Two lectures and an exhibit at Linfield College will honor the legacy of the late Professor Jane Claire Dirks-Edmunds. 

Susan Prichard, research scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, will speak on “Fire Ecology” Monday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m. in Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall as part of the Jane Claire Dirks-Edmunds lecture series.

On Tuesday, May 10, author Robert Michael Pyle will speak on “Sometimes a Great Notion Works Out: Macnab’s Aspection, the Coast Range, and Jane Claire’s Excellent Adventure” at 7:30 p.m. in the Austin Reading Room of Nicholson Library. That event will also celebrate a display of artifacts belonging to Dirks-Edmunds and donated to the archives by her former student, Lyle Hubbard, a 1958 graduate of Linfield.

Prichard works for the Pacific Wildlands Fire Sciences Lab in Washington where she studies issues pertaining to climate change and forest dynamics with an eye to developing strategies to mitigate wildfires and their effects. She completed her bachelor’s at The Evergreen State College, and a master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. She will be on campus all day May 9 and 10 meeting with students and faculty. The lecture is sponsored by the Jane Claire Dirks Edmunds Lectureship and PLACE (Program for Liberal Arts and Civic Engagement). For information contact Chad Tillberg, 503-883-2221, ctillbe@linfield.edu.

Pyle will discuss one of the great ecological experiments of the modern era that sprang from Linfield College and the fertile mind of the late Professor James Macnab. He wondered whether it would be possible to take in the entirety of a Coast Range mountainside: an aspection, as he called it, looking at its every working part from all possible angles. This is a brief telling of that remarkable story.

Pyle has published 14 books including his newest book of poetry, “Evolution of the Genus Iris.” He is also the author of papers, essays, stories and poems published in numerous magazines and journals. Pyle holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He often lectures at Portland State University and Lewis & Clark College. The lecture is sponsored by the Linfield Nicholson Library. For more information, contact Susan Barnes Whyte at 503-883-2517, swhyte@linfield.edu.