Jill Bartoli (D) vs. Stephen Bloom (R)

Wednesday, October 22, 2014 – 7 p.m.
NEW LOCATION:  Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium

The Republican and Democratic candidates running in the general November election for the 199th seat in the Pennsylvania state legislature will debate the central issues confronting local voters and answer questions from the audience. The event will be moderated by Michelle Crowley, president and CEO of the Greater Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Greater Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce, American Association of University Women (AAUW), the League of Women Voters,  YWCA Carlisle and The Sentinel.

Biographies

Jill Bartoli (provided by Bartoli)

I have lived in Cumberland County for my entire life, growing up in a rural area near Cumberland Valley High School, which was built when I was in third grade.  So my first three years of school were in a one room country school house, with a pot-bellied stove and an outhouse, that had grades one to eight.

Growing up, I was a member of the 4-H Baby Lamb Club and 4-H Horse and Pony Club, and I took ballet lessons from Marcia Dale Weary when she Read more

Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Ronald Bailey, executive director, Chester County Planning Commission
Elam Herr, assistant executive director, Penn State Assoc. of Twp. Supervisors
Steve Kusheloff, manager, public information, SEDA-COG
Kirk Stoner (moderator), director of planning, Cumberland County

This program will provide an overview of how Pennsylvania developed its system of local government. Local officials will present stories of achievement and lessons learned from specific examples of regional cooperation to identify the principles that will be the foundation for future success.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Greater Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Ronald T. Bailey, AICP is the executive director of the Chester County Planning Commission. Mr. Bailey also serves as a member of the Pennsylvania State Planning Board and is a senior research fellow with the Floyd Institute for Public Policy at Franklin and Marshall College. Previously, Mr. Bailey was the executive director of the Lancaster County Planning Commission. Prior to coming to Pennsylvania, he worked in state and local government the Pacific Northwest. He holds a bachelor of science from the California State University at Read more

Labor Economist, Keystone Research Center

Fighting Runaway Inequality: The Minimum Wage Controversy

Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Through the lens of the debate over the minimum wage, Price will explore the connections between public policy, the social sciences and one of the most pressing social issues of our time, the rise of income inequality.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Sociology,  Political Science, Economics, and American Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Mark Price has been the Keystone Research Center’s (KRC) labor economist for over a decade. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Utah in 2005. The KRC is a non-partisan research and policy development institute based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His areas of research include income inequality, trends in employment and compensation, the construction industry, and low-wage labor markets. Mark’s work involves policy analysis and advocacy on a wide range of issues including, prevailing wage law, unemployment insurance, payday lending, economic and workforce development and tax and budget policy.  His advocacy involves fielding questions from reporters, testifying before the state legislature and making public presentations on current policy issues and Read more

Award-Winning Investigative Journalist

Inside the FBI’s Terror Factory

Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room

Aaronson, author of The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism, will explore how the FBI has built up a network of more than 15,000 informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim communities to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots so that the government can then claim victory in the War on Terror.  A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of Middle East studies and religion.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Trevor Aaronson is an accomplished investigative journalist and author of The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism.  Aaronson reported and produced a one-hour documentary for Al Jazeera Media Network, “Informants,” about the FBI’s counterterrorism program. He co-founded the nonprofit Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, which won national and regional journalism awards under his leadership, and has written for Mother Jones magazine. A two-time finalist for the Livingston Awards, Aaronson has won more than two dozen national and regional awards, including the Molly National Journalism Prize, Read more

Professor, Harvard University

Ecoambiguity: Asia and the Environmental Humanities

Thursday, September 18, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This talk examines East Asian writing on environmental degradation, introducing the concept of ecoambiguity (environmental ambiguity) to highlight the contradictions in human behaviors vis-a-vis the nonhuman.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department East Asian Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Karen Thornber is professor and chair of comparative literature, Harvard University; she is also chair of Harvard’s Regional Studies East Asia Program and holds an additional faculty appointment in Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations.  Thornber’s research and teaching focus on world literature, East Asian literatures, the literatures of the Indian Ocean Rim, postcolonialism, diaspora, environmental humanities, and medical humanities.

A 2006 Harvard Ph.D., her books include Empire of Texts in Motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese Transculturations of Japanese Literature (Harvard, 2009) and Ecoambiguity: Environmental Crises and East Asian Literatures (Michigan, 2012), both of which were awarded multiple international prizes.  She is the author of over 50 articles/chapters as well as of an award-winning translation of Japanese poetry; Thornber is additionally guest editor of a special issue of the Read more

Professor, University of Vermont

Buddhist Contributions to Climate Ethics

Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This lecture will draw on Buddhist environmental thought to explore climate change and consumerism looking at human behavior and ethical choice.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of East Asian Studies, Religion, the Center for Sustainability Education, and the Luce Foundation’s Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Dr. Stephanie Kaza is professor of environmental studies at the University of Vermont and director of the Environmental Program. Her courses include Unlearning Consumerism; Religion and Ecology; Women, Health, and Environment; and other values-based courses. She co-founded the Environmental Council at University of Vermont, a campus-wide consortium on sustainability, and is the faculty director for the UVM Office of Sustainability and Sustainability Faculty Fellows program. Her current scholarship focuses on Buddhist perspectives on climate ethics and bicycle commuting quality of life benefits.

Dr. Kaza is the 2011 winner of the UVM George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award for excellence in teaching. Her books include Mindfully Green (2008), Hooked! Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Read more

Monday, September 8, 2014
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Kamaal Haque, professor, Dickinson College
Craig Nation, professor, U.S. Army War College
Michael Neiberg, professor, U.S. Army War College
Karl Qualls, professor, Dickinson College

In recognition of the centennial anniversary of the beginning of World War I, this panel discussion will address the causes of this world-changing event from multiple and diverse perspectives in an effort to better understand the origins of international conflicts.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues.

Biographies (provided by the participants)

Kamaal Haque is an assistant professor of German at Dickinson College. His research interests include German film, the literature and culture of the German-speaking Alps, and the influence of the Middle East in German culture. He has published on such diverse topics as the German mountain film, the poetry of Goethe, and Muslim minorities in Germany today. In addition to courses at all levels of German language and culture, he has taught recent courses such as Mountains in the German Cultural Imagination, Minority Cultures in the German Context and Modern German Film. This semester he is teaching German Literature and Culture of the First World Read more

New Date:
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium
Noon – 1 p.m.

** Bring your Lunch **

Panel Discussion

Participants:

Kristine Mitchell, assistant professor political science and international studies
Anthony Williams, visiting professor of security studies, Dickinson College
Andrew Wolff, professor of political science, Dickinson College
Karl Qualls (moderator), associate professor of history, Dickinson College

Following Russia’s annexation of the former Ukrainian province of Crimea, the United States and its European allies have imposed sanctions on Russia, but pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists have responded by occupying government buildings in eastern Ukrainian cities and Russia has demanded that the Ukraine adopt a federal constitutional structure that would grant considerable autonomy to Russian-speaking areas of the country.  The panel will consider the implications of these ongoing developments from the perspective of the Ukrainian government in Kiev, NATO, the European Union, Russia, and United States.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues.

Biographies of the Panelists

Kristine Mitchell is assistant professor of political science and international studies at Dickinson College. Her teaching and research interests include European and EU politics, labor politics, and Left parties. She has conducted field research across Western Europe and has held visiting Read more

Panel I:

Resolving the Missile Gap

Monday, April 21, 2014
Althouse Hall, Room 106, 7 p.m.
Dickinson College

Panelists:

John Bird, Central Intelligence Agency (Ret.)
Richard Immerman, U.S. Army War College
Fred Kaplan, Slate Magazine
Gene Poteat, Central Intelligence Agency (Ret.)
Moderator: Major General William Burns, U.S. Army (Ret.)

In the 1950s, our nation faced one of the gravest military threats in its history. The Soviet Union had nuclear weapons and boasted they had the means to deliver them. Was the U.S. truly vulnerable to a first strike? Intelligence analysts had few answers and assertions of “Bomber Gaps” and “Missile “Gaps” abounded.  President Eisenhower recognized that aerial reconnaissance of the Soviet Union was the answer. The story of the U-2 and Corona satellites is now history, but the success of those programs and their follow-on versions is the stuff of today’s high-tech intelligence and warfare.

Link to more information on the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center Site

Panel II:

CIA Analysis of the Warsaw Pact: The Importance of Clandestine Reporting

Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Army Heritage and Education Center, 9:30 – 11:30 a.m.
(950 Soldiers Drive, Carlisle PA)

Panelists:

John and Joan Bird Read more

Research Fellow, University of California, Davis

Vegan Food Politics: A Black Feminist Perspective

Thursday, April 3, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Using the analytical lenses of critical whiteness studies and black feminism, this lecture will explore how issues of food, health, and “ethical eating” in American veganism are informed by embodied experiences with race, gender, and legacies of colonialism.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Student Senate and co-sponsored by the Department of American Studies, Women’s and Gender Resource Center, Center for Sustainability Education, Office of Diversity Initiatives and the Departments of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies.

Biography  (provided by the speaker)
Dr. A. Breeze Harper is the director and founder of the Sistah Vegan Project. Her emphasis are in the the intersections of critical food studies, critical race studies, and black feminist theorizing. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis and is currently a research fellow in the human ecology department of University of California where she is currently researching key black male vegans who use hip hop and decolonial methodologies for their health, food, and environmental activism. You can follow her work at
www.sistahvegan.com Read more

Professor, Saint Thomas University School of Law

Stand Your Ground: Discretion, Race, and Culture

Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Allison Great Hall – 7 p.m.

An engaging conversation about how discretion, which is exercised at all levels of the criminal justice system, can affect the outcomes of criminal cases, including claims of self-defense and the right to stand-your-ground.  The dynamics of the discretionary decisions made by legislatures, prosecutors, judges, and juries, in controversial homicide cases like the Trayvon Martin / George Zimmerman case, the Marissa Alexander case, and the Michael Dunn case, as well as other high profile criminal cases, will be discussed.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Division of Student Development and the Women’s and Gender Resource Center.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Tamara F. Lawson is a tenured professor of law at Saint Thomas University School of Law. She joined the Saint Thomas Law faculty in 2004 where she teaches criminal law,criminal procedure, evidence, and a seminar on race and the law. Professor Lawson has twice been awarded Professor of the Year at St. Thomas. Prior to joining the law faculty, Professor Lawson served as a deputy district attorney Read more

Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room – 7 p.m.

The Snowden leaks of classified information over the last several months have highlighted a number of important issues, including the lawfulness of certain surveillance programs of the National Security Agency, the proper balance between national security and privacy/civil liberties, and the impact the leaks have had on U.S. foreign relations and the intelligence community.  This panel discussion will address these issues with a general focus on the impact that the Snowden disclosures have had on the United States and its constitutional framework.

Panelists

Amy Gaudion, assistant dean for Academic Affairs, Penn State Dickinson School of Law
Bert Tussing, director of the Homeland Defense and Security Issues Group, Center for Strategic Leadership and Development, U.S. Army War College
Anthony Williams, visiting professor of security studies, Dickinson College
Harry Pohlman (moderator), A. Lee Fritschler Chair in Public Policy and executive director of the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Dickinson College

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Amy C. Gaudion is the assistant dean for Academic Affairs, Penn State Dickinson School of Law.  Professor Gaudion’s scholarly and teaching Read more

**  Breaking Issue **

Thursday, March 6, 2014
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium – 7 p.m.

As the Sochi Olympics were drawing to a close, the long simmering tug-of-war between the EU and Russia over the future of Ukraine boiled over into street violence and political chaos in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. This panel will examine the origins of this crisis, the interests at stake for Russia, the EU, and the US, and the possible outcomes and consequences for international relations and for Ukraine itself.

Panelists

R. Craig Nation – Visiting Professor of Political Science & Security Studies, Dickinson College;  and Professor of Eurasian Studies at the U.S. Army War College
Karl Qualls – Associate Professor of History, Dickinson College
Marybeth Ulrich – Professor of Government, Department of National Security and Strategy, U.S. Army War College
Russell Bova (moderator) – Professor of Political Science, Dickinson College

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

R. Craig Nation has been professor of strategy and director of Eurasian studies at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania since 1996. He also serves as a visiting professor of security studies at Dickinson College. Professor Nation specializes in the foreign policy and security affairs of the Europan Read more