Announcements
Oral Presentation Assistance
Are you requiring students to give presentations at the end of the term? Do you have students who need extra help in preparing for these assignments? The members of Lambda Pi Eta, the national honorary association in communication studies, are offering preparation assistance to students who have speeches and other kinds of presentations. They can help students in organizing material and creating effective visual aids, and will listen to students practice their speeches and offer feedback. LPE members are available on Tuesday and Thursday during weeks 9 & 10 (Oct. 20, 22, 27 & 29) from 10:30 AM-12:20 PM and from 7-9 PM. For more information or to schedule a session, contact Laura Burns, LPE president, or Ellen Hay.
At Augustana's Art Museum
Guest speaker Dr. Gregory Gilbert
"Andy Warhol and the Rise of Photographic Culture"
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Larson Hall ~ 7:30 PM
Dr. Gilbert is associate professor and chair of art at Knox College, where he has taught art history since 1995. He is also the senior curator at the Figge Art Museum. He received his Ph.D. from Rutgers in 1998. His interests in twentieth century art focus on philosophical underpinnings of American avant-garde art. In 2003 he gave a lecture "Caricature as Commodity in Andy Warhol's Pop Art" at a Midwest Art History Society conference session in Pittsburgh sponsored by the Andy Warhol Museum.
Convocation - Thursday, October 22, 2009
Alison Malmon, Executive Director of Active Minds, Inc.
10:30 AM ~ Centennial Hall
Alison Malmon is the founder and Executive Director of Active Minds, the only national organization dedicated to using the student voice to raise mental health awareness on college campuses. Malmon started Active Minds after the suicide of her brother, Brian, who had experienced depression and psychosis for three years while in college but had concealed his symptoms and not received the support he needed. In just over five years, the organization has expanded onto more than 200 campuses, including Augustana. With national recognition from the Campaign for Mental Health Reform and organizational profiles in The Washington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, and others, Active Minds has become recognized as the leading voice in student mental health advocacy. (•website)
2009 Frieze Lecture Series
"The Real Mary Wollstonecraft"
with Don Erickson
October 22, 2009
2:00 PM
Rock Island Main Library
401 19th Street
Wollstonecraft is now sometimes confused with her daughter, M. W. Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. But her achievements are more various and important than her famous daughter's. She wrote a riveting history of the early stages of the French revolution (John Adams read it twice). She's the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a founding text for the feminist movement (and a favorite book of Abigail Adams). She was a pioneer of travel-writing and nature-writing in her account of a visit to rural Norway and Sweden. And her life is more amazing than her books. Come celebrate Mary's 250th birth anniversary with English professor Don Erickson, who holds the Dorothy J. Parkander Chair in World Literature at Augustana.
Faculty Research Forum Sets Workshop Dates
The Faculty Research Forum (FRF) is a friendly, interdisciplinary working group of researchers and writers that gathers approximately once a month to workshop works-in-progress (e.g., book chapters, grant proposals, conference papers, journal articles, book proposals, and other forms of scholarly production). Volunteers submit their work to the group, and then we gather over drinks and snacks to ask questions and provide constructive critiques--all in an effort to improve our research and writing.
In years past, the group has consisted of a good mix of people--from assistant to full professors in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. We ask only that members make a commitment to give and to receive feedback on works-in-progress. This typically means that each member presents a draft about once a year and attends the other meetings as regularly as possible.
The dates for this year's FRF workshops are: October 22, November 19, December 17, January 21, March 18, and April 15, from 4:30 to 6:00 PM in the Dahl Room of the College Center. If you are interested in being part of this group--or wish to learn more--please contact Margaret Morse or Meg Gillette and indicate the following:
(1) name, (2) discipline, (3) a brief description of a project that you are working on this year, and (4) the FRF date that the project would be ready for review (not necessarily completed): 10/22, 11/19, 12/17, 1/21, 3/18, or 4/15.
Please join the General Education Committee
for a conversation on the future of Learning Communities:
Friday, October 23rd
Wilson Center
3:30 (refreshments) - 4:00 p.m. - Presentation
(Food and beverages provided!)
Representatives from the Gen Ed Committee will be available to talk about the challenges facing our Learning Community requirement. We'll discuss our ideas for expanding the definition of Learning Communities in order to facilitate faculty involvement and increase opportunities for students.
Complimentary child care is provided. Please contact Mary Koski before 1:00 p.m. Friday if you would like to arrange for child care.
Center for the Study of Ethics
2009-2010 Community Lecture Series
The Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics is pleased to announce the 2009-2010 Community Lecture Series. Funded by the Center for the Study of Ethics as a way of expressing appreciation for the support the College receives from the community, the series is made available without charge to area schools, churches, libraries, civic groups and other community organizations. Each lecture will also be presented once on campus at times to be announced later in the academic year.
The lectures and presenters for this year's lecture series are as follows:
- Virtue, Character, and the Emotions
Timothy P. Bloser, Assistant Professor of Philosophy (telephone: 794-7269; e-mail: timothybloser@augustana.edu) - How Morals Can Be Objective without Being Factual
David K. Hill, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy (telephone: 794-7412; e-mail: davidhill@augustana.edu) - Christians' Responsibility to Their Jewish Neighbors: Overcoming Supersessionism
Jason Mahn, Assistant Professor of Religion (telephone: 794-7324; e-mail: jasonmahn@augustana.edu) - The American Eugenics Movement: Precursor to the Holocaust
Arthur H. Pitz, Adjunct Professor of History (telephone: 794-7465; e-mail: arthurpitz@augustana.edu) - Paved with Good Intentions? How to Get the Best for Everyone from Short-Term Mission Trips
Dara L. Wegman-Geedey, Professor of Biology (telephone: 794-3445; e-mail: darawegman-geedey@augustana.edu)
Participants do their own scheduling and should be contacted via e-mail or at the phone number listed.
John Deere Planetarium Open House Shows Off Night Sky
Saturday, October 24, 2009
7:30 - 9:00 PM
The Quad-City community is invited to take a close-up view of Jupiter and other wonders of the night sky at the John Deere Planetarium's (820 38th St.) Fall Open House on Saturday, October 24. The event, which runs from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m., will give visitors of all ages an opportunity to see Jupiter through Augustana's telescope and attend educational programming led by planetarium director Dr. Lee Carkner. Admission is free.
The star of this year's show, Jupiter, is the largest planet in the solar system. The planetarium's high-power telescope will allow guests to view the planet with enough detail to detect its cloud bands and four moons. The open house also will feature a planetarium show utilizing the facility's 30-foot ceiling dome and Spitz A3P Projector. The Spitz A3P is capable of projecting up to 6,000 stars at a time, which provides a highly realistic view of the night sky as seen by the naked eye.
In addition to these main events, guests will be invited to view the moon and stars through a 14-inch reflecting telescope in the planetarium's Gamble Observatory and to study various celestial objects, including a quarter-ton piece of the Canyon Diablo meteor, in the Getz-Rogers Gallery.
Augustana's Fryxell Geology Museum, which features one of the best collections of minerals and fossils in the Midwest, also will be open. Highlights of the museum include a wall of glowing rocks, a cast of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull, and a complete, 22-foot skeleton of Cryolophosaurus, a carnivorous dinosaur discovered in Antarctica by one of Augustana's own professors, Dr. William Hammer.
The observing areas in the planetarium are unheated, so please dress appropriately for the weather. In the event of cloudy sky conditions, telescope views may not be possible, but indoor programming will still be available.
For more information, contact Dr. Lee Carkner at (309)-794-7327 or visit the planetarium's website at http://helios.augustana.edu/astronomy.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR:
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Division Meetings: 10:30 - 11:30 AM
- Fine and Performing Arts
Bergendoff 12 - Language and Literature
Old Main 124 - Natural Science
Science Building 102 - History, Philosophy adn Religion
Old Main 332 - Business and Education
Carlsson Evald 212 - Social Sciences
Old Main 122
Faculty Forum: 11:30 - 12:20 PM Olin Auditorium
Midwest Faculty Seminar
"The Human Condition"
November 5-7, 2009
Please contact Jeff Abernathy if you are interested in attending.
Registration Deadline is Friday, October 23, 2009
First published in 1958, Hannah Arendt's landmark 1958 text The Human Condition calls into question the practice of thinking of Man as an abstraction, and argued for the need to think of men in their plurality and multiplicity. Arendt begins with the simple proposal: to "think what we are doing" as a way to understand the reality of our social practices as they are, rather than as wel want them to be. The phrase is carefully chosen, in that one of the work's primary concerns is to understand human societies in their plurality, to study men, rather than 'Man.' Arendt considers society in practical terms as a massive gathering of individuals, each of whom represents unpredictable possibilities. Her schema examines three varieties of these possibilities in what she calls the vita activa, - labor, work, and action - as well as their role within the political, social, public and private realms. Basing her analysis in both a historical account of Classical Greece and her acute insights into contemporary modernity, Arendt's diagnosis of "the state of human humanity" has become an essential text for a variety of disciplines: philosophy, political science, history and literature. This seminar will explore Arendt's contributions to 20th century through this controversial and, hugely influential philosophical text, as well the work's relevance to contemporary discussion.
Human Condition Registration Form