcoming Writer's Block Flash Video October 6, 2006 Armand Carriere Executive Director, Worcester UniverCity Partnership Community Engagement Through Partnerships October 2, 2006