Scholar Presents New Findings on Ancient Religious Icons

A noted art history scholar will present his groundbreaking findings on the origins of religious icons in a free lecture Thursday, Feb. 28, at 7:30 p.m. in the Roger Hull Lecture Hall at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.

“Icons in Antiquity: The Symphony of the Gods” will feature Thomas Mathews, emeritus art history professor from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. The event is the first in a new annual series called the Lane C. McGaughy Lectureship in Ancient Studies, established by the Willamette University Center for Ancient Studies and Archaeology (CASA).

Thomas Mathews is leading an interdisciplinary project that has uncovered fresh evidence of the icon phenomenon from Egypt in Roman times. Icons, which are panel paintings of sacred subjects, are the most characteristic genre of art of Orthodox Christianity, and currently accepted theories trace their origin to the Roman cult of the imperial image or to the use of funeral portraits. Mathews’ project team is studying panel paintings of the 1st–3rd centuries that bear strong resemblances to the Christian icons that followed them, constituting an important bridge between “pagan” antiquity and Christianity.

Mathews, who holds degrees in classics, philosophy, theology and art history, has devoted himself to the interpretation of religious art of the early Christian and East Christian worlds. He is the author of 13 books and many scholarly articles, and his research has been supported by numerous prestigious grants and fellowships, including the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The event is co-sponsored by CASA and the Mark and Janeth Hogue Sponenburgh Lectureship Fund of the department of art and art history. The Lane C. McGaughy Lectureship in Ancient Studies honors the George H. Atkinson professor of religious and ethical studies emeritus who founded Willamette’s classical studies program and is a founding member of the Salem Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Northwest House of Theological Studies.

For more information, call (503) 370-6250 or visit www.willamette.edu/centers/casa/research_grants/lane_mcgaughy.

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Willamette Community Learns from Renowned Scientist

What will be the state of environmentalism in the next 200 years? How do you conduct scientific research without “selling out” to a major corporation? Why is society so disconnected from nature? How do you encourage environmentalism on a global scale?

These are the burning questions on the minds of Willamette University’s science students. And they had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity this week to get answers — by posing them to Edward O. Wilson, one of the world’s greatest living scientists, while he visited campus to deliver the Biology Centennial Lecture.

“We’re in a very strange situation in the 21st century,” Wilson told the students in an intimate meeting before speaking to a sold-out crowd of 1,300 that evening in Smith Auditorium. “We have Stone Age emotions, we have medieval beliefs and we have god-like technology.

“We have evolved to exploit the planet, and now we’re having trouble slowing down.”

Wilson is considered a leader in the fields of entomology, animal behavior, evolutionary psychology, island biogeography, biodiversity, environmental ethics and the philosophy of knowledge. He is the Pellegrino University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, and he has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his non-fiction books “The Ants” and “On Human Nature.”

At his evening lecture, he addressed “The Future of Life,” informing the crowd about the immense biodiversity of our planet and the important task of trying to protect it. He had the same message for the students earlier. “The world needs to see that ecology and biodiversity studies are fundamental to the health of the planet,” he said.

He talked about meeting with evangelical leaders, setting aside their different views regarding evolution and focusing on issues they both agreed on. “I told them, ‘Let’s stop talking about issues like abortions and stem cells. Let’s do something important together, which is save the creation. See how we can combine science and religion into a single enterprise … and accomplish something quite extraordinary.’”

Wilson also discussed his work on the Encyclopedia of Life, an online resource launched in May that will include information about every species on the planet (view it at eol.org). “We’ve now reached an advanced state in the information age such that the idea of having everything known and available to everybody is not out of reach.”

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New Students Welcome Sir Salman Rushdie

Be brutal with the idea but respectful of the person who holds it was a primary message offered by Sir Salman Rushdie during the late August Opening Convocation at Willamette.

Packed with new students and their parents, the audience in Smith Auditorium responded to the internationally respected author with two standing ovations and enthusiastic applause as he discussed with wit and insight his formative years as a student — first at boarding school and then as an undergraduate.

“There are three mistakes you can make in boarding school,” said Rushdie. “Be clever, be foreign and be bad at games. I hit the trifecta.” While boarding school was not a positive experience for Rushdie, he found a much more inviting and positive experience at Cambridge University where he attended King’s College beginning in 1965.

“University is that moment when you come away from the stricture of high school and have the first adult experience of your life. In University, you work out who you are. You experiment with yourself and try on different skins. Through this process you work out what you will be and won’t be. It is your portal to the adult world. You are a migrant and university is where you begin to make your way.”

He added, “The thing I learned most at Cambridge was that you should be as brutal as possible toward ideas but as courteous as possible to the people who hold them. The undergraduate experience is transforming. You learn to be tolerant and open to new ideas. You learn that scholarship doesn’t seek self — it seeks the work.”

It’s clear that Rushdie credits his experiences at Cambridge more than he credits his degree in history. He managed a good natured tease when he said, “Throughout my life, no one has ever asked me what kind of degree I got or even if I’ve got one at all. I have to say it’s been useless.”

Rushdie is the author of such international best-sellers as Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses. The latter was deemed sacrilegious by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, who issued a fatwa against Rushdie in 1989. Despite this proclamation, and the international controversy that followed, Rushdie went on to produce some of his most compelling work, including The Moor’s Last Sigh and The Ground Beneath Her Feet while living under the constant threat of death. His most recent novel, Shalimar the Clown, was an international best-seller and a nominee for both the Man Booker Prize and Commonwealth Writer’s Prize.

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An Evening with Lewis Nordan

Critically acclaimed author Lewis Nordan will give a free reading Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. in the Hatfield Room of the Mark O. Hatfield Library at Willamette University.

Nordan is emeritus professor of creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh. His publications include almost 100 short stories in various journals and anthologies and seven books of fiction, including two collections of short stories and five novels. He also published a memoir. Olympia Vernon, Willamette’s Hallie Brown Ford Chair of Creative Writing, is sponsoring the event.

Nordan, born in 1939, grew up in Itta Bena, Miss., a small town in the Mississippi Delta. After high school, he attended Delta State College for one year before going into the Navy. He served aboard several ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, where he worked as a journalist.

Publishers Weekly wrote that “Nordan’s engaging, wise, delightfully wry stories sound a melodious, bittersweet yawp, pulsating with love, grief, rage and a thirst for redemption.” Nordan’s novel “Music of the Swamp” was cited by the American Library Association (ALA) as Notable Book of the Year and won a Best Fiction award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. The book includes ten stories focusing on a boy growing up in a Mississippi Delta town and his love for his alcoholic father.

Nordan’s novel “Wolf Whistle” is based on the murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy killed for whistling at a white woman in 1955 in Mississippi. It won the ALA Notable Book Award, the Mississippi Authors Award for Best Fiction, the New York Public Library Award for Best Book for the Teen Years, and the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for best book. Library Journal wrote that “‘Wolf Whistle’ displays some of Faulkner’s lyricism and Flannery O’Connor’s surreal humor ... [Nordan] emerges as a unique and powerful Southern storyteller in his own right.”

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An Evening with Laurie Lynn Drummond

Critically acclaimed author Laurie Lynn Drummond will give a free reading Tuesday, Oct. 24, at 7 p.m. in the Mark O. Hatfield Library’s Hatfield Room at Willamette University.

Drummond’s first book, “Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You,” explores the lives of five female police officers in Baton Rouge, La. The fictional stories come from Drummond’s experience working as a police officer for the Baton Rouge Police Department in the 1980s.

USA Today called the collection “riveting” and said Drummond “makes all of the crime novels and television shows seem like amateur guesswork.” The book is “so compelling that it’s difficult to stop reading.”

The New Orleans Times-Picayune said Drummond had authored “unforgettable, beautifully written stories.”

“Anything You Say” was a finalist for a PEN/Hemingway Award, and it won a Violet Crown Award and the Jesse Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. One of the stories from the collection, “Something About a Scar,” won the 2005 Edgar Award for Best Short Story. The book has been translated and published in three languages.

In 2004 Drummond moved to Eugene, Ore., and joined the faculty in the MFA Program at the University of Oregon where she teaches fiction and creative nonfiction.

Olympia Vernon, current holder of the Hallie Brown Ford Chair of Creative Writing, is the event sponsor.

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Civil Rights Speakers Discuss Emmett Till Case and Southern Racism

Wheeler Parker, the cousin of Emmett Till, will speak Tuesday, Sept. 26, at 7 p.m. in Smith Auditorium at Willamette University. Footage from a 2004 “60 Minutes” program will provide background on the Till murder case. Wheeler will be accompanied by Olympia Vernon, who will read from her widely praised novel, “A Killing in This Town.” The event is free to the public.

In August 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was accused of “whistling at a white woman” by Carolyn Bryant. Her husband, Roy Bryant, and J.W. Milam took Till to a barn, severely beat him and shot him through the head. A cotton gin fan was tied around his neck and he was thrown into the Tallahatchie River in Money, Miss. The boy was identified by a ring he wore that belonged to his father.

Till’s cousin, Wheeler Parker, Jr., was in the house the night Milam and Bryant came for the boy. He will describe the events of that night and share intimate details about Till’s childhood and the atmosphere in Money, Miss. at that time.

Olympia Vernon, the new Hallie Brown Ford Chair at Willamette University, will read from her third novel, “A Killing in This Town,” which features Adam Pickens, a young white boy in Bullock, Miss., who must, upon his 13th birthday, lynch a black man in order to be initiated into the Ku Klux Klan. Kirkus Reviews wrote, “This is a powerful, difficult work by a writer absolutely determined to see,” and Publishers Weekly wrote that the “fugue of folk idiom, blues, biblical diction and surreal imagery makes for lots of atmosphere.” All three of Vernon’s novels have been praised by The New York Times Book Review.

Vernon is a graduate of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La., and won the 2004 Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for her first novel, “Eden.” Both "Eden" and her second novel, “Logic,” were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2005 Vernon received the Louisiana Governor’s Award for Professional Artist of the Year.

For more information contact Olympia Vernon at overnon@willamette.edu or 503-370-6290.

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Lecture Explores Paradoxes and Struggles of 1940s Black Liberals

Lawrence Jackson will present “Black Liberals in the 1940s: The Unfulfilled Goals of Ralph Ellison, J. Saunders Redding and Horace Cayton Jr.” Thursday, Oct. 27, at 4 p.m. in the Hatfield Room of the Hatfield Library at Willamette University. Jackson teaches English and African-American Studies at Emory University and is the author of the biography, Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius.

“Ralph Ellison’s 1952 Invisible Man is one of the great American novels of the 20th century,” said Frann Michel, associate professor of English at Willamette. This complex, comic and surreal story takes its narrator from south to north and from innocence to experience, she said. “Drawing on folklore and preaching, blues and jazz, the novel explores American history, literature and modernity.”

J. Saunders Redding wrote detailed portraits of black life in America. Redding joined the faculty at Brown University in 1949, becoming the first African American professor at an Ivy League university. His book, On Being a Negro in America, was praised as “one of the most effective statements ... of the constant conflict experienced by the Negro between his reactions as a normal human being and those which life in America requires of him.”

Horace Cayton Jr. was a black slave who eventually became publisher of the Seattle Republican newspaper. He later worked as a political reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information call Frann Michel at 503-370-6389 or Thabiti Lewis at 503-370-6233.

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Pledge Reflects Nation’s Anxieties

The history of the Pledge of Allegiance isn’t as straightforward as one might think, according to a new book by Willamette University Professor Richard Ellis.

“The Pledge speaks to the American values of liberty and justice for all, which resonates with people to this day,” said Ellis, “but it also speaks to American anxieties about inadequate patriotism and newcomers.”

Written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, the Pledge reflected native-born Protestant fears of increasing Catholic and Jewish immigration to the United States, said the author of “To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance.” Many citizens shared the view that the rising flood of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe – with their different ethnic and religious backgrounds – was threatening to destroy national unity and identity.

“Most Western democracies don’t have children start each day by pledging allegiance to their country,” Ellis said. “At the turn of the century, many felt that a daily recitation of allegiance would help inoculate immigrant school children against radical social ideas.”

In 2002, when a federal judge ruled that the words “under God” were unconstitutional, violating separation of church and state, many Americans felt that the decision did violence to one of our most sacred patriotic rites. But according to Ellis, the words “under God” are a relatively recent addition, tacked on in 1954 at the height of the McCarthy era, to differentiate the United States from the atheistic communists.

For more than a century, the Pledge has been inserted into a fervent national dialogue about who we are as a people, and what it means to be an American.

“Those most fearful about threats to our national identity,” Ellis observed, “have often been the most insistent on the importance of patriotic rituals.”

The Mark O. Hatfield Professor of Politics at Willamette University, Ellis has authored a number of books on American political culture, the presidency and the initiative process.

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How Technology Affects Writing

Cynthia L. Selfe, an internationally recognized expert on student writers and the effects of technology on their writing, will discuss "Student Writers and the Texts They Compose: A Glimpse of the Future" at 7:30 p.m. in the Hatfield Room in the Hatfield Library at Willamette University Thursday, Nov. 4. Her lecture is free and open to the public.

Selfe is a professor of humanities at Michigan Technological University and the co-editor, with Gail Hawisher, of Computers and Composition: An International Journal. In 1996, she was recognized as an EDUCOM Medal award winner for innovative computer use in higher education--the first woman and the first English teacher ever to receive this award. In 2000, Selfe, along with long-time collaborator Gail Hawisher, was presented with the Outstanding Technology Innovator award by the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Committee on Computers. Selfe has served as the chair of the CCCC and the chair of the College Section of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Selfe is the author of numerous articles and books on computers including “Literacy and Technology in the 21st Century, the Perils of Not Paying Attention,” “Creating a Computer-Supported Writing Facility,” and “Computer-Assisted Instruction in Composition: Create Your Own.”

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Alternative Views

How do policy makers on the state and federal level balance the need to protect civil rights with implementing anti-terrorism policies in a post 9/11 America?

“Civilian Safety vs. Civil Liberties After 9/11” is the topic of a panel discussion Thursday, Oct. 21, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in the Hatfield Room in the Hatfield Library.

Panel members include Karin Immergut, U.S. Attorney and recent Bush appointee in charge of defending the Patriot Act in Oregon; Craig Campbell, Homeland Security advisor to Governor Kulongoski; Pete Shepherd, Deputy Attorney General for Oregon; David Fidanque, executive director of the Oregon ACLU; and moderator Sammy Basu, associate professor of political science and chair of the Willamette Politics Department. .

The panel is sponsored by The President's Office.

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Best-Selling Author Robert Putnam at Willamette University

According to Robert Putnam, author of the best-selling book, “Bowling Alone,” Americans have disconnected from family, friends, neighbors and social and civic organizations at an alarming rate. We have become a nation of loners and according to Putnam, that’s not a good thing.

A professor of public policy and dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Putnam will discuss “Community Engagement in a Changing America” Sunday, Nov. 14, at 6 p.m. in Hudson Hall in the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center at Willamette University. Admission is free and the public is invited.

For his book, Putnam examined nearly 500,000 interviews over the last quarter century to show that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently and even socialize with our families less often. He found that North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont rank highest on the social interaction scale, and Georgia, Mississippi and Nevada rank the lowest.

The decline in what the author calls social capital has long-term consequences that influence child welfare, housing and neighborhood quality, health and democracy that depends on civic engagement.

Putnam’s visit is sponsored by the Lilly Project, the Willamette University Events Board, and the politics and sociology departments of the University.

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Leader in Innovative Technology to Speak at Willamette University

Dr. Howard Strauss, Princeton University, will discuss "The Future of Teaching and Learning Technologies” Thursday, March 4, at 7:30 p.m. in the Hatfield Room of the Hatfield Library at Willamette University. The lecture is free and public is invited.

In his lecture, Strauss will examine how the evolution of a few critical technologies like biometrics, global positioning systems, and real mobile computing has the potential to change the way teaching and learning is done is the near future. Strauss will also present some challenging ideas of what the future of colleges, classes and courses--if they still exist--might be.

Strauss is known as a thoughtful and innovative technology analyst. He is currently manager of Technology Outreach at Princeton, where he is involved with making strategic decisions about the use of technology on campus.

Because of his knowledge of emerging technologies, Strauss is a popular lecturer world-wide and a consultant for many major companies. Prior to his post at Princeton, Strauss worked for the Johnson Space Center at NASA and Bell Laboratories. He was also a founding member of Election Watch, a public advocate group for integrity in electronic elections.

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Forensic Anthropologist At Willamette

Doug Owsley is the real life Indiana Jones but Jeff Benedict is the lawyer and investigative journalist who captured the stories of America’s oldest mummies, skeletons and precious relics in his book “No Bone Unturned: The Adventures of a Top Smithsonian Forensic Scientist and the Legal Battle for America's Oldest Skeletons.

Owsley and Benedict will be joined by Paula Barran, attorney in the Kennewick Man case, for a slide presentation and book signing April 17 at 12:40 p.m. at the Willamette University College of Law, Room 201. The event is free and open to the public.

When he’s not analyzing pre-historic skeletons at the Smithsonian Institution, forensic anthropologist Owsley is enlisted by the State Department, the FBI, and other federal agencies to identify remains. He is an expert in the study of ancient skeletons and No Bone Unturned is his story, which focuses on the most stunning cases of his international career. Owsley has helped identify the remains of Bosnian war victims, American journalists murdered and burned in Guatemala, David Koresh’s remains and the other Waco victims and Pentagon victims from 9/11.

No Bone Unturned also details Owsley’s participation in landmark studies of 17th and 18th century U.S. colonies in Maryland and Jamestown. He has taken us further into the past by studying the ancient remains of the Spirit Cave mummy and the Kennewick man, which speak to the origins of humanity. His career veered onto an unusual path when an anthropologist in Kennewick, Wa., called him to help study the 10,000 year-old Caucasoid skeleton known as the Kennewick Man.

Owsley got caught up in a battle against the Justice Department and Indian tribes who claim the skeleton is Native American and should be buried and not analyzed. Owsley enlisted fellow scientists worldwide, filed suit against the government, and in 2002, a federal court issued a landmark decision declaring that the federal government violated laws when it tried to bar Owsley from studying Kennewick Man. The decision will impact repatriation laws and have a significant impact on the classic views of “native Americans,” migration patterns, anthropology, as well as our understanding of pre-history.

Jeff Benedict is an investigative journalist, lawyer, lecturer and the author of “Public Heroes, Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL,” and “Without Reservation: How a Controversial Indian Tribe Rose to Power and Built the World’s Largest Casino.” He has a law degree from New England School of Law, and a master’s degree in political science from Northeastern University. He has been published in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and is also a private consultant to law firms and business organizations.

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Speaker to Discuss Genetically Modified Foods and Food Labeling

Neil E. Harl, the Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture and a professor of economics at Iowa State University, will present the John C. Paulus Lecture “Biotechnology: Global Economic Issues--Genetically Modified Crops and Food Labeling” Monday, April 14, at 5 p.m. at the Collins Legal Center, Room 201, Willamette University College of Law.

Co-sponsored by the Estate Planning and Administration Law Sections of the Oregon State Bar and Oregon State University College of Agriculture, the lecture is free and open to the public.

Harl, a member of the Iowa Bar, is also director of the Center for International Agricultural Finance, which conducts training principally for professionals from Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and China.

Harl has served as president of the American Agricultural Economics Association and president of the American Agricultural Economics Foundation. He has been named a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association and was an organizer and first president of the American Agricultural Law Association. He has received more than 30 major awards for his distinguished work.

Harl served for seven years by congressional appointment in the Office of Technology Assessment, Technical Assistance Advisory Committee, and chaired that group in 1993-94. From 1981-86, he served on the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges Biotechnology Committee; from 2000-03 he served on the National Advisory Committee on Agricultural Biotechnology and this year is a member of the National Payment Limitation Commission.

He has published 27 books including the 15-volume treatise, “Agricultural Law, Agricultural Law Manual”; 15 editions of "Farm Estate and Business Planning, The Law of the Land and Principles of Agricultural Law" and co-authored more than 350 professional articles and bulletins and more than 850 articles in farm and financial publications.

For further information, call 503-370-6877.

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Lecture April 4

Dartmouth College Professor Pamela Crossley, an internationally recognized scholar of Chinese history and ethnicity, will discuss "Horses and Societies in Medieval Eurasia" in Cone Chapel at Willamette University Friday, April 4, from 1 to 3p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public.

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Storytellers At Willamette

Two exceptional lecturers will visit the Willamette University campus next week.

She is the author of “The Diamond Light: An Introduction to Tibetan Buddhist Meditation,” “On Knowing Reality: The Tattvartha Chapter of Asanga's Bodhisattvabhumi,” and “Enlightened Beings: Life Stories from the Ganden Oral Tradition.” She is the editor of “Feminine Ground: Essays on Women and Tibet.”

One of the earliest American scholar-practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, Willis has published numerous essays and articles on Buddhist meditation, hagiography, women and Buddhism, and Buddhism and race. She is currently co-authoring with Marlies Bosch a book of meditations and exercises called, “Ending Hate: Practical Exercises and Meditations for Transforming Prejudice.”

In December of 2000, Willis was named by Time magazine as one of its six Top Religious Innovators for the new millennium.

Marlies Bosch, photographer and journalist, specializes in women and healthcare issues. She works as a freelance photojournalist for a variety of newspapers and magazines.

As a photographer, her travels are the source for several series of photographs on issues related to women and emancipation, education, and health.

Her expertise is based on experience and education in women’s studies and on courses she has taught on female health and leadership skills for a variety of women’s organizations in the Netherlands.

In the summer of 2000, she was in Ladakh to train nuns in healthcare and leadership matters. This project is conducted in coordination with the Tibetan Nuns Project in Dharamsala. As a result, the well known book, “Our Bodies Ourselves,” published by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, will be adapted and translated into Ladakhi, Tibetan and, eventually, into Nepali and Hindi.

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Law Lecture at Willamette March 18

The Willamette University College of Law Eighth Annual Speaker Series presents Leonel Pereznieto Castro, professor, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and member of the Mexico City Bar.

He will discuss “The Influence of U.S. Law in Mexico as a Result of NAFTA” on Tuesday, March 18, at 3 p.m. in Collins Legal Center, John C. Paulus Great Hall, College of Law.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Castro is a member of the Mexican Bar Association; Consulting Commission on Private International Law of the Ministry of Foreign Relations; international arbitrator at the American Arbitration Association; member of the Mexican Arbitral Commission Section of the International Chamber of Commerce; member of the London Court of International Arbitrators and member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators; former president of the Mexican Academy of Private and Comparative Law; former president of the Texas-Mexico Bar Association and former commissioner of the Mexican Antitrust Commission.

His areas of practice include international, foreign investment, antitrust, international arbitration and government procurement law.

He obtained his law degree from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, his master’s degrees from Escuela Nacional de Administraci¢n Publica, Spain, and from the Institut International d'Administration Publique, France, and his doctorate from Paris University.

He is a professor of private international law at U.N.A.M.; professor of antitrust law at the Instituto Tecnologico Aut¢nomo de Mexico; and lecturer on arbitration at the Escuela Libre de Derecho.

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Diary of a Black Sailor Topic of Inaugural Lecture

Willamette University College of Law presents William B. Gould IV in his inaugural William M. Ramsey Distinguished Professorship Lecture, "Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor," Thursday, Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m., in Paulus Hall at the law school. The event is free and open to the public.

The lecture will focus on Gould's great-grandfather, William Benjamin Gould, an escaped black slave who served in the United States Navy during the Civil War. Gould's latest book, "Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor," will be released by Stanford University Press next month.

Gould is a prolific author of books and articles on labor law, and employment discrimination law, as well as shorter essays on sports law and baseball. His award-winning book, "A Primer on American Labor Law," has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, German and Spanish.

One of the country's most prominent and influential experts in labor law, Gould taught at Stanford for 30 years where he served as the Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law. He joined the law faculty at Willamette in September as the William M. Ramsey Distinguished Professor of Law.

In 1994, Gould was appointed by President Bill Clinton to a four-year term as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), one of only three academics to ever serve in that position. During his tenure as NLRB chairman, he fought vigorously for fairer labor practices in the United States.

The holder of five honorary doctor of laws degrees, Gould was thrice included in Ebony magazine's list of "100+Most Influential Black Americans." He has arbitrated or mediated more than 200 labor disputes, including the 1989 Detroit teachers wage dispute and the 1992 and 1993 Major League Baseball salary disputes.

William M. Ramsey, for whom this lecture is named, was the first dean of Willamette University College of Law, from 1884-88. Ramsey's distinguished and unselfish public service had also earned him the title of the "Dean of the Northwest Bar." His 60-year stellar career included service as a county judge, circuit judge, Oregon Supreme Court justice and mayor of Salem and McMinnville, Ore.

Established at Willamette in 1883, Willamette University College of Law is the oldest law school in the Pacific Northwest.

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Independent Scholar, Washington D.C.

What: "Rogues, Ruffians, and Reformers: The Struggle to Preserve the World's Archaeological Heritage"

Where: Paulus Lecture Hall (Room 201/Classroom E), Truman Wesley Collins Legal Center, Willamette University (245 Winter Street)

When: Thursday, April 11, 2002, 7:30 p.m.

The lecture is free and open to the public as well as to the Willamette University community. Hot coffee, various teas, and delicious cookies will be served.

Dr. Ellen Herscher received her B.A. in Classical Studies from the Honors College at Michigan State University in 1967, and her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Classical Archaeology in 1978. She also studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and, as a Fulbright Scholar, at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She has also held two Fulbright Fellowships to the Republic of Cyprus where she worked as a researcher in the Department of Antiquities (1972-1974) and as a Senior Lecturer (1990-1992). Dr. Herscher has taught at Cornell University and at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She has served as the Director of International Programs for the American Association of Museums (1984-1990) and is currently an archaeological consultant and a contributing editor to Archaeology magazine (since 1992). Dr. Herscher's research focuses on Cyprus where she has participated in numerous archaeological excavations. She has published more than 30 scholarly books and articles on Cypriot sites and antiquities. Dr. Herscher has also published more than 20 articles on issues relating to archaeological practice and ethics and the international struggle to preserve the world's archaeological heritage. She has served on the Society of American Archaeology's Committee on Ethics (1991-1996), as Chair of the American Schools of Oriental Research's Subcommittee on the Preservation of Archaeological Resources (1992-1996), and as a representative of the AIA to the Board of the Society of Professional Archaeologists (1989-1991). She is currently serving as Chair of the AIA's Cultural Property Legislation and Policy Committee (since 1997) and as the AIA representative to the Board of the United States Committee of International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS).

From the jungles of Central America to the smoke-filled rooms of Capitol Hill, a war is being fought that will determine the survival of the world's archaeological heritage. The issues involved are large, numerous and often conflicting: third-world poverty, the free-market system, national rights to self-determination, ethnic identity, increase of knowledge, private property, international cooperation, the good of the "public"--to name just a few! In the meantime, archaeological sites are being plundered at a rate that only accelerates as new technologies become available. Dr. Herscher's lecture will review the historical factors--and some of the colorful participants--that have brought about the current situation, such as 19th-century collecting, the emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline, the rise of post-World War II nationalism, and the evolving role of museums (especially in the U.S.) as cultural institutions. Looting in various parts of the world will be examined, along with an assessment of how information about the past is being lost as a result. Finally, current efforts to stop looting and protect the world's archaeological heritage will be summarized. This summary will include examples of some of the most famous legal cases and accounts of what U.S. laws and those of other countries do, and do not do. Dr. Herscher has been an active participant in many of these efforts, and will give a first-hand insider's view of the difficulties as well as causes for hope.

For more information, contact Ann M. Nicgorski at anicgors@willamette.edu or (503) 370-6250.

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World Bank Economist to Lecture at Willamette

Augusto de la Torre, World Bank regional financial sector advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean, will discuss “Financial Globalization: Unequal Blessings” Friday, March 29, at 11:30 a.m. in Paulus Lecture Hall, Room 201, of the Willamette University College of Law. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Since1997, de la Torre has provided technical and conceptual leadership to World Bank financial sector operations in the region and is actively involved in the joint IMF-World Bank Financial Sector Assessment Program. He also works closely with the Office of the Chief Economist for the Latin American and the Caribbean region.

He headed the Central Bank of Ecuador from 1993-96. In November 1996, he was chosen by Euromoney Magazine as the year’s “Best Latin Central Banker.” He is a member of the Carnegie Network of Economic Reformers.

From 1986 to 1992 he was an economist with the International Monetary Fund and during 1991-92 was the IMF’s resident representative in Venezuela.

De la Torre earned his undergraduate degree in economics from Willamette University, his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics at the University of Notre Dame and holds a Licenciatura in philosophy from the Catholic University of Ecuador.

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Lecture: “Beyond Vitruvius: Early Roman Imperial Harbor Engineering in the Eastern Mediterranean”

The Salem Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and Willamette University (Salem, Oregon) are pleased to co-sponsor a slide-illustrated lecture:

Who: Dr. Robert L. Hohlfelder Professor of History, University of Colorado (Boulder)

What: "Beyond Vitruvius: Early Roman Imperial Harbor Engineering in the Eastern Mediterranean"

Where: Paulus Lecture Hall (Room 201/Classroom E), Truman Wesley Collins Legal Center, Willamette University (245 Winter Street)

When: Monday, February 25, 2002, 7:30 p.m.

The lecture is free and open to the public as well as to the Willamette University community. Hot coffee, various teas, and delicious cookies will be served.

Dr. Robert L. Hohlfelder received his B.A. (cum laude) in Classics from Bowdoin College in 1960 as well as his M.A. (1962) in Classics and Ph.D. (1966) in Ancient History from Indiana University. Since 1969, he has been teaching in the History Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder, but he has also taught at Southern Illinois University, the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, Towson State University, and Indiana University as well as at the University of Haifa (Center for Maritime Studies) and Anatolia College in Greece (Institute for Hellenic Studies). Dr. Hohlfelder's research focuses on ancient maritime history and marine archaeology, ancient numismatics, and late Roman to early Byzantine history. He is the author or editor of six books, more that 70 articles, and some 60 reviews, notes and/or abstracts. He has presented more than 300 scholarly papers and public lectures and has participated in over 30 archaeological expeditions. His work has been supported by over 40 post-doctoral grants including awards from the National Geographic Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council for Learned Societies, and the American Philosophical Society. Dr. Hohlfelder's fieldwork has been in Turkey, Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, and Spain. He was also a co-curator of "King Herod's Dream--Caesarea on the Sea," an exhibit organized under the aegis of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, which toured the U.S. and Canada in 1988-1989.

In Dr. Hohlfelder's lecture, we will learn that no manuals on ancient harbor construction have survived, but Vitruvius's De Architectura (5.12.2-6) offers information on the building of breakwaters in the Augustan era. This handbook, thought to have been published around 23 BCE, presumably contained state-of-the-art technology. Recent archaeological investigations at the submerged harbors of CaesareaMaritima (Israel) and Paphos (Cyprus), two international emporia built or repaired shortly after the publication of Vitruvius' work, suggest that harbor builders were challenged at these sites in ways he had never envisioned. They were forced to move beyond the conventional wisdom offered in De Architectura to find new design features for both these harbors and to experiment with building materials in novel ways to meet the challenges afforded by each site. In particular, at Caesarea, the master builders faced natural and logistical problems that would appear daunting even for today's harbor engineers. At the same time, however, in Kenchreai (Greece), more traditional solutions to problems posed by that site were employed in constructing a new international harbor for Roman Corinth. New building techniques evolved quickly in the Augustan age to meet new engineering requirements, but the old ways were not forgotten and were still employed where applicable or required by local tradition.

For more information, contact Ann M. Nicgorski at anicgors@willamette.edu or (503) 370-6250.

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Trimble to Deliver Phi Beta Kappa Lecture

Dr. Virginia Trimble will discuss "Cosmology: Man's Place in the Universe" Thursday, Jan. 31, at 8 p.m. in the Hatfield Room of the Hatfield Library, Willamette University. The Phi Beta Kappa lecture is free and open to the public.

Trimble is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, and is also a frequent visiting professor in the Astronomy Department of the University of Maryland.

She holds an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, a master's and a Ph.D. from Cal Tech, and a second master's from the University of Cambridge.

Trimble's current interests include the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, the universe and the communities of scientists who study them.

She is a member of the American Physical Society, the American Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Sigma Xi.

She is currently the astrophysics editor of the Reviews of Modern Physics and is president of the Division of Galaxies and the Universe, IAU.

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Government and Technology Lecture

Michael Maibach, senior vice president for government affairs with Siebel Systems, the world’s fourth largest software producer, will discuss "Government's Use of Technology" Thursday, Nov. 15, at 6 p.m. in the Paulus Lecture Hall, Room 201, Willamette School of Law. His lecture is free and open to the public.

Maibach has a long history at the cutting edge of technology. In addition to his 17 years as vice president for government affairs at Intel Corporation, he served on the Commission on Industrial Competitiveness during the Reagan administration and was a senior member of the National Advisory Committee on Semiconductors during the Bush senior administration. Additionally, he has served on the Alliance for the Protection of Software Innovation, the International Trade Committee for the American Electronics Association, the Public Policy Committee of the Business Software Alliance and the California Council for International Trade. He is a frequent lecturer for World Affairs Councils.

The Maibach lecture is sponsored by the Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University, in partnership with the Oregon World Affairs Council. For more information, contact Susan Chiapella at (503) 370-6440.

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Political Columnist David Broder To Speak At Willamette University

David Broder, a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist and reporter for The Washington Post, will speak at Willamette University on Wednesday, April 4 at 11:30 a.m. and at 7 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.

Broder's first lecture on April 4, “A New Century, A New Politics?,” will be at Willamette's weekly convocation from 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. in the Cone Chapel, Waller Hall, 2nd floor.

At the 7 p.m. program, Broder will speak as part of a panel on “The Future of the Initiative” in the Hatfield Room in the Mark O. Hatfield Library.

Other members of the panel include:

• Phil Keisling, former Oregon Secretary of State
• Helen Hill, author of Measure 58, the 1998 Adoption Rights Initiative
• Todd Donovan, politics professor from Western Washington University
• Hans Linde, professor from the Willamette University College of Law

Richard Ellis, Willamette University politics professor, will moderate the panel.

Broder is a regular commentator on CNN's “Inside Politics" and appears regularly on NBC's “Meet the Press” and “Washington Week in Review.” According to Washingtonian magazine survey, members of Congress and editorial-page editors rated Broder as “Washington's most highly regarded columnist.” In 1997, Broder was named among the 25 most influential Washington journalists by National Journal and among the capital city's top 50 journalists by the Washingtonian magazine, a list he has appeared on since 1973. Broder is also author or co-author of six books, including Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money, his latest book.

A digital photo of Broder is available on request. For more information on the panel, contact Richard Ellis at 503-370-6081 or rellis@willamette.edu.

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