Linfield celebrates Women’s History Month
Linfield will host a series of events in March celebrating the contributions of women to the community in honor of Women’s History Month. This week’s events include:
- Tuesday, March 1 – “Diversity in the Media,” Renee Mitchell, 8 p.m., Jonasson Hall
Pulitzer Price nominee and award-winning columnist for The Oregonian, Renee Mitchell is coming to Linfield to speak about diversity in the media. As part of a fusion of Black History Month and Women’s History Month, Mitchell will provide background on her experiences as an African American woman and how that has affected her relationship with the media.
- Thursday, March 3 – “That Could Be Me: Successful Linfield Women in the Workforce,” 4:30 p.m., Jonasson Hall
Career Development has assembled a panel of women from all different stages of their career paths. From new professionals to those getting ready to retire, or people preparing to change careers entirely, they are offering advice and words of wisdom for those who are eager and willing to listen. Come prepared to ask questions and hear about their experiences as women in the workforce.
In addition to weekly events, a number of activities will be ongoing throughout the month.
- Nominate outstanding female students, staff, administrators and faculty at Linfield. Nominations will close Friday, March 25, at 5 p.m. The month will conclude with a grand finale celebration Thursday, March 31, recognizing several women from each category. tinyurl.com/LinfieldWHM16
- Month-long fundraiser for Juliette’s House, 301 Riley Hall
- Accomplished Black Women Throughout History display in Nicholson Library, sponsored by BSU
The events are sponsored by Multicultural Programs, Black Student Union, Career Development, Linfield Student Health, Wellness, and Counseling Center, Political Science Department, Nicholson Library, Gender Studies, Students Advocating for Gender Equality (SAGE), Linfield College Latinos Adelante (LCLA), HHPA, Community Engagement and Service, Mass Communication Department, Juliette’s House, Men’s Antiviolence Education Network (MAVEN), Unidos Bridging Community, College Activities & Greek Life.
For more information, contact sfuller@linfield.edu, lcard@linfield.edu or dgrenie@linfield.edu.
Grab some cake and celebrate Linfield’s birthday
Birthday cake and photos with the Wildcat can only mean one thing – Happy Birthday Linfield!
The Linfield community is celebrating Happy Birthday Linfield, Monday, Feb. 29, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Fred Meyer Lounge in Riley Hall.
The celebration, hosted by Linfield for Life – Student Alumni Association, honors Linfield’s 158th birthday. The campus community is invited to the party, which will include cake, games, prizes and photos with Mack the Wildcat. Follow activities throughout the day at @LinfieldCollege and @LinfieldforLife, and use the hashtag #HBDLinfield.
Linfield joins nearly 100 schools participating in Student Engagement and Philanthropy Month. The initiative is designed to increase student understanding of philanthropy and grow engagement on campuses. Institutions from the United States, England, Canada, Australia and other countries will participate.
For more information, contact Travis McGuire at tmcguire@linfield.edu or 503-883-2387.
Film festival, panel discussion scheduled
“Beneath the Waves,” a film festival and panel discussion, will be held Tuesday, March 1, at 7 p.m. in Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall.
Eight short films, three to 10 minutes in length covering issues related to marine biology, will be shown. They include: “Our Blue,” “Marine Ecology in Easter Island,” “Seagrass Savanna,” “A Plastic Future: The Midway Story,” “Whale Fall,” “Postcards from the Oregon Coast,” “Their Right to Rest” and “A Little Ditty about Florida Bay.”
Panel members include Jeremy Weisz, assistant professor of biology at Linfield; Burke Hales, professor at the College of Earth, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University; Steven Rumrill, shellfish program leader, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife; and Neyssa Hays, community engagement specialist, Greater Yamhill Watershed Council.
The program is free and sponsored by the Science Colloquium and PLACE (Program for Liberal Arts and Community Engagement), exploring this year’s theme “Air, Water, Earth, and Fire: The Ancient Elements on a Changing Planet.” For more information contact Jeremy Weisz, 503-883-2704 or jweisz@linfield.edu.
Diversity in media topic of lecture
Renee Mitchell, an award-winning writer, multimedia artist and former journalist, will speak on “Diversity in the Media,” Tuesday, March 1, at 8 p.m., in Jonasson Hall, lower level of Melrose Hall.
Mitchell is an award-winning writer, multimedia artist and former journalist, who was nominated twice for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. She left a 25-year newspaper career in 2008 to reinvent herself as a social-justice grant writer, creative consultant and a creative healing griot, who nurtures hope, empowerment and inspiration into the lives of women of color and young girls. In the past few years, she has successfully secured $500,000 in grant funding for her own art and theater projects and for other organizations and individuals. Mitchell also has worked as a contracted writer in residence for Literary Arts’ Writers in The Schools program, Wordstock, and Saturday Academy.
During her 10 years at The Oregonian she wrote a twice weekly column about education, government, neighborhoods, race and culture. She was the leader of an in-house diversity committee and organized Portland’s first regional conference for the National Association of Black Journalists. She was nominated for the Pulitzer for commentary twice, and in 2008 was named the top newspaper commentator in five states by the Society of Professional Journalists. She founded Renee Mitchell Speaks in 2000, a writing, performance, speaking, grant writing and creative consulting company, serving as graphic artist, a keynote speaker for workshops on writing, performance and grant writing. She is the founder and director of Spit/WRITE, a youth writing, performance and mentoring initiative.
She has written five books and six plays and organized trainings and regional conferences. She has received numerous awards for her community work, including the Yolanda D. King Drum Major Award in 2015. She has a bachelor’s in journalism from Florida A&M University, a master’s in business administration from George Fox University and is working on a master’s in social work with a concentration in families and children at the University of Southern California.
The lecture is free and open to the public. It is part of a series of programs in honor of Women’s History Month. It is sponsored by the Black Student Union, Mass Communications Department and Multicultural Programs. For more information contact Lauren Card, 503-883-2326.
NASA ambassador to speak on latest discoveries
Roger Diehl, a recent retiree of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), will present “Alien Landscapes: Discoveries from Mars, the Moons of Saturn and Pluto” during the iFOCUS Science Colloquium Lectures Series on Thursday, March 3, at 4:15 p.m. in 100 Graf Hall.
The solar system provides an array of landscapes that have been captured in recent images from Mars, the moons of Saturn, and Pluto. Diehl, a volunteer with the NASA Solar System Ambassador Program, will present the latest discoveries from these locations. See images of Martian sand dunes, the methane lakes of Titan, the water ice geysers of Enceladus, and the nitrogen glaciers of Pluto. Also hear about the possibilities of a massive planet located in the far outer solar system beyond the orbit of Pluto.
In 2014, Diehl retired after 39 years at the JPL. During his time there, he made contributions to many missions in the disciplines of mission design and systems engineering. His discovery of the VEEGA trajectory enabled the Galileo spacecraft to be launched to Jupiter after the Challenger accident had ruled out other options. Diehl also was the Cassini Mission Design Manager, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Payload Operations Manager and Project Systems Engineer for two projects.
The talk is sponsored by the Hearst Foundations. For more information, contact gcastill@linfield.edu or visit www.linfield.edu/science-colloquium.html
Thorndike to present lecture on climate crisis
Camila Thorndike, co-founder and executive director of Oregon Climate, will present “Millennials: #PutAPriceOnIt for Climate Justice,” Thursday, March 3, at 7 p.m. in Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall.
Thorndike will paint a picture of how focused teamwork melts cynicism and unlocks grassroots power. She will share stories accumulated over 10 years in the climate movement, including co-founding Oregon Climate at age 25, garnering a dozen legislative sponsors for the Carbon Price and Dividend bill, and working with a close team of peers to educate and motivate thousands of Oregon voters for climate action. Thorndike will provide audience members with a sharper understanding of how political change begins with inner focus and determination, as well as practical steps to advance carbon pricing legislation.
Thorndike, now 28, is the founder of Oregon Climate, a statewide grassroots organization dedicated to securing a carbon fee and dividend program in Oregon. She has been working for the past three years to build a statewide network of politicians, activists and volunteers supporting a shift to a low carbon future by pricing carbon emissions in the state. Thorndike has been especially influential in encouraging those who are unequally impacted by climate change, such as low income youth of color, high school and college students to engage their communities and become politically active in securing a low carbon future. She was recently named to mic.50, a list of the 50 promising next generation leaders, scientists and entrepreneurs.
For more information, contact Jennifer Heath at 503-883-2267 or jheath@linfield.edu.
‘Changing America’ exhibit kicked off with Emancipation talk
Nicholas Buccola, associate professor of political science, will present the opening lecture for the “Changing America” exhibit.
Buccola will present “Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand: Frederick Douglass on Emancipation” on Thursday, March 3, at 7:30 p.m. in the Austin Reading Room of the Jereld R. Nicholson Library at Linfield. The talk is part of a traveling exhibition, “Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 and the March on Washington, 1963,” which will run through March 25 in the library.
Buccola will examine Frederick Douglass’s views of emancipation by comparing his ideas with several of his contemporaries including Abraham Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Stephen A. Douglas. His focus in these comparisons will be on questions related to emancipation. What is emancipation? What are the legitimate means that may be used in pursuit of emancipation?
Buccola, chair of the Linfield political science department, has been a member of the Linfield faculty since 2007. He is the founding director of the Frederick Douglass Forum on Law, Rights, and Justice at Linfield College. He is the recipient of the Allen and Pat Kelley Faculty Scholar Award and he is the two-time recipient of the Samuel Graf Faculty Achievement Award, he has received a National Endowment of the Humanities Enduring Questions grant.
The traveling exhibition is presented by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of American History in collaboration with the American Library Association Public Programs Office. The exhibition is made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
The lecture and exhibit are free and open to the public. They are sponsored by the Linfield Department of Political Science, The Frederick Douglass Forum on Law, Rights, and Justice, the Elliot Alexander Fund for Political Science, the Dean’s Speaker Fund and the Linfield Nicholson Library. For more information, contact Susan Barnes Whyte, college librarian, at swhyte@linfield.edu or 503-883-2517.
Bourassa to present senior clarinet recital
Linfield College senior Quillan Bourassa will present a student clarinet recital Saturday, March 5, at 7:30 p.m. in Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall.
Bourassa, a music major with an emphasis on clarinet performance, will perform works by three living composers: Portland-based Kenji Bunch, composer/clarinetist Daniel Dorff, and the U.S. premiere of “The White Bird” by recent visiting composer-in-residence Gabriel Jackson. The program will also include chamber music by Francis Poulenc and Robert Muczynski and will showcase three members of the clarinet family: Bb bass, Fb soprano and Eb soprano. The performance will also feature Linfield principal accompanist Susan McDaniel ‘97 and fellow students from Linfield College and Pacific University.
At Linfield, Bourassa has studied under adjunct professor Steve Kravitz and has been a member of the Linfield Concert Band since 2012, as well as the Salem Concert Band. Bourassa has performed several challenging pieces by composers such as Poulenc, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Mozart, Brahms and Weber. He has also performed in many chamber music concerts at Linfield College including a production of Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” and last fall’s Faculty-Student Chamber Ensemble Recital, in which he performed a movement of Mozart’s “Clarinet Quintet.” In 2014, he was one of the few Linfield students to participate in the CBDNA Intercollegiate Honor Band and in 2015 was the winner of Linfield’s Concerto Competition.
This event is free, open to the public and is sponsored by the Linfield Department of Music. For more information, call 503-883-2275 or visit linfield.edu/arts.
Linfield to host Oregon Humanities Conversation Projects
Linfield College will host a series of Conversation Projects, sponsored by Oregon Humanities, on various topics of diversity this spring.
The first conversation, “White Out? The Future of Racial Diversity in Oregon,” will be led by sociologist Emily Drew on Wednesday, March 9, at 4:30 p.m. in 219 T.J. Day Hall. The Oregon Humanities Conversation Project brings Oregonians together to discuss their differences, beliefs and backgrounds about important issues and ideas.
Drew will lead participants in a conversation about the challenges of creating racially diverse, inclusive communities despite the accomplishments since the civil rights era. Although census data show Oregon’s population becoming more racially diverse, the state remains one of the whitest in the nation. Many Oregonians value racial diversity and the dimension and depth it adds to our lives, yet we remain largely isolated from one another and have yet to fulfill the vision of a racially integrated society.
Drew is an associate professor of sociology at Willamette University, where she teaches courses about racism, race and ethnicity, immigration and social change. Her primary areas of research involve understanding how race and racism operate inside of institutions. Drew serves as a co-trainer of “Understanding Institutional Racism” workshops for Crossroads Anti-Racism Organizing and Training.
In addition to the March event, two other Conversation Projects will be held at Linfield this spring. “Northwest Mixtape: Hip Hop Culture and Influences” will be held on Monday, April 4, and “Mind the Gaps: How Gender Shapes our Lives” will take place on Wednesday, May 4. Both conversations will be at 4:30 p.m. in 219 T.J. Day Hall.
The discussions are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, Linfield professor of English, at 503-883-2485 or rdutt-b@linfield.edu.
Nowacki looks at refugee crisis in upcoming talk
The international refugee crisis will be the topic of an upcoming lecture by Dawn Nowacki.
Nowacki, the Elizabeth and Morris Glicksman Chair in Political Science, will speak on “Voluntary and Involuntary Migrant Status: Thoughts on the International Refugee Crisis,” Wednesday, March 9, at 4 p.m. in 201 Riley Hall at Linfield.
Nowacki will discuss what it is like to walk hundreds of miles voluntarily as a person from a wealthy country, as well as what it means to flee from war, leave everything behind and make one’s way through inhospitable states or across dangerous seas. Her talk will highlight humanitarian, gender and ethnic dimensions of displacement as she reflects upon her sabbatical experiences in Europe.
Nowacki teaches political science, including comparative politics and international relations at Linfield. Her current work is centered on women in politics, war and gender, women and politics in the Middle East, women and Islam, and politics and Islam. Her work has been included in the book “Discipline and Punishment in Global Politics: Illusions of Control.” Previous research focused on women’s political representation in Russia and its peripheral provinces, strategies of marginalized groups in post-communist systems, and democratic orientations and authoritarian practice.
Nowacki’s scholarship, including study in Russia, Turkey, Jordan and China, has been supported by a Fulbright Scholar Award and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Russian area studies and a master’s degree in communications from the University of Washington. She earned her Ph.D. in political science from Emory University.
The talk is free and open to the public. It is part of a series of programs at Linfield in honor of Women’s History Month. It is sponsored by the Linfield College Department of Political Science, Multicultural Programs and International Programs. For more information contact Lauren Card, 503-883-2326, lcard@linfield.edu.
Anthropology and climate change topic of lecture
Susan A. Crate, a leader in the anthropology of climate change, will present a lecture about the complexities and challenges of climate change and meet with students during a visit to Linfield.
Crate, associate professor of anthropology at George Mason University, will speak on “Investigating the Bottom-up Complexities and Adaptive Challenges of Contemporary Climate Change in Northeastern Siberia and Nunatsiavut, Canada” Wednesday, March 9, at 7:30 p.m. in Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall. Humanity’s chances of adapting to large scale changes now underway must always be anchored in close understanding of how people actually deal with complex adaptive challenges on the ground. “If we move our focus to local contexts and reframe the objective of sustainability as a dialogue within those contexts, then the concept itself takes on a life and a power,” Crate said.
Crate has become an authority on anthropology and climate change, both from her own research in arctic Siberia and as a member of the American Anthropology Association task force on global climate change. While Crate has conducted most of her research in Asiatic Russia and northeastern Siberia, and is involved in several international groups that focus on sustainability in the arctic, her interests in sustainability issues and projects extend to her teaching and service, especially in campus greening issues at George Mason.
She is centrally involved with the new film “The Anthropologist,” which considers the fate of the planet from the perspective of an American teenager. Over five years, she travels alongside her mother, an anthropologist studying the impact of climate change on indigenous communities.
Crate received her B.A. in environmental studies, with a concentration in education, from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. She then received her master’s degree in folklore and her Ph.D. in ecology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The 12th annual anthropology lecture is sponsored by the Linfield Department of Sociology and Anthropology and by PLACE (Program for Liberal Arts and Community Engagement), exploring this year’s theme “Air, Water, Earth, and Fire: The Ancient Elements on a Changing Planet.” It is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Tom Love, Linfield professor of anthropology and environmental studies, at tlove@linfield.edu or 503-883-2504.
Community news
Baritone Anton Belov, assistant professor of music, will perform with the Eugene Opera in the romantic Russian drama “Eugene Onegin” March 11 and 13 at the Hult Center. The performance is sung in Russian with English supertitles and tells the tale of a man who rejects a young woman’s passionate offer of love, betrays a good and loyal friend, and only later realizes that he himself is the chief victim of his own cold heart. eugeneopera.com
Rachael Woody, college archivist, and Rich Schmidt, director of resource sharing, presented about the Oregon Wine History Archive at the Oregon Wine Symposium held at the Convention Center in Portland Feb. 23-24.
Campus calendar
MONDAY, FEB. 29
11 a.m.: Happy Birthday Linfield!, Fred Meyer Lounge
TUESDAY, MARCH 1
7 p.m.: “Beneath the Waves” film festival and panel discussion, Ice Auditorium
8 p.m.: S. Renee Mitchell, “Diversity in the Media,” Jonasson Hall
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2
4:30 p.m.: Community French class, 203 Walker Hall
THURSDAY, MARCH 3
4:15 p.m.: Roger Diehl, “Alien Landscapes: Discoveries from Mars, the Moons of Saturn and Pluto,” 100 Graf
7 p.m.: Camila Thorndike, “Millennials: #PutAPriceOnIt for Climate Justice,” Ice Auditorium
7:30 p.m.: “Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand: Frederick Douglass on Emancipation,” Nicholson Library
FRIDAY, MARCH 4
Today and tomorrow.: Track and field, hosting the Erik Anderson Memorial Icebreaker
SATURDAY, MARCH 5
11 a.m.: Baseball at Lewis & Clark
Noon: Men’s tennis vs. Pacific
Noon: Softball vs. Willamette
Noon: Women’s lacrosse at Pacific
1 p.m.: Women’s tennis at Pacific
7:30 p.m.: Quillan Bourassa clarinet recital, Ice Auditorium
SUNDAY, MARCH 6
Noon: Softball vs. Willamette
Noon: Baseball at Lewis & Clark
Noon: Women’s lacrosse at Puget Sound
