Speakers & Events

April 22, 2008 at 11:15 in Armstrong Hall
Nigeria Today

Barrister Nafisat Lawal Musa,  Hajiya Saudat Abdullahi Maikano, Mmaasuur Audu, Elizabeth Lami Anche, and Hauwa’u Evelyn Yusuf

Five Nigerian women discuss their experiences and activities as leaders in their country. The women are visiting Iowa as part of the Nigerian Women Leadership Program, sponsored by the State Department and locally by Iowa Resource for International Service. The women will be interning and meeting with government and non-profit organizations.

Civic Engagement, CUE, Intercultural Life, International and Off-Campus Study, the Berry Center

April 24, 2008 at 3:30 in the Harlan Dining Room 
The Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission and Housing Discrimination

Michelle McMurray

Michelle McMurray, a Civil Rights Investigator with the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission, will speak about the recent audits which revealed an extraordinarily high level of racial discrimination in the CR housing market.  She will discuss the Commission’s history of involvement in housing issues, the reasons for the housing study, and, based on the results of that study, how the Commission plans to pursue a strategy that will encourage changes in housing practices in Cedar Rapids.

Civic Engagement and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology

March 10, 2008 at 3:15 and 4:30 p.m.  in Hedges
Faculty Workshop On Integrating Civic Engagement Into the Curriculum

Wayne Meisel

Wayne Meisel is the President of The Bonner Foundation, which supports scholarships for low-income students at 22 schools in the Southeast and Midwest through the Bonner Scholars Program. In return, each scholarship recipient performs 600 hours of community service a year.  He is also the author of two books, "Building a Movement: Students in Community Service" and "On Your Mark, Get Set, Go: From Student Ideas to Campus Action."

He will facilitate a Faculty workshop examining the process and impact of integrating civic engagement components into our courses at 3:15 and will lecture on the process of connecting academic study to engaged citizenship at 4:30 .

March 6, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. in Hedges
Art as Activism

William Yang

Extraordinary stories come to life in William Yang's intimate monologues.  Yang, a third generation Chinese-Australian, has integrated his skills as a writer and visual artist into a form of performance theatre. Yang's photographs and slides capture arresting images of several generations. His work has focused on Aboriginals as well as the persecution and internment of South Australia's German community. Part social documentary, part personal observation, Yang explores universal themes while incorporating his own experiences.

The Iowa debut of his critically-acclaimed "Shadows" will be presented March 7 and 8 at CSPS in Cedar Rapids.

Civic Engagement and Office of Intercultural Life

November 7, 2007 at 3:30 p.m. in Hedges

Ethnic Indians of the Americas: An Overview of the History and Heritage of Indian Freedmen of the 5 Civilized Tribes

Barbara Finley (executive director) and Angela Molette (curator)
Southern Heights Heritage Center and Museum

The lecture will summarize the history, heritage, racial composition, and identity of "the People known as an Ethnic Protectorate of the Tribes", the descendants of slaves of the tribes. It will also address the recent attempt by the Cherokees of Oklahoma to expel Black Indians from the tribe. The presentation will include information and a small exhibit on the museum itself.

October 18 & 19, 2007

Edward Zlotkowski

Edward Zlotkowski is the senior associate for Service Learning for the American Association of Higher Education. He is also a faculty fellow for National Campus Compact and English Professor at Bentley College. 

Civic Engagement and University of Iowa

October 17, 2007 at 7 p.m. in Shaw

International Writers Program Readings
 
German novelist Sasa Stanisic and Filipino fiction writer Angelo R. Lacuesta will be reading from and discussing their work (and questions such as the role of the arts in society). More information on the two writers can be found at: http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp/WRIT/WRITmain.html

Civic Engagement and the English Department

October 10, 2007 at 3:30 p.m. in Hedges
Treaty Promises Realized:  Tribes and Natural Resource Management in Western Washington

Fran Wilshusen

Fran Wilshusen is in charge of the habitat division of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.  She carries out policies decided upon by member tribes as they relate to the protection and restoration of habitat.  She works with water quality and quantity issues in habitat restoration; protecting wildlands for fish and wildlife; and deals with state government, local government, timber interests and the wildlife and habitat concerns of tribes.   She will be speaking about speaking about tribal interests, sustainable development and environmental issues.

October 4, 2007 at 11:10 in Hedges
Measuring Phalluses, Separating Twins, and Speaking To the Dead: What History Tells Us About Today’s Creeping Norms

Alice Domurat Dreger

Dr. Dreger is a Visiting Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Her work focuses on using history to improve the biomedical and social treatment of people born with socially-challenging bodies, including people with intersex, conjoinment, dwarfism, and cleft lip.  She also works with affected adults, parents, and clinicians to make things better in the social and medical worlds. The question that motivates her in those projects is this: Why not change minds instead of bodies?  Her published works include, Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, Intersex in the Age of Ethics, and One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal.

Civic Engagement and Dimensions