Richard Brown will be presenting a colloquium on the topic of The Science of Chaos and the Natural World. This topic has great relevance to many disciplines: mathematics, physics, earth sciences, business, and even literature. 
Friday, December 2nd (2011)
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| Trivia: Name this anarchist! |
Travel - Understanding Cultural Differences
October 15th, 2010
Presented by Richard Brown, Faculty Member in English
Welcome back! The colloquium series has a fantastic new schedule of talks for the fall semester, so please stay tuned for upcoming colloquia!
Presented by Linda Armstrong, Faculty in Health Friday, February 19th, from noon – 12:50 p.m.
Room C1016 (Please note that this is a room change!)
Abstract:
Hearty Minnesotans have more to worry about than snow shoveling! We aren't getting enough Vitamin D. About 60% of Minnesotans are estimated to be deficient in Vitamin D. Who cares, you ask? You may if you want to decrease your risk for cancer, heart disease, depression and other chronic diseases. Find out more about Vitamin D and what you can do if you can't travel to the beach over spring break!
Bio
Linda is a Registered Dietitian with expertise in clinical nutrition, food service management and online learning. As a nutritionist, preventing chronic disease has always been an interest of Linda's. She likes to spread the prevention message whenever she can. It's her contribution to cutting health care costs!
New Ideas and Discussion
Normandale Colloquium Series 2009 - 2010
On Friday, February 5th, from noon to 12:50 in C1016With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, thoughts and expressions of love can be found in the Hallmark card aisle and boxes filled with Godiva chocolates. The varieties of symbols used to express love and affection are often confusing for both the sender and the receiver of the emotions. Chocolate, it turns out, doesn’t always = love. Go figure.
As human beings, we use language and nonverbal expressions to communicate love and affection. Knowing how different people interpret this abstract word and how they show love to others may help minimize confusion and strengthen interpersonal relationships. Learning our own love currency may also help us communicate our needs to others.
Presenter Bio:
Jennifer Thompson Isaac is a faculty member in the Communication department at NCC. She is also a practicing communicator of many emotions, including this one. And she really likes chocolate.
Friday, January 22nd, from noon – 12:50 p.m.
Room C1018
Abstract:
When your mother told you, “You have to kiss a lot of frogs,” you knew what she was talking about. She, like countless storytellers, artists, and filmmakers before and since, was offering her own vision of The Frog Prince fairy tale, and in so doing, revealing her thoughts about the nature of love and mate selection. Disney’s The Princess and the Frog makes just such a run at reimagining this essential fairy tale. But why are we so obsessed with this story about a disgusting amphibian who won’t take no for an answer?
A look into the evolution of this and other transformation fairy tales, like Beauty and the Beast or The Riquet with the Tuft, reveals our continuing need to explore our cultural ideas about partnering. English, French, German, and American literary and film versions of these stories limn just how much our ideas about gender roles and mate selection have and, in some cases, haven’t changed over the past three centuries. Find out who the Princess will kiss next....
Presenter Bio:
Charlotte E. Sullivan writes children’s fiction, essays, and poetry. Her work has been published or honored by Fourth Genre, Rockford Review, Freshwater, Front Range Review, The StarTribune, a Pushcart nomination, and other publications. She interviews children’s and young adult authors for KFAI’s Write On Radio! and participates in the GLBT Intermedia Arts Reading Series. She earned an MFA in fiction from Hamline University and an MS in Curriculum and Instruction from Mankato State University. Having taught English and Creative Writing for 14 years, she currently works at Normandale Community College, Luther Seminary’s Center for Writing and Research, and The Loft Literary Center. In her spare time she serves as a freelance editor of children’s and young adult novels for The Queue at Scarletta Press.
Abstract:Worlds of Their Own: A Brief History of Misguided Ideas: Creationism, Flat-Earthism, Energy Scams, and the Velikovsky Affair is a collection of writings from the late Robert Schadewald, a science writer who spent much of his time debating with creationists and flat earthers in the name of science. The testimony of a thirty-year expert in the realm of debunking pseudoscience, "Worlds of Their Own" is proof that the world lost a great scientific mind in 2000.” (From Midwest Book Review, Oregon, WI)
“History is written by the winners, including that of science. Unorthodoxies that flourish at the grassroots are often beneath the contempt of historians. Zetetic astronomy (flat-Earth science) was a household term in Victorian England, but not a single reference to it is found in conventional histories. We ignore such histories at our peril. Since the beginning of time, con artists have promoted pseudosciences – these ideas usually die in obscurity. Before they do, they may cause genuine harm. So, how do we discern between pseudo and actual science? To fully understand what science is, we must understand what science is not.”
Source: Book jacket cover for Worlds of Their Own: A Brief History of Misguided Ideas: Creationism, Flat-Earthism, Energy Scams, and the Velikovsky Affair
About the Presenter:
Worlds of Their Own was compiled by Lois Schadewald, Bob's sister, an Iowa State University alum and science educator, and faculty in chemistry here at NCC. She spent her 2003-2004 sabbatical preparing Worlds of Their Own as a fitting tribute to her late brother.
Presented by Brian Wolff, Ph.D., Faculty in Biology This Friday, November 6th, from noon – 12:50 p.m.
Room C1095
Abstract:
Simon Kuznets won the Nobel Prize in 1971 for his work relating economic growth and development to changing social conditions. Among the many fruits of his labor is Kuznets’ environmental curve, which depicts the hypothetical relationship between environmental quality and economic growth. Proponents of Kuznets’ curve often claim we can grow our way out of our environmental problems. This hypothesis is implied, for example, in President George W. Bush’s claim that economic growth is the solution, not the problem with respect to global warming. I will discuss Kuznets’ environmental curve as it relates to one measure of environmental quality - avian diversity.
Background:
Brian Wolff earned his M.S. in Environmental Biology at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and his Ph.D. in Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota. He has been teaching biology, environmental biology, and ecology at the University of Minnesota and Normandale Community College since 1994. He is the author of several scholarly papers on topics ranging from acidic precipitation and agriculturally-driven environmental issues to taxonomy and utilitarian environmental ethics. Brian commonly describes himself as a theoretical ecologist, with an eclectic interest in environmental ethics and economics. He has been studying birds and recording his observations in Minnesota since 1977.
nted by Normandale Creative Writing FacultyAbstract:
Join our Fall 2009 Creative Writing Faculty for a sampling of original poetry and prose, along with information on Normandale's newest AFA degree. Kris Bigalk, Alicia Conroy, Matt Mauch, Eric Mein, and Tom Maltman will share their work and host a Q and A session.
The Creative Writing faculty would like to bring to your attention Normandale's student literary magazine, The Paper Lantern.
For those interested in submitting original prose or poetry, please read the following guidelines:
Entrants must be currently enrolled at Normandale Community College.
Put your name and contact information on everything you submit for consideration. Keep your own copy of your work; materials will not be returned to you.
Poetry submissions should consist of one to five poems, typed. They may be single or double spaced.
Fiction submissions should be 10 pages or less, typed and double spaced, with page numbers.
Submissions, with names and contact information removed, will be evaluated by the Creative Writing Club in its bi-weekly meetings. Submissions are read on a rolling basis, and early submissions will receive the most focused attention.
Contributors will be notified whether their work has been accepted for publication shortly before the magazine goes to press late in the term.
For more information, email lynette.reini-grandell@normandale.edu
Friday, September 11th, from noon – 12:50 p.m.
Abstract: Heard the one about a girl in a red cape? She walks into the woods and meets a wolf? Or about the sooty servant girl who rides to a ball in a magic coach? Certain fairy tales permeate nearly every corner of our culture. But why have these particular fairy tales survived the centuries? Scholars such as Jack Zipes have recently suggested that these tales, originally transmitted through oral storytelling, behave like genes, which lodge in our brains and cultures as memes. Only the best stories that address specific individual and social needs survive. Like genes, these stories evolve in response to the shifts in the cultures that retell them, be they 17th century French aristocrats or 19th century African American slaves.
But recently, Cinderella and Little Red have had to scoot over to make room for the likes of Harry Potter, Lyra Silvertongue, Percy Jackson, and Meggie of Inkheart. These heroes of contemporary children’s fantasy, though frozen in time in literary texts, still reflect characteristics inherited from their fairy tale ancestors. Charlotte Sullivan, a writer of children’s fantasy (and closet fairy tale addict), will suggest culturally specific reasons why these new tales have not only exploded onto the publishing scene, but locked into our cultural DNA, and what this tells us about the stories of our own lives.
Presenter Bio:
Charlotte Sullivan teaches English at Normandale Community College, tutors at the Luther Seminary Writing Center, and critiques children’s fiction manuscripts for The Queue. Her thirteen-year teaching career includes experience in the Bloomington Public Schools, as well as five years as a faculty member at Crown College. She earned an MFA in fiction from Hamline University, an MS in Curriculum and Instruction (writing focus) from MN State University, Mankato, and has published both literary and personal essays and poetry in a number of journals and newspapers. Ms. Sullivan is currently at work on a middle grade fantasy novel, which may or may not include a toothless pirate ghost.
Abstract: Presenter Bio:
Burch earned his PhD in Political Science (Global Affairs) from the University of Minnesota in 1991, and he has been teaching college and university students since 1988. Burch is keenly interested in the global interplay of political and economic conditions/policies. Burch has helped create and refine global political-economic “forecasts” for corporations and authors.
Abstract:
Corrinne Bedecarré is a philosopher of French and Irish heritage. Storytelling, socializing and literature are integral to her life and these cultures. They also bring with them their share of complex relationships with the fruit of the grape and the nectar of hops. As a mother, auntie and college professor, Bedecarré has been painfully and personally aware of the extreme dangers which current drinking practices bring. After determining that binge drinking wasn’t just an extended family systems problem, Bedecarré has been thinking about ways that philosophy can contribute to the contemporary discussions and problem solving about effective approaches to alcohol, especially for the young.
The focus of those inquiries has been her search to provide a viable response to the question:
Do we have an ethical responsibility to teach our young people how to drink?
Presenter Bio:
Bedecarré received her undergraduate philosophy degree at Sonoma State University in California where she, as an undergraduate, helped to organize critical thinking conferences which have continued with great success. Longtime member of the Society for Women in Philosophy, Midwest Division, Bedecarré received her Master’s and Doctorate from the University of Minnesota. A California transplant, she spent her sabbatical, 2007-2008, reviewing applied ethics in Marin County, California.
Related Links:
Abstract: “You know, one of the most shocking things about it is to realize how easily we have lost a world that seemed so safe and certain.” (From “Day of the Triffids” by John Wyndham)
Throughout the history of human civilization people have facilitated the spread of many species of plants, animals and fungi, as well as bacteria, viruses and other pathogens.
The necessary conduit for the spread of these organisms, whether intentional or accidental, is the human economy. As global economic trade intensifies increasing numbers of species are moving from place to place. Most introduced species do not become established, or do become established and end up being benign members of their host ecosystems.
However, a small number of species introductions result in established populations of “invasive” pest species. As global economic interconnectedness intensifies, numbers of invasive species are expected to increase exponentially. By definition, invasive species end up “winners”, and in many instances out-compete native species that end up “losers”. In concert with habitat destruction and fragmentation and the loss of many native species, increasing numbers of invasive species represent a transition from the world we know to a world of ragweed, cockroaches, mice and pigeons – a world the natural history author David Quammen calls a “planet of weeds”.
Presenter Bio:
Ron Ward - a native Upper Midwesterner - is originally from Grand Forks. He now hails from Nordeast Minneapolis, where he lives with his wife of 12 years and his 5 year old son. He received his Bachelors in Geography from the University of Minnesota, and his Masters and PhD from the University of Georgia, where he specialized in biogeography and human-environmental relationships. His dissertation research, which he finished in 2002, is titled "Biogeomorphic Effects of Ligustrum sinense (Chinese privet) invasion on the Upper Oconee River Floodplain, North Georgia". He is still quite active among invasive plant researchers, but now needs a new project because last summer he finished the last of 7 years of follow-up on his research site at the Georgia State Botanical Gardens.
Related Links:
Minnesota DNR - Invasive Species
Abstract: In 1948, hundreds of Latvian refugees arrived in the Mississippi Delta to work as cotton pickers on the region’s plantations. By the mid-1950s, only a handful of Latvians remained in the area. Why did white planters turn to this source of labor? And why did the Latvians leave the Delta so quickly? The refugees had arrived at an unsettled time, as white planters dealt with increasing mechanization, international competition, the out-migration of black labor and above all the growing challenge of the civil rights movement. White planters viewed the Latvian refugees as suitably white citizens who could help create a white majority once segregation and black disenfranchisement ended. The Latvians, for their part, resisted Americanization under the terms set by the white planters, instead forming their own distinctly Latvian-American communities both inside and outside the Delta.
In addition to discussing immigration, race and labor in the postwar Mississippi Delta, attention will also be paid to the process of how History gets written. While historians often claim objectivity and adopt an authoritative tone, privately they admit that their work is quite often subjective and profoundly ambiguous. The case of the Latvian cotton pickers reveals some of the ways in which the biases of historians and the limitations of their craft determine what kind of History gets written and, ultimately, remembered.
Presenter Bio:
Bernard “Ben” Maegi earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2008, where his advisors were the eminent historians of U.S. immigration, Rudolph Vecoli and Donna Gabaccia. A second-generation immigrant, Ben’s interest in History stemmed from his parents’ harrowing stories of their lives as Eastern European refugees during and after the Second World War. Ben has taught U.S., Minnesota and World History at Normandale since 2000.
Related Links:
