Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Thursday, October 2, 2008, 7:00 pm Schiff Family Conference Center
“Our Environmental Destiny”
Co-Sponsored with the Brueggeman Center and Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens

Tickets will be required for this lecture. Please click on the following link for ticket request information. Download Kennedy Ticket pdf

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s reputation as a resolute defender of the environment stems from a litany of successful legal actions. Mr. Kennedy was named one of Time magazine's “Heroes for the Planet” for his success in helping Riverkeeper lead the fight to restore the Hudson River. The group's achievement helped spawn more than 160 Waterkeeper organizations across the globe. Mr. Kennedy serves as senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and president of Waterkeeper Alliance. He is also a clinical professor and supervising attorney at Pace University School of Law's Environmental Litigation Clinic and is co-host of Ring of Fire on Air America Radio. Earlier in his career, he served as assistant district attorney in New York City. Among Mr. Kennedy's published books are the New York Times bestseller Crimes Against Nature (2004); The Riverkeepers (1997); and Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr: A Biography (1977).

Complimentary tickets are required

Archbishop Celestino Migliore and Jame Schaefer
Sunday, October 26, 2008, 7:00 pm Schiff Family Conference Center
"The Lord God Took the Man and Put Him in the Garden of Eden to Till It and Keep It (Gen 2:15)."
Co-Sponsored with the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and the Theology Department

Archbishop Celestino Migliore has served since 2002 as Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations. In 2007, he addressed the U.N. General Assembly on the topic of global climate change. Migliore has a master's degree in theology from the Center of Theological Studies in Fossano and a Doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical Lateran University. His service to the Holy See's diplomatic corps includes work in Angola, Egypt, Warsaw, Strasbourg, and several Asian countries.

Jame Schaefer, respondent to Migliore's lecture, is associate professor of theology at Marquette University. Her work focuses on the constructive relationship between theology and the natural sciences with special attention to religious foundations for ecological ethics. Her theological publications include articles in Cistercian Studies Quarterly, Theological Studies, and Worldviews: Religion, Culture, Science, all of which explore promising notions in the Christian tradition for addressing ecological degradation. In progress are more articles exploring Christian notions for responding to ecological concerns, an anthology for Catholic University of America Press entitled Theocentric Foundations for Environmental Ethics: Promising Patristic and Medieval Sources.

John R. McNeill
Sunday, March 29, 2009, 7:00 pm Schiff Family Conference Center
“An Age of Turbulence: Global Environmental History since 1890”

Since 1985, John McNeill has been a faculty member of the School of Foreign Service and History Department at Georgetown where he teaches world history, environmental history, and international history. From 2003 until 2006, he held the Cinco Hermanos Chair in Environmental and International Affairs at Georgetown. His most recent book, Epidemics and Geopolitics in the American Tropics, 1640-1920 came out last year. His earlier books include: The Human Web: A Bird's-eye View of World History (2003) with W.H. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the 20th-Century World (2000) and The Mountains of the Mediterranean World: An Environmental History (1992).

David W. Orr
Sunday, April 5, 2009, 7:00 pm, Schiff Family Conference Center "Some Like It Hot ... But Lots More Do Not: The Changing Climate of US Politics" Co-Sponsored with the Brueggeman Center

David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College. He is also a James Marsh Professor at large at the University of Vermont. He is the author of five books including: Design on the Edge: The Making of a High Performance Building (2006); The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment (2004); Earth in Mind (1994/2004); Ecological Literacy (1992) and The Campus and Environmental Responsibility (1992). He is best known for his pioneering work on environmental literacy in higher education and his recent work in ecological design. He raised funds for and spearheaded the effort to design and build a $7.2 million Environmental Studies Center at Oberlin College, a building described by the New York Times as “the most remarkable” of a new generation of college buildings and by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of thirty “milestone buildings” of the 20th century.

Other Lectures

November 12, 2008, Wednesday, 7:00 pm
Gallagher Student Center Theatre
David Loy, Ethics/Religion and Society Besl Chair will lecture on "Healing Ecology: Buddhist Reflections on the Planetary Crisis."
Please click on the following link for more information Loy Lecture.

Film Series

Faculty Development


DAVID LEVY VISIT--September 2008
David Levy, Professor at the Information School at the University of Washington will be on campus September 9-11 visiting classes, providing a three-hour workshop for faculty and staff, and giving a public lecture on Wednesday, September 10 at 4:30 pm in the Gallagher Student Center Theater.

David Levy holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in computer science (1979) and a diploma in calligraphy and bookbinding from the Roehampton Institute, London (1982). He is the author of "Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age" (Arcade, 2001) and is writing a new book, tentatively titled "No Time to Think." For fifteen years (until December, 1999), he was a member of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) where his research focused on the nature of documents and on the tools and practices through which they are created and used. His current research focuses on information and the quality of life.

Business Law and Ethics/Religion & Society Faculty Symposium Saturday, September 27, 2008
9:00-11:00 am
Gallagher Clocktower Lounge