Faculty Emeriti Association - Lectures

The Faculty Emeriti Association is sponsoring a series of lectures that are open to the MSU community. The series offers Faculty Emeriti opportunities to hear about interesting topics and to become reconnected with the campus.

Parking: Parking is available in front of the Radiology Building. Additional parking is also available in the lot adjacent to the Radiology Building. Take the ticket to the lecture to have it validated.

If you are interested in attending the upcoming lecture, please Register here.

2009-10 FACULTY EMERITI ASSOCIATION LECTURES

US Public Diplomacy & Global Engagement - Diplomatic Action and Public-Private Partnerships - Where Do We Go From Here?

Cari Guittard

Due to the popularity of David Firestein's presentation to our Faculty Emeriti Association audience as a member of the State Department, we are honored to have Cari Guittard, Executive Director, Business Diplomacy in Action.

Cari has traveled extensively to every region of the world working on State systems, developing threat perspectives on cyber terrorism and related threats. She has briefed numerous ambassadors, chiefs of mission, and senior government officials, including Secretaries Albright and Powell, as well as heads of US based corporations.

Cari has worked with the National Security Council and Joint Terrorism Task Forces in developing and delivering Cyber-Terrorism and Critical Infrastructure Protection Curriculum.

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Cari became Special Assistant to the newly appointed Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs, Charlotte Beers. Her responsibilities included East Asian and Pacific affairs, diplomatic security, counter-terrorism, and information resource management.

In 2003, Cari went into the public sector to head Business for Diplomatic Action.

Date: November 10, 2009
Time: 2:30 - 4:30 PM
Place: Center for International Programs, Room 115 (formerly Con-Con)

How American Indians Changed the Atlantic World: The First Consumer Revolution

Susan Sleeper-Smith
Professor, Department of History
Director, CIC-American Indian Studies Consortium

How American Indians Changed the Atlantic World: The First Consumer Revolution examines the invisible hand of Indigenous commerce, and reveals how trade changed European interaction with Indians, influenced what Europe produced to serve the interests of Indian customers, and led to important cultural innovations. This talks examines the lucrative, far-reaching, and complex ways in which trade, and in particular the fur trade, bound together Europeans and Native peoples of North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This lecture offers a nuanced look at the broad range of contracts that characterized the fur trade, a phenomenon that has often been oversimplified and misrepresented. These essays show how the role of Native Americans was far more instrumental in the conduct and outcome of exchange patterns than was previously suggested and examines the profound effect that trade had on both European and Indian dress and how gender, kinship, and community influenced the workings of economic exchange.

Susan Sleeper-Smith joined the Department of History in 1994, after receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She was promoted to full professor in 2008 and appointed to be Director of the CIC-American Indian Studies Consortium in 2008. The consortium focuses on training graduate level students in American Indian Studies and combines the resources of the Big Ten Universities and the University of Chicago, through a series of jointly sponsored courses, workshops, and conferences.

Date: November 13, 2009
Time: 2:30 - 4:00 PM (2:00 PM for refreshments)
Place: Radiology Auditorium

Free parking is available in the Radiology parking lot. (east of the MSU Clinical Center on Service Road)
Remember to bring your parking ticket to the lecture for a validation stamp.

2008-09 FACULTY EMERITI ASSOCIATION LECTURES

Libraries in the Age of Google

Cliff Haka, MSU Director of Libraries
Peter Berg, Head of Special Collections

In the dozen years since becoming MSUs Director of Libraries, Cliff Haka has seen technology transform the way libraries do business. The tools used, collections built and services rendered have all changed dramatically. Despite these changes, the mission remains the same: connecting patrons with information, ideas and each other. Today, MSU Libraries maintain both a physical and virtual presence: Through the web, vast amounts of information reports, journal articles, e-books, and more are delivered to users desktops wherever they are in the world. Yet on campus, Libraries have never been busier, hosting more than 6,000 visitors to the Main Library every day and 3,000 more to the branches. Cliff will detail many of the changing and challenging dynamics of todays Library services.

While library services reach patrons on a variety of levels, the benchmark for comparing one research library with another is increasingly the quality and depth of its special collections. Peter Berg was appointed head of MSU Libraries Special Collections in September 1988. He is responsible for the administration and development of Special Collections, including direction of collection development, maintenance and conservation and public service activities of the unit.

Date: Monday, May 4th
Time: 2:30 P.M.-4:000 P.M. (2:00 P.M. for refreshments)
Place: Radiology Auditorium

A Supernova in the Lab: Nuclear Research at NSCL

Zach Constan
Outreach Coordinator for MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory

An introduction to research at a world-class rare-isotope laboratory. Over the past three decades, NSCL has built up into a premiere site for accelerating, colliding, and studying nuclei. This seminar will detail the techniques and technologies involved, as well as the future changes now that MSU has been named as the site for DOE's Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

Zach Constan (Ph.D., Michigan State University, 2002) is the Outreach Coordinator for MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, supporting programs that educate the public about nuclear research and the lab's mission. His other interests include research in psychoacoustics, teaching introductory astronomy and mentoring youth.

Date: Thursday, February 26th
Time: 2:30 P.M.-3:30 P.M. (2:00 P.M. for refreshments)
Place: Radiology Auditorium

The Geology And Mineral Resources Of Michigan: A 3.5 Billion Year Odyssey

F. W. (Bill) Cambray
Professor Emeritus

The Europeans who ventured into the Michigan area found a land rich in mineral resources together with a nearby energy supply. The Great Lakes formed a readymade transportation system connecting them to each other and to international markets. All of this by courtesy of geologic processes.

The first 7 billion years have left very little record but by 2.8 billion years ago processes that are similar to modern plate tectonics were building the foundation of Michigan leaving evidence of volcanic island arcs similar to those in the Western Pacific today. These rocks host the gold deposits.

Just prior to 2 billion years ago sediments were being deposited on a growing ocean floor similar to the present day Atlantic. The closure of this ocean produced a mountain belt that has long been eroded but the remnants contain the banded iron formations that are the source of Michigan’s iron ore. They are still an enigma in that such deposits are confined to the early period of the earth’s history and may represent a time when the atmosphere was more carbon dioxide rich than it is now. The closing of this ocean and subsequent additions of continental fragments to the south created the bulk of the interior of the United States that exists today.

At around 1.1 billion years ago an enormous rift valley, similar in magnitude to the present day Red Sea-Gulf of Aden Rift developed in what is now the Lake Superior region. Seismic surveys show that as much as a 20 mile thickness of lava and rift fill sediments is still preserved beneath the lake. It is in these rocks that we find the copper deposits that drew so many people to Michigan in the 1840’s.

Just before 500 million years ago the interior of the continent was slowly inundated by the ocean. Some regions, Michigan for one, experienced subsidence at the same time. The subsiding region was filled with sands, mud and limestone, occasionally drying out to form salt deposits. This lead to the development of the Michigan Basin, a sequence of rocks that today resembles a stack of saucers, the lower, older ones deeply buried in the center of the pile, all of them exposed at the edges. The basin developed over a time span of about 300 million years and is over 14,000 feet thick in the center. The oil and gas resources of the state come from these rocks.

The next episode involved the climatic excursion known as ‘The Ice Age’. It began around 2 million years ago. Several advances and retreats of the ice occurred. In each advance the ice collected fragments of the underlying rocks that then behaved like abrasives, scouring the rocks beneath the ice. The depressions that are now occupied by lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario were carved from the weaker layers of the Michigan Basin in this manner. The Lake Superior basin was carved from the billion year old rift valley deposits. As the ice melted the glacier front retreated northward leaving behind the debris scraped up during the advances. This debris forms the hills and valleys of the Lower Peninsula and they are composed of sands and gravels that are the basis of the aggregate industry in the state.

About F. W. (Bill) Cambray:

Born and educated in England, BSc and Phd, King’s College, London University
Taught at:
- University of Wales, Swansea.
- Sir John Cass College, London University.
- University of the West Indies, Jamaica.
Came to the USA 1969, Geology Dept. Wayne State University, Detroit.
Chairman of the Geology Department, 1971-74.
Came to MSU as Chair of the Geology Department, 1974-1989.
Director of the newly formed Center for Integrative Studies in General Science, 1989-1999
Retired from MSU 2002.
Returned to assist Prof. Thomas Dietz set up the new Environmental Science and Policy Program, Associate director of the program until 2004.
Finally Retired!
Field of study:
- Structural Geology (deformation of rocks) Tectonics (mountain building)
Study areas:
- Western Ireland.
- Jamaica
- Upper Peninsula of Michigan
- Wasatch Mountains, Utah
Visiting Professor:
- University of Zambia, 1979
- North West University, Xian and Chengdu University, China, 1983

Date: Thursday, December 18th
Time: 2:30 P.M.-3:30 P.M. (2:00 P.M. for refreshments)
Place: Radiology Auditorium

Foreign Perceptions of The U.S: Tough Questions About Public Diplomacy and Challenges For the Incoming President

David Firestein
Deputy Executive Director and Senior Advisor in the U.S. Department of State

Biographical information: A native of Austin, Texas, David J. Firestein studied international relations at Georgetown University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (1990). He then studied public policy and Asian studies at the University of Texas, earning master's degrees in both fields (1992). Firestein joined the Foreign Service in 1992. In the first years of his career, he served as special assistant to the VOA Mandarin branch chief (1993); U.N. election monitor in Cambodia (1993); and assistant cultural affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where he managed a number of USG exchange programs (1993-1997).

From 1998 to 2002, Firestein served at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. From 1998 to 2001, Firestein was the Embassy's deputy spokesman; from 2001 to 2002, he worked in the political section, where he advised the ambassador on media freedom and civil society development. In 2001, while posted in Moscow, Firestein taught a senior-level university course on political consulting and the American political campaign at the prestigious Moscow State University for International Relations (MGIMO), Russia's premier training ground for diplomats. For his efforts over the course of two semesters, Firestein won MGIMO's “Teaching Excellence Award.”

In 2002, Firestein returned to Beijing, where he worked in the political section until December 2003. He was responsible for reporting on political and social developments affecting China's stability. In 2003, he joined the State Department's Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, where he focused on U.S.-China bilateral affairs and Hong Kong. Firestein then worked in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs’ Office of Economic Policy, where he was an advisor to and principal speechwriter for the U.S. Ambassador for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) affairs. From 2006-2007, he managed Asia-focused regional outreach programs for the Bureau’s Office of Public Diplomacy.

Currently, Firestein serves as senior advisor at the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, a presidential panel charged with assessing the effectiveness of U.S. Government public diplomacy programs and operations. He is also an elected member of the Board of Governors of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), the Foreign Service’s union and professional association; and an adjunct professor on the faculty of the University of Texas (Austin), where he teaches graduate courses on U.S.-Russia relations and U.S.-China relations.

A prolific writer, Firestein is the author of three books, over 130 published articles, and a scholastic curriculum. Firestein's Pacific Reflections (Beijing: Oriental Press, 1997) and Here and There (Beijing: China Commercial and Industrial Associated Press, 2004) were bestsellers in China, and his writings have reached audiences numbering well into the millions. Firestein has also spoken across the United States and overseas on U.S.-China relations, U.S.-Russia relations, U.S. public diplomacy, U.S. economic policy, APEC, U.S. politics, and – perhaps most uniquely – the political communication effect of country music. In the latter field, Firestein’s 2005 article, “The Honky Tonk Gap: Country Music, Red State Identity, and the Election of 2004,” is considered a seminal contribution. For his innovative and untiring outreach efforts both at home and abroad, Firestein won the prestigious “Secretary of State’s Award for Public Outreach” in 2006.

Fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Russian, Firestein has interpreted for dozens of U.S. Cabinet and Cabinet-level officials. Firestein's academic interests include international relations (especially Russia and China), political campaigns and communication, the media and public opinion, and contemporary country music; hobbies include teaching, lecturing, writing, soccer, racquetball, and music.

Date: Wednesday, November 19th
Time: 2:30 P.M.-3:30 P.M. (2:00 P.M. for refreshments)
Place: Radiology Auditorium

The Effects of Globalization on the American Economy

Dr. Carl Liedholm
Small Animal Clinical Sciences

The recent wave of global integration has been breathtaking and perhaps unprecedented. The nature and scope of this globalization and its influence on the economy of the United States in general and Michigan in particular will be highlighted in this seminar. In what ways has globalization affected jobs, the viability of domestic industry, and the current financial crisis? In addition to considering these issues, those attending will be introduced to and will make use of the classroom�s newest technological innovation, �clickers.

Carl Liedholm has been a Professor of Economics at Michigan State University since 1965. The recipient of over a dozen teaching awards, including the Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award from the College of Social Science and the State of Michigan Teaching Excellence Award, he has published several articles, including one in the American Economic Review, on the teaching of economics. He has also authored nine monographs and books, including most recently Small Enterprises and Economics Development: The Dynamics of Micro and Small Scale Enterprises as well as over one hundred articles that have focused on micro and small enterprises in developing countries. Many years ago, he was cello student of Pablo Casals as well as a member of a Masters mile relay track team that once held the world�s record in that event.

Date: Thursday, October 30th
Time: 2:30 P.M.-4:00 P.M. (2:00 P.M. for refreshments)
Place: Radiology Auditorium

The Bald Eagle as a Monitor of Environmental Health in the Great Lakes Basin

Dr. James Sikarskie
Small Animal Clinical Sciences

Dr. Sikarskie has been the Zoo and Wildlife Veterinarian for the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine since 1975. He grew up on a dairy farm in the U.P. with seven brothers and has always had a passion for the outdoors. He has three degrees from MSU and is boarded in Zoological Medicine. He has a special research interest in using wildlife as indicators of environmental health while assessing the impact of agriculture and industry on wildlife populations. Dr. Sikarskie will talk about his long term funded research using bald eagles as monitors of environmental health in Michigan with an update on population status. He will also briefly discuss a broader plan to develop the other fish eagle species as indicators of the health of aquatic ecosystems worldwide.

Date: Friday, September 19th
Time: 2:30 P.M.-4:00 P.M. (2:00 P.M. for refreshments)
Place: Radiology Auditorium

Free parking is available in the Radiology parking lot. (east of the MSU Clinical Center on Service Road)

Traffic Note: Please check on the detour problems associated with reaching the Clinical Center Campus as a result of the railroad underpass construction project. It will probably be best to enter Service Road from Hagadorn Road.

(Remember to bring your parking ticket to the lecture to be stamped)

Past Lectures:

2007-08 FACULTY EMERITI ASSOCIATION LECTURES

The Verdehr Trio: Making Music Around the World
Elsa Ludewig-Virdehr and Walter Verdehr
May 30, 2008

The Many Faces of Islam
Mohammed Ayoob,University Distinguished Professor of International Relations, James Madison College and Department of Political Science, Michigan State University
April 24, 2008

"MICHIGAN IS COUGAR COUNTRY"
Dennis Fijalkowski, Executive Director of the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy
March 27, 2008

Stem Cells: Their Potential Role in the Cause, Prevention and Treatment of Human Disease
Jim Trosko, Professor, Department of Pediatrics/Human Development
January 23, 2008

Wind Power: Renewable Energy Option for the Future
Stephen Harsh, Professor, Agricultural Economics
December 12, 2007

Diversity and Inclusion at MSU in a post-Proposal 2 Environment: Debunking the Myths and Confronting the Challenges
Paulette Granberry Russell
October 25, 2007

Help! I'm Eating Genetically-Modified Food
Bob Hollingworth
Professor Emeritus , Department of Entomology and National Food Safety & Toxicology Center
September 19, 2007

2006-07 FACULTY EMERITI ASSOCIATION LECTURES

Future of Nuclear Physics at MSU
Michael Thoennessen
Professor and Associate Director, Department of Physics & Astronomy
June 27, 2007

The Changing Life and Times of MSU Faculty: a 40 Year Perspective
Robert F. Banks
Associate Provost and Associate Vice President for Academic Human Resources, MSU
April 26, 2007

Memory and Aging: It's Not All Downhill
Rose T. Zacks, Professor
Psychology Department, MSU
March 21, 2007

The Great Lakes Salmon Story
Howard Tanner
Chair and Professor Emeritus, Fisheries and Wildlife
September 16, 2006

Health Benefits: National and Local Perspectives
Pamela Beemer
Assistant Vice President for Human Resources
Monday, October 16, 2006

Media Body Images and Eating Disorders
Bradley Greenburg
University Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication and the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media
January 11, 2007

2005-06 FACULTY EMERITI ASSOCIATION LECTURES

Reading for Your Life
Gordon Rohman
Professor Emeritus, English
Thursday, March 30, 2007

Reflections on Environmental Geography Behind Human History
H.J. DeBlij
Distinguished Professor, Geography
January 12, 2006

Saints' Rest 2005: An Exploration of MSU's First Dormitory
Lynne Goldstein
Chair, Anthropology
November 29, 2005

Human Diversity and Change
James Potchen
Chair, Radiology
October 24, 2005

The MSU Faculty Emeriti Opportunities Program held an introductory seminar from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. June 2 in room 10B Nisbet Building. The seminar, presented by David R. Rovner, professor emeritus, was �Medical Decision Making: When are decisions the Best That Can be Made.� The lecture was open to the public. Below are some pictures from the seminar:

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Lecture Series