Commencement Forum
A Sense of Humor: Brown Women in Comedy
Saturday, May 25, 2013
11:00 a.m.
List Auditorium, 64 College Street, Providence
From screenwriting to stand-up, women have been closing the gender gap in comedy. How did they break into the business? How did their personal experiences shape their comedic voices? What's fair game and what's off limits in their humor? Join us to discuss how Brown alumnae are making a living by making people laugh.
Lauren Corrao ’83, P’16, Consultant, Comcast Entertainment Studios; former President, Ellen DeGeneres' Production Company; and former President, Original Programming & Development, Comedy Central (moderator)
Marin Hinkle ’88, Stage, Television, and Film Actor
Tara Schuster ’08, Writer, Performer, and Producer at Comedy Central
Suzanne Whang SCM’86, Television Host, Actor, Writer, and Stand-Up Comedian
Sponosored by the Pembroke Center Associates in association with the Women's Leadership Council.
Brown Women in Foreign Policy
Thursday, April 4, 2013
7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Washington, D.C.
A discussion, moderated by Melanie Y. Nakagawa '02 of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with:
Heather F. Hurlburt'89
Executive Director, National Security Network
Mariah S. Sixkiller'99
Senior Policy Advisor, Congressman Steny Hoyer
Meghan E. Stewart'00
Vice President, Senior Counsel, Public International Law & Policy Group
Hosted by by Melanie Y. Nakagawa '02, in collaboration with
Nancy L. Buc '65 and Shelley N. Fidler '68, P'09
Sponsored by the Women’s Leadership Council and the
Pembroke Center Associates of Brown University
Brown Women and the Field of Technology
Thursday, March 21, 2013
6:30 – 9:00 p.m.
San Francisco
A panel discussion moderated by Jessica Lessin, News Editor and Senior Technology Reporter, Wall Street Journal, with:
Brynna Donn ’91
Director Corporate Applications, Portals and Collaboration, Yahoo!
Jill A. Huchital ’89
Head of Engineering, InVisioneer
Nancy E. Pfund P’14
Managing Partner, DBL Investors
Hosted at the home of Mary Vascellaro '74, P'07
San Francisco
Sponsored by the Women’s Leadership Council and the
Pembroke Center Associates of Brown University
See the full calendar of events for the Sarah Doyle Women's Center's Women's History Month.
MAKERS: Women Who Make America
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
6:00–8:00 p.m.
Martinos Auditorium
The Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts
154 Angell Street, Providence
Marika Shioiri-Clark ’05
Inaugural Year Global Resident, IDEO.org and Principal, SOSHL Studio
Barbara Smith
Author, Activist, and Independent Scholar
Betsy West ’73
Executive Producer, MAKERS: Women Who Make America
Sara Wolitzky ’04
Co-Producer, MAKERS: Women Who Make America
Moderator:
Nancy L. Buc ’65, LLD’94 hon.
MAKERS premieres on PBS on February 26th at 8:00 PM
Hosted by Brown’s Women’s Leadership Council in association with
The Pembroke Center Associates, The Sarah Doyle Women’s Center,
The Brown Alumni Association, and Brown Club of Rhode Island
More information on MAKERS
Youth and Privacy in the Age of Social Media
A conversation with danah boyd '00
Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research
Research Assistant Professor in Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University
Thursday, December 13, 2012
6:30 p.m.
Brooklyn Heights, New York
Hosted by Victoria Westhead ’83
Co-hosts: Nicole Israel ’00, and Leslie Newman ’75, P ’08, P ’12
Youth and Privacy in the Age of Social Media
There is a widespread myth that young people don’t care about privacy. Despite high levels of engagement with social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, they do value and protect their privacy. Social media expert danah boyd ’00, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research and Research Assistant Professor in Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University discussed how young people understand privacy today and explain their innovative strategies to achieve privacy in the networked publics formed through social media.
Space is limited and preregistration is required.
Kindly R.S.V.P. to Martha Hamblett by December 7th at 401-863-3433 or via email toPembroke_Associates@brown.edu
Family Weekend Program - An Alternative to Nature v. Nurture: Biology in a Social World
A conversation with Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Biology and Gender Studies
Watch the video of the program.
Friday, October 19, 2012, 4:00 pm
Pembroke Hall 305
172 Meeting Street, Providence, RI
The media is awash with reports of genes for this or that complex human trait: obesity, alcoholism, homosexuality, gender differences in math and science. A great divide exists between people who accept biological explanations of human difference and those who reject biology in favor of social explanations. Debbie Weinstein, Assistant Director of the Pembroke Center spoke with Professor Fausto-Sterling about her research on human development and a new way to think about how biological difference can be produced over time in response to different environmental and social experiences.
A light reception will follow the program
Free and open to the public
Handicapped accessible
For more information contact: Pembroke_Associates@brown.edu
Commencement Forum
Last year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Four remarkable Brown women who broke ground in new careers for women shared their personal stories and professional milestones. Panelists explored how the role of women in the workplace has changed and how gender inequality has persisted.
Panelists:
- Sharon B. Drager, M.D. ’67, vascular surgeon
- Andrea I. Razzaghi ’82, Assistant Director, Planetary Science Division at NASA
- The Honorable O. Rogeriee Thompson ’73, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
Moderator:
- Leah W. Sprague ’66, Retired Justice, Massachusetts Trial Court
Women's Leadership Conference
An Evening with Gloria Steinem
Film Festival and Symposium: Chinese Women's Documentaries in the Market Era
Pembroke Center 30th Anniversary Conference
Family Weekend Program: The Therapeutic Fix
Friday, October 14, 2011
4:00 pm
Pembroke Hall 305
172 Meeting Street, Providence, RI
From the apologies of disgraced public figures, to the confessions made on reality television, to the visions of fulfillment in self-help literature, therapeutic culture is pervasive in the United States. Conservatives claim therapeutic culture undermines individual responsibility while liberals argue it distracts attention from larger social and economic inequalities. Is there a therapeutic fix for what ails contemporary society?
- Lynne Joyrich AM’84 PhD’90, Associate Professor of Modern Culture and Media
- Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian Studies
- Debbie Weinstein’93, Assistant Director of the Pembroke Center
Free and open to the public. Handicapped accessible. For more information contact: Pembroke_Associates@brown.edu
Commencement Forum with Award-Winning Playwrights Lynn Nottage '86 and Adam Bock AM'89
Brown alumnae/i continue to take the theater world by storm, capturing some of theater's most prestigious prizes. No issue – from race to gender roles to religion – is off-limits. How do they do it? Lynn Nottage'86, recipient of the 2007 MacArthur Genius Grant and 2009 Pulitzer Prize, whose plays include Ruined, Intimate Apparel, and Crumbs from the Table of Joy and OBIE winner Adam Bock AM’89, author of the plays The Receptionist, The Thugs, and A Small Fire among others, join us for a no holds barred conversation about how they write to inspire, provoke, and engage theater audiences around the world.
Moderated by Eng-Beng Lim, Assistant Professor of Theatre arts and Performance Studies.
A Mirror on International Development and Humanitarianism: A Conversation with Brown Faculty and Alumnae/i
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
4200 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC
Please join Nancy L. Buc’ 65, LLD’94, hon, Shelley N. Fidler’68, P’09, and Claudia Schechter’66 for drinks, light fare, and an engaging conversation with Brown faculty and alumnae/i about international development. Cosponsored by the Women's Leadership Council.
As natural and unnatural disasters erupt around the globe, the pressure on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to provide long and short-term international assistance grows. Why have development and relief programs failed to eradicate poverty and inequality, despite decades of targeted efforts and billions of dollars in aid? We will examine the particular challenges of international development and humanitarianism, including cases where donor pressures undercut highly successful local NGOs, transnational labor migration and human trafficking confront conventional country-focused assistance, and human rights based approaches seek to displace charity by focusing on rights and responsibilities. A century ago, Oliver Wendell Holmes noted that the Supreme Court was a “mirror on America.” This event will take a mirror to the practices of international development and relief efforts and consider the reflection.
Please join Kay B. Warren, the Charles C. Tillinghast Jr. ’32 Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the Pembroke Center, David Waskow '88, Program Director for Oxfam America, and moderator Jasmine Waddell’99, Visiting Lecturer of Sustainable International Development at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management, to discuss the impact of international development and humanitarian relief programs on the poor.
Journalism Today: What's in the News
It used to be just paper and ink and the six o'clock news on the three big broadcast networks. Now it's dot-coms and blogs and cable channels, Twitter and Facebook and webcasts and... who knows what's next? In the year when the entire archives of the Pembroke Record went digital, the Pembroke Center Associates and four Brown women journalists on the front lines of the news media discussed the challenges journalists and their organizations face in adapting to an ever-evolving media environment.
Celebrating the Pembroke Record Digital Archives
This discussion was sponsored by the Pembroke Center Associates in celebration of the digitization of the Pembroke Record, the student newspaper of Pembroke College in Brown University published from 1922 to 1970. We invite you to visit the Pembroke Record digital archives.
Human Trafficking: Criminal Prosecutions and Prevention in Transnational Perspective
Friday, October 29, 2010
6:00 PM
Phoenix, Arizona
Pembroke Center Director Kay Warren spoke to the Brown Club of Phoenix as part of the Brown Alumni Association's "Food for Thought: Dinner with Brown Faculty" program.
2010 Commencement Forum:
From Policy to Practice: What Health Care Reform Means for You
Despite the fierce political debate we witnessed this year as President Obama and Congress worked to overhaul national health care policy, health care remains a very personal issue. To help us move beyond politically charged rhetoric and the avalanche of competing statistics put to partisan use, David Bowen ’86, PhD, former staff director for health of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and Cecile Richards’80, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation’s leading reproductive health care advocate and provider, with a nationwide network of more than 840 health centers, discussed what the new health care reform law can — and cannot — do to increase the quality of care, expand access to health care services, and improve population health. Moderated by Terrie Wetle, PhD, associate dean of medicine for public health and public policy, and professor of community health. Immediately following the forum, there was an informal reception for alumnae/i and their families to connect with one another, network with faculty, and learn more about the programs of the Office of Women in Medicine.
Forum sponsored by:
Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women
Pembroke Center Associates
Brown Medical Alumni Association
Media Innovation/Media Destruction:
The Confusing (at least up 'til now) Lessons of the Digital Age
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
6:30 p.m reception (hors d'oeuvres, wine and soft drinks)
7:30 p.m Panel Discussion
Cornell Club of New York
6 East 44th Street
New York, NY 10017
$35 per person: Click here to purchase tickets
Co-sponsored by the Brown University Club in New York
Panelists explored how the rise of the Internet and digital media products has created greater access to information, news, and entertainment while at the same time undermining the very organizations that have dominated these businesses in the last 50 years. On the flip side of this phenomenon, they discussed what new businesses and careers are emerging from this transition, which incumbent businesses might survive the current chaos, and what the new world of "Pro-Am" (professional/amateur) media might look like in the very near future.
The numbers in consumer-created media are staggering: as of January 2010, U.S. consumers can get their information fix from more than 150,000,000 blogs or 7.8 billion tweets, not to mention the millions of reviews on Yelp and tens of millions of youTube videos. Manufacturers and corporations are also doing "b.y.o.m" -- bring your own media -- by going directly to their consumers without the benefit of the experts; for example Kraft has an electronic magazine that has a readership of tens of millions monthly and Amazon sells millions of book titles that generate millions of book reviews that its buyers depend on.
Panelists:
Ava Seave ’77 is co-author of the The Curse of the Mogul: What's Wrong with the World's Leading Media Companies. She is principal of Quantum Media, a leading New York City based consulting firm focused on marketing and strategic planning for media and entertainment companies.
Jill Schlesinger ’87 is Editor-at-Large, CBS MoneyWatch.com. Prior to the launch of MoneyWatch, she was the Chief Investment Officer for an independent investment advisory firm.
Scott B. Meyer '91 is the Founder and CEO of Better Advertising, which he developed as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Warburg Pincus LLC. He was previously president and CEO of About.com, a part of the New York Times Company, and served as General Manager of The New York Times on the Web.
Moderator:
Betsy West ’73 is Associate Professor at the Columbia School of Journalismand producer of the documentary Constantine's Sword. As senior vice president for CBS News from 1998-2005, she oversaw 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes II and 48 Hours. She spent the early part of her career at ABC News, where she was an executive producer, field producer and member of the founding staff of Nightline.
Why Hip Hop Matters
Tricia Rose
Africana Studies
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Registration and networking at 6:30 pm
Lecture begins at 7:30 pm
The Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers
In her recent book, The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop — And Why It Matters, Professor Rose voices a call for revitalization of the progressive, creative heart of hip hop, which has increasingly become defined by one thin slice of a varied, complex genre. While "conscious rappers" such as Talib Kweli and The Roots may receive enormous critical acclaim, it's the rappers who employ what Rose calls the "gansta-pimp-ho trinity"- such as T.I. and 50 Cent-who sell the most records and dominate the recording industry, TV, film, and radio. As a result, the most visible and widely-consumed hip hop sets forth a troubled vision of ghetto street life that defines young, at-risk black men and women to each other and also to a large white audience (seventy percent of hip hop consumers are white). After exploring how hip hop has become the primary means by which we talk about race and culture in the United States, Rose offered six guiding principles for progressive hip hop creativity, consumption, and community, ending the "blame hip hop vs. explain hip hop" wars and promoting critical conversations that inspire transformational music as well as social justice for all.
Registration:
$15 for Brown Club Members and Guests
$25 for non-Members and Guests
Price includes: a light supper and lecture by one of Brown's most provocative professors
Co-sponsored by the Brown Club of Boston, the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, the Asian/Asian American Alumni Association, the Brown University Latino Alumni Council, the Inman Page Black Alumni Council, and the Multicultural Alumni Council of the Brown Alumni Association. This event was possible in part thanks to the generosity of Donald L. Saunders '57.
Leadership for Change through Education Award
Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 8:00 p.m.
Click Here to Read the Brown University Press Release
Wendy Kopp
Chief Executive Officer and Founder
Teach For America
Introduction by Hannah N. Copperman’08
Teacher, Ballou Senior High School, Washington, D.C.
Teach for America Corps Member
Hillary Salmons
Executive Director
Providence After School Alliance
Introduction by Daniel Lawlor ’08
Site Coordinator, Gilbert Stuart Middle School, Providence, R.I.
Providence After School Alliance
About the Award
At the core of the Pembroke Center’s mission is its belief in the necessity and power of education. The award honors women in any field who, both nationally and at the grass-roots level, succeed in changing lives by helping others to see the world differently and offering new ways of thinking about seemingly unsolvable problems. A donation of $5,000 is made to an organization selected by each recipient.
Past recipients:
Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President of the Children’s Defense Fund
Sister Mary Reilly, Founder of Dorcas Place and Sophia Academy
Margot Stern Strom, Founder and Executive Director, Facing History and Ourselves
H. Terri Adelman, Executive Director, Volunteers in Providence Schools
Commencement Forum 2009
In recent months, the U.S. economy has been buffeted by the housing slump, a credit crisis, rising unemployment, gyrating energy prices, and a dramatic rise in the federal deficit. The Obama Administration and economic leaders have been implementing new policies to address the crisis and stabilize consumer confidence. Where is it all heading? Are we entering an era of more regulation and government intervention? What policy options remain in the toolbox? Annette L. Nazareth’78, Partner, Davis, Polk & Wardwell and a former Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission; Randall S. Kroszner’84, Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a former Governor of the Federal Reserve Board; and, Jill Schlesinger’87, Editor-at-Large of CBS MoneyWatch.com discussed the state of the U.S. economy and the prospects for recovery.
An Evening with Kirstin Downey, Author of The Woman Behind the New Deal
Monday, March 16, 2009
7:30 p.m.
List Auditorium, 64 College Street, Providence, RI
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Kirstin Downey will discuss her new book and present a slide show of Frances Perkins’s life including never-before-published pictures. Perkins served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor and is considered a primary architect of the New Deal. Downey will do a short reading from her book and talk about Perkins’s fascinating life and Perkins’ interest in Rhode Island. Also at the event will be Barbara Burt, executive director of the Frances Perkins Center, a new effort to create a center to perpetuate Frances Perkins's life work, and to turn her family homestead, still in its 1930’s condition, into a museum and research center. This event was sponsored by the Sarah Doyle Women's Center and the Pembroke Center Associates.
Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: What Can the U.S. Learn from Global Developments?
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
6:00 p.m. reception; 7:00 p.m. program
The Hampshire House 84 Beacon Street, Boston, MA
Thirty-six years after Roe v. Wade, the political debate in the U.S. over reproductive health and rights issues remains intractable and stale. While Americans debate the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education, the right of pharmacists’ to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions, and legal restrictions on abortion, what has been going on in the rest of the world? Nancy Northup '81, President of the Center for Reproductive Rights, shared groundbreaking developments from around the globe in recognizing reproductive rights in binding international and regional human rights treaties, as well as recent efforts by human rights lawyers to obtain authoritative interpretations in individual cases.
This event was co-sponsored by the Brown Club of Boston, which launched a series of women-focused events called Brown Women of Boston (BWB). Become a member of the Brown Club of Boston and learn more about these events and more in and around Boston.
About Nancy Northup '81
Nancy Northup is the President of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a global human rights organization that uses constitutional and international law to secure women's reproductive freedom. The Center has brought groundbreaking cases before national courts, U.N. committees, and regional human rights bodies, and has built the legal capacity of women's rights advocates in over 45 countries.
Ms. Northup joined the Center in 2003 with a rich mix of experience as a constitutional litigator, federal prosecutor, and women’s rights advocate, and a reputation for intelligence, passion, and creativity. Before coming to the Center, Ms. Northup was the founding director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. From 1989 to 1996, she served as a prosecutor and Deputy Chief of Appeals in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Ms. Northup graduated from Brown University and Columbia Law School, where she was a Kent Scholar and Managing Editor of the Columbia Law Review. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Alvin B. Rubin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. Ms. Northup holds adjunct appointments at NYU Law School and Columbia Law School where she has taught courses in constitutional and human rights law.
A frequent public speaker, Ms. Northup is quoted widely in the national press and has appeared on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, FOX News, PBS, MSNBC and NPR.
Women in Politics: An Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Election
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Chicago, IL
Professor Lawless discussed the outcome of the 2008 election, the role gender played, and women's continued under-representation as candidates in American politics, despite high-profile female candidates like Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. Professor Lawless spoke about her research into political ambition and the manner in which gender affects the decision to run for office. She is co-author (with Richard Fox) of the recent book, It Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2005), based on the data from the Citizen Political Ambition Survey, a national survey she conducted of almost 3,800 potential candidates. Her research found that women, even in the highest tiers of professional accomplishment, are substantially less likely than men to seek elected office, be recruited to run for office, or express a willingness to run for office in the future. Lawless also spoke from her own experience as a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Rhode Island's second congressional district in 2006.
About Jennifer Lawless
Jennifer L. Lawless received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She isan assistant professor of political science at Brown University, with a courtesy appointment at the Taubman Center for Public Policy. Her teaching and research focus on gender politics, electoral politics, and public opinion. She is the co-author of It Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2005); and has also published numerous articles in academic journals, such as The American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Women and Politics. Dr. Lawless has become a nationally recognized expert and speaker on the subject of women candidates. In 2006, she ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Rhode Island's second congressional district.
Commencement Forum 2008
According to the United Nations, over 12 million people worldwide are trafficked for forced labor or sexual exploitation every year. In the United States, an estimated 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked annually, and an estimated 200,000 American children are at high risk for trafficking into the sex industry each year. Despite the grim statistics, much progress is being made to prevent human trafficking, serve the needs of those who have been trafficked, and prosecute traffickers and their customers. Warren and Chon discussed what is meant by the term “human trafficking” and how non-governmental organizations, academics, and the public are addressing this vast and complicated problem.
Conversation with Profl. Jennifer Lawless: Women in Politics
Commencement Forum 2007
Nothing has ever disrupted “traditional” media, information and entertainment businesses as much as the digital explosion. Video content can beproduced, distributed and accessed quickly and inexpensively. In the U.S. alone, people make almost 7 billion internet searches per month. YouTube attracts 2 million and MySpace.com attracts 16.8 million visitors a day. An average of 9 million people are logged into music file sharing services, at any given time, illegally swapping or sharing an estimated 20 billion songs.
This forum explored how technology, user-generated content, and other forces are changing the media as we know it. Do major media companies need to completely reinvent themselves and their business models to succeed in this environment? How are our notions of content creation and ownership changing? And in an increasingly cluttered media environment, with many voices of authority and many challengers, who controls the message – and who hears it?