College Unveils 2014-15 Series Exploring Culture, Technology and Sustainability

CORTLAND, NY (09/12/2014)(readMedia)-- The 2014-15 Rozanne M. Brooks Lecture Series at SUNY Cortland this year takes on the theme of "Culture, Technology and Sustainability."

"This year's series explores the present and future on a planet with a rapidly growing population, critical food shortages, climate change and a host of other factors that affect the quality of life across the world," said Sharon R. Steadman, a SUNY Cortland professor of sociology/anthropology who is the lecture series organizer and Brooks Museum director. "Presenters will discuss these issues and offer possible solutions to major global problems, including the role technology may play in helping or hindering progress toward a 'livable planet.'"

The series, which is free and open to the public, features a reception before each presentation. Three guest speakers or panels will present during the fall semester, and the series will feature a poster session and three guest-speaker lectures during the spring semester.

The talks take place on Wednesdays and begin at 4:30 p.m. in Moffett Center, Room 2125. Before each lecture, a reception to welcome the speaker starts at 4 p.m. in the Rozanne M. Brooks Museum, Moffett Center, Room 2126.

The series opens Sept. 17 with a presentation on global approaches to sustainability problems featuring speakers Brice Smith and Douglas Armstead of SUNY Cortland's Physics Department and several international students.

In "Sustainability Present and Future: International Perspectives," Smith and Armstead will discuss the sustainability issues facing the world today. The students then will outline the trends in their native countries and what, if anything, their governments are doing to reduce the problems. The professors will close with a brief discussion of what major environmental issues face the U.S. and how America's government and society are handling them.

Smith, an associate professor and faculty member since 2006, has been involved in many student-centered environmental initiatives at SUNY Cortland and spearheaded the creation of the College's professional science master's degree program in sustainable energy systems, which is unique within SUNY. He has a doctorate in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before coming to Cortland, Smith worked at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Md.

Armstead, who joined the College this fall as an assistant professor, earned his doctorate in physics from University of Maryland at College Park. Before joining SUNY Cortland he was an assistant professor at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa., since 2007 and coordinated the 3-2 Engineering Program.

The remaining fall semester speakers include:

• Anne Hendrixson, director of population and development programs at Hampshire College's School of Critical Social Inquiry, will address "Population Control as Unsustainable Development." Her Oct. 15 talk focuses on a failed 1960s-era approach to burgeoning human reproduction that involved coercive measures such as forced sterilization or pressure to use long-term birth control methods. Hendrixson will describe successful alternative international campaigns and take a current look at how youthful and aging populations fit into post-2015 discussions about gender, health, sustainability and global priorities. Hendrixson has a master's degree in international development and social change from Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

• Anthropologist Peter Castro asserts that human-induced climate change offers one of the greatest challenges to our sustainability. On Nov. 5, Castro, an associate professor at Syracuse University, will address "Climate Change and Sustainability in Rural Africa: Some Perspectives." In global dialogue on the subject of solutions, the voices of rural Africans have been largely muted. "My presentation will argue that we have much to learn about sustainability and climate change from rural Africans," said Castro, who draws on his applied experience in Sudan, Ethiopia, Mali, Kenya and Somalia. He has a doctorate from University of California at Santa Barbara.

The spring semester will feature the following events:

• The issues surrounding the production of genetically modified food will be discussed Feb. 11 in a talk titled "Food Fight: When Genetic Engineering Makes Sense for Agricultural Sustainability." Steven Broyles, professor and chair of SUNY Cortland's Biological Sciences Department, will examine the scientific evidence regarding the safety of such foods and the arguments for their role in the sustainability of global food provision. Broyles, honored in 2002 for excellence in teaching by the chancellor of the State University of New York, has a doctorate in botany from the University of Georgia.

• The question of how to feed a growing global population without further compromising the planet's resources is the March 4 topic with geographer Wendy Wolford, the Robert A. and Ruth E. Polson Professor of Development Sociology at Cornell University. Her discussion, "Farming for the Future: Competing Models of Agriculture and Development in Rural Mozambique," tackles what has become perhaps the single most pressing issue of the 21st century. Wolford earned her doctorate at University of California, Berkeley.

• SUNY Cortland students will conduct a poster session titled "Can We Sustain?" from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. on March 25 in the Moffett Center Sociology/Anthropology Lobby. Then a series of student presentations will take place from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Moffett Center, Room 2125.

• On April 8, a sociologist will take a look at how human activity - technologies and economic, political and socio-cultural systems and processes - has created the ecological crisis the planet as a whole faces today. William Skipper, a SUNY Cortland assistant professor of sociology/anthropology, will present "Livable World/Livable Planet: The social aspects of ecological sustainability." Skipper asserts that, as a consequence of mankind's environmental influence, any serious effort to achieve ecological sustainability must include social change globally. He has a doctorate in anthropology from Cornell University.

The 2014-15 Brooks Lecture Series is sponsored by a grant from Auxiliary Services Corporation (ASC) and the Cortland College Foundation. For more information, contact Steadman at 607-753-2308.

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