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The 237th Commencement
Broadway to Brain Science: Brown To Offer 19 Commencement Forums
Brown University’s 35th annual Commencement Forums will begin Saturday, May 28, 2005, at 9 a.m. Presenters, drawn from the ranks of University alumni, parents, honorary degree recipients and special guests, will present sessions ranging from arts and culture to biomedical science, history and biography to gender studies and international relations. All sessions are open to the public without charge.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Pulitzer Prize-winning author,
Peru’s former U.N. and U.S. ambassador, an Academy Award nominee, and
scientists involved in the U.S. and Soviet Cold War race to the moon are among
more than two dozen presenters at Brown University’s 35th
annual Commencement Forums Saturday, May 28, 2005.
An integral part of the University’s Commencement/Reunion
Weekend, the Commencement Forums are an outgrowth of the campus teach-ins of the
early 1970s. They offer a window on the intellectual world of Brown, drawing
upon the knowledge, talent and expertise of Brown alumni, faculty, parents and
special guests to consider timely social, political and personal issues.
Nineteen forums will be offered this year, with sessions running
concurrently at 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Each session will last 60
minutes and will include time for questions from the audience. All forums are
free and open to the public on a space-available basis.
Editors: Times and locations are subject to change.
For the latest information, contact the News Service at (401) 863-2476 or visit
the Web site (www.brown.edu/news) for updates.
Persons with special needs who plan to attend a forum should
contact the University at least 24 hours in advance by calling University Events
at (401) 863-2474 during business hours or Brown Department of Public Safety at
(401) 863-3322 after business hours.
A schedule of forums follows.
9 a.m.
- The Joan and Frank Rothman Lecture:
Chromosome Ends: Telomeres and Telomerase in Human Health and Disease
MacMillan Hall, Room 115
Elizabeth Blackburn, the Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology at
the University of California–San Francisco, discusses the implications of
her work with telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes telomeres, which cap and
protect chromosomes. Telomeres and telomerase are important factors in human
aging and the development of certain cancers.
- Thinking Like a Girl? The Question of Women in Science and
Mathematics
MacMillan Hall, Room 117
Anne Fausto-Sterling, professor of biology at Brown, and Cornelia Dean
’69, senior writer for The New York Times, discuss the
continuing debate over whether women are innately less suited than men for work
in science and mathematics. William Warren, professor of cognitive and
linguistic sciences, moderates the discussion.
- The Wilmeth Lecture in American Theatre:
Regarding Broadway
List Art Center, Room 120
Laurence Maslon ’81, associate arts professor at New York
University’s Tisch School of the Arts and coauthor of Broadway: The
American Musical, discusses a century of change in the Broadway musical from
the crossover revues of Ziegfeld to the financial juggernauts that bring the
sound of Broadway around the globe. Clips from the PBS series highlight a
perceptive view of this most exciting, frustrating and enduring art form. A book
signing follows the forum.
- Give and Take: Origins, Course and Future of American
Philanthropy
Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 001
Warren Ilchman ’55, director of The Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship
Program for New Americans, explores the origins and growth of American
philanthropy. Beginning with a comparison of the American experience to that of
other countries and traditions, Ilchman will present an analysis of the factors
that might adversely affect American philanthropy in years to come.
- The Extraordinary Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island
Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 101
David McCullough, author, biographer and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes,
discusses his new book, 1776, about the men who marched with George
Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence. The book centers on
two young American patriots, including Nathanael Greene, a Quaker and Rhode
Island native, who was made a general at the age of 33. A book signing follows
the forum.
10:30 a.m.
- The Andean Countries Today and Tomorrow:
Internal and External Options in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia
Sayles Hall
Julio Ortega, professor of Hispanic studies and director of the Transatlantic
Project at Brown, moderates a discussion with Ricardo Luna, Peru’s former
ambassador to the United Nations and the United States and now a Cogut Visiting
Professor in the Center for Latin American Studies at Brown; Carolina
Gallegos-Anda ’03, a Goldman-Sachs financial analyst for emerging debt
capital markets; Rene Mayorga, a Bolivian scholar and professor of social
sciences and a Cogut Visiting Professor in the Center for Latin American Studies
at Brown; and Marcella Echavarria ’95, Colombian writer and founder of
SUR, a gallery dedicated to arts and design.
- The Maurice and Yetta Glicksman Lecture:
The Changing Brain
MacMillan Hall, Room 115
Mark F. Bear ’84 Ph.D., an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute and the Picower Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, discusses the
tremendous progress neuroscientists have made in understanding how experience
modifies the brain. This knowledge has suggested new insights into the causes
of, and potential treatment for, cognitive dysfunctions ranging from autism to
age-related memory impairment.
- The Ruth B. Sauber Distinguished Medical Alumni Lectureship:
Sexual Chemistry Now and in the Future
MacMillan Hall, Room 117
Bonnie R. Saks ’72, ’75 M.D., clinical associate professor of
psychiatry at the University of South Florida in Tampa and president-elect of
the Society for Sex Therapy and Research, outlines what psychosocial influences,
sexual pharmacology, sex receptors and sexual enhancers have to do with medicine
now and in our future.
- One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana
List Art Center, Room 120
C.D. Wright, poet, professor of English, and MacArthur Fellow, discusses her
collaboration with photographer Deborah Luster to create striking portraits of
isolated – yet very human – inmates in three Louisiana prisons. A
book signing at the exhibit in the Bell Gallery follows the forum.
- The History of the U.S./U.S.S.R. Race in Space Exploration
and Its Implications for the New U.S. Initiative
Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 001
Wesley T. Huntress Jr. ’64, director of the Geophysical Laboratory at the
Carnegie Institution, and Sergei Khrushchev, senior fellow at the Watson
Institute for International Studies, review the Cold War race to the moon and
discuss lessons that might provide important insight into President Bush’s
exploration initiative.
- The Fog of War: The Movie and the Book
Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 101
James G. Blight, professor of international relations (research), and janet M.
Lang, adjunct associate professor of international relations (research), both at
the Watson Institute for International Studies, have just published The Fog
of War: Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara, based on the 2004
Academy Award-winning Errol Morris documentary film. They will screen a
specially edited 37-minute excerpt from the movie and will discuss the lessons
they draw from the film and book for war and peace in the 21st century. A book
signing follows the forum.
- Dave Eggers on Writing, Publishing, and More
Smith-Buonanno Hall, Room 106
David Eggers, author of How We Are Hungry, You Shall Know Our Velocity,
and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, explores the writing
process, the publishing world and the many different ways to get involved in
one’s community. Eggers will also speak about his current projects and
respond to audience questions.
1 p.m.
- Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on International
Affairs:
Women’s Rights and Human Rights in Afghanistan
Sayles Hall
Sima Samar, chair of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and director
of the Shuhada Organization, will describe the obstacles that Afghani women
still face, including lack of resources, absence of security and lack of
accountability for human rights violators. She will discuss current work to
improve the situation for women’s rights and human rights in Afghanistan
and what the international community can do to make a difference.
- International Financial Diplomacy
MacMillan Hall, Room 115
Thomas J. Biersteker, director of the Watson Institute for International
Studies, and Barbara Stallings, the William R. Rhodes Research Professor at the
Watson Institute, will discuss the accumulated debt burden of developing countries
and its recurring threats to the stability of the international financial system. William
Rhodes ’57, who has represented the interests of private financial
institutions in resolving global debt crises over the last quarter century, will
also comment.
- Neurotechnology: Reading Minds to Recreate Movement
MacMillan Hall, Room 117
John Donoghue ’79 Ph.D., the Henry Merritt Wriston Professor and chair of
the Department of Neuroscience, and Gerhard Friehs, associate professor of
clinical neurosciences (neurosurgery) discuss their groundbreaking research that
led to the development of the BrainGate Neural Interface system. That
implantable mind-to-movement system is enabling a quadriplegic man to control a
computer using only his thoughts. The technology may lead to improvements in the
diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders and possibly to the augmentation of
human function.
- Education for Civic Engagement: A Catholic Perspective
List Art Building, Room 120
The Rev. Philip A. Smith, president of Providence College, outlines how the
depth and the breadth of education shapes both the quality and content of public
discourse and presents the Catholic perspective on education for citizenship,
the common good and solidarity, noting the strengths and the weaknesses of this
tradition in the American context.
- July Fireworks: The “Real” Deep Impact Mission to a
Comet
Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 001
Peter Schultz, professor of geological sciences, explains the science of
slamming an 820-pound projectile into a comet moving at 22,800 miles per hour.
This historic NASA mission, called Deep Impact, will create an enormous crater,
offering scientists their first look inside a comet, a time capsule that may
hold clues about the formation and evolution of the solar system.
- On Being A Woman in Film: From Brown Until Now
Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 101
Academy-Award nominee JoBeth Williams ’70 discusses what it’s like
to be a woman in show business, the art versus the business aspects, her
beginnings at Brown, and how they led to her success.
- The Toy Box
Rites and Reasons Theatre, Churchill House
The Africana Studies Department presents this research-to-performance-method
play about student diversity at Brown. The Toy Box is written by Brown
undergraduate playwrights and directed by Donald W. King ’93.
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