Lecture Series

Life in the City:

Exploring Urban Issues

2012-13

Half the world’s population now lives in cities—and this is only increasing in the wake of a worldwide urban migration. Despite the problems usually associated with the city—higher crime rates, poverty, pollution, etc–Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, author of the Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier, claims that “cities are our best and brightest hope.” The 2012-2013 Open Gates lecture series will explore a variety of urban issues, with a special focus on the City of Worcester.

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The series will be co-hosted by Dr. John R. Murnane and David P. Forsberg ’65, former President of the Worcester Business Development Corporation (WBDC) and a leader in the development and revitalization of Worcester. Forsberg has served on the Worcester City Council, the New England Regional Administrator-Regional Housing Commissioner for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Chief Development Officer for the City of Worcester.  After graduating from Worcester Academy, Forsberg attended Bowdoin College and went on to receive his Master’s in Urban Affairs from Boston University in 1974.  He also studied at Harvard Divinity School.

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Kerry Spitzer and Anne Bowman

October 18, 2012 (7-8 pm)

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Kerry Spitzer is a Ph.D. student at MIT in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Her research focuses on affordable housing policy and incarceration in the United States. Prior to coming to MIT, Kerry worked for over four years in New York City government. As a budget and policy analyst at the NYC Independent Budget Office she authored reports on the city’s juvenile justice system, jails, and supportive housing programs. Prior to her work at IBO, she was a project manager at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development in the Inclusionary Housing Program. In addition, she has conducted research for the NYC Department of Homeless Services and Department of Corrections on the population of individuals who cycle between the jail and shelter system. She has also worked for the Supportive Housing Network of New York and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where she co-authored an article on Latino small business (click here). She holds a Masters in Public Administration from NYU Wagner and a Bachelors in Government from Cornell University.

A recent graduate of the Master’s Program at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, Anne Bowman joined the housing development group of Heartland Alliance, an anti-poverty organization in Chicago, in 2011. During her time at MIT, Anne focused her studies on the relationship between design and community development, an interest that culminated in her Master’s thesis, which examined the ways universities are looking at the design and development of their edges—and beyond—in new and innovative ways. She found Clark University in Worcester and Trinity College in Hartford – her two main case studies – to provide many lessons for institutions and cities everywhere. Anne’s current work as Associate Director of Real Estate Development at Heartland continues to bring design and development together through the planning and building of affordable housing. She is currently working on the redevelopment of a 35-acre public housing development in Chicago, a community center, and an apartment building for 37 families in Milwaukee. Prior to attending MIT and joining Heartland, Anne was an architect at Torti Gallas and Partners: Architects of Community, a firm in Washington, DC focused on creating buildings and plans that contribute to the cities and towns of which they are a part, physically, socially, and economically. Anne also received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Notre Dame and is a licensed architect.

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Steal This Podium:

Worcester Academy Alumni Authors

2011-12

At Worcester Academy’s Ross Auditorium, Warner Theater

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At boarding school I was always taught,

Not to reveal what I really thought,

Nor ever once let my eyes betray

the dreadful things that I longed to say

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These are lines from a 1929 song, “I’m in Love,” by Cole Porter, one of Worcester Academy’s most well known alums. Biographer William McBrien claims that Porter chafed under the watchful eye of Headmaster Dr. Daniel Abercrombie–called into his office for risqué performances of “The Bearded Lady” and other spoofs as a member of the WA class of 1909. Porter’s generation may have been taught to keep a tight lip, but this was clearly not the case for subsequent generations of Worcester Academy students. They’ve had plenty to say, from Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book (the best known work by an alum and thus the title of this series) to Richard Wolfson’s acclaimed Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified to a host of others–Rewriting Shakespeare, Rewriting Ourselves by Peter Erickson, Samuel Adams: A Life by Ira Stoll, God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation are Changing America by Naomi Schaefer Riley, to name a few.

Celebrating the many scholarly contributions of Academy graduates and their engagement in the world at large, Open Gates, Alumni House, and the Worcester Academy library welcomed David Muller ’66 to campus on Thursday, October 14th 2010. Mr. Muller, author of China as a Maritime Power, “cut the ribbon” at the official opening of the “Academy Collection of Arts and Letters.”  The collection, which is permanently on display in the library at Worcester Academy, is comprised of books and articles published by Worcester Academy alumni and faculty (click here for a taste of these publications). As a further step, the Open Gates lecture series for 2011-12 will feature alumni authors. Each will discuss the content of their particular publications as well as the craft of writing and publishing. The series will be co-hosted by Dr. John Murnane and Jack Haringa. Dr. Murnane is the Director of Academic Programs at Worcester Academy and has published several articles. Jack M. Haringa is a member of the Board of Advisors to the Shirley Jackson Awards. He is an author and Chair of the English Department at Worcester Academy, as well as co-editor, with S.T. Joshi, of the critical journal Dead Reckonings.

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See Wall Street Journal editor Adam Najberg interview in connection with this series (click here)

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Rebecca Vaudreuil

Thursday, September 8th–7-8 p.m.

Author of Group Music Therapy Intervention: Working In Neurologic Rehabilitation and Music Therapy and the Military: Working with Individual and Group Active Service Members and Veterans (forthcoming), Rebecca is a Worcester Academy alum who earned her Bachelors in music therapy at Berklee College of Music in Boston. A board certified music therapist, she also has her fellowship in Neurologic Music Therapy and is a Neo-Natal music therapy specialist. Rebecca currently resides in San Diego, CA and works throughout San Diego County. She is the Junior Joy Giver Program Director for Resounding Joy and also works at Learning Services, Inc. a center for traumatic brain injury in Escondido, CA; St. Madeline’s Sophie Center, an educational training center for developmentally delayed adults in El Cajon; Rady Children’s Hospital with cardiology patients, and in the San Diego Unified School District with children in special needs classroom settings. Rebecca also has a passion for international music therapy and has traveled to Japan, Africa and Jamaica to engage in and provide music therapy services in schools, orphanages, and infirmaries. She is planning a trip to India in 2012 to work in palliative and hospice care.

Click here for the video re: Rebecca’s presentation.

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Naomi Schaefer Riley

Thursday, October 27th

7- 8 p.m.

Naomi Schaefer Riley is an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values. Her book The Faculty Lounges… And Other Reasons You Won’t Get the College Education You Paid For was just published by Ivan Dee. Ms. Riley was, until recently, the deputy Taste editor of the Wall Street Journal, where she covered religion, higher education and philanthropy for the editorial page. Her book, God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America, was published by St. Martin’s in 2005. Prior to joining the Journal, she founded In Character, a magazine published by the John M. Templeton Foundation. Her writing has also been published in the Boston Globe the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education among other publications. She has been the recipient of the Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellowship and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Journalism Fellowship. She is the winner of the 2006 American Academy of Religion’s Newswriting Contest for Opinion Writing. Ms. Riley graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University. She lives in the suburbs of New York with her husband, Jason, and two children.

See C-Span interview (click here) and her WA lecture (click here).

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Rebecca Cypess

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

7-8 PM

A former adjunct faculty member of the Yale Department of Music and Yale School of Music and lecturer at Southern Connecticut State University, Rebecca Cypess joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory in the fall of 2008 upon completing her doctorate in musicology at Yale. Cypess publishes regularly in scholarly journals, with articles and reviews in Early Music, the Journal of Musicology, the Galpin Society Journal, the International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Early Music America, and Encyclopedia Britannica. She has presented papers at meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Renaissance Society of America, the American Musical Instrument Society, and the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music. Although her primary area of research is 17th-century music, she has also written and lectured on ethnomusicological issues in the American Jewish community, and she has an essay due to be published soon on John Adams’s opera Doctor Atomic. She is currently writing her first book, which deals with the negotiation of time and the preservation of memory in Italian instrumental music between 1615 and 1630. She has a B.A. in Music History and Performance, Cornell University. M. Mus. in Harpsichord Performance, Royal College of Music. M.A. in Bible, Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Yeshiva University. M.A. M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Music History, Yale University.

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Global Problems:

Obstacles and Opportunities

2010-11

At Worcester Academy’s Ross Auditorium, Warner Theater

International cooperation is an imperative in the 21st century; humanity faces global crises of epic proportions–global warming, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, conflict in nearly every corner of the world, the spread of disease, economic uncertainty, and an enormous gulf between rich and poor. Despite the obvious need, international organizations (such as the U.N.) have never been weaker; the forces of nationalism, separatism, violence and hatred have never been stronger. And while there are many obstacles standing in the way—ultra-nationalism, parochialism, oil dependency, burgeoning nation-state debt, population pressures and disturbing demographic trends—there are people and organizations making a difference, trying to devise solutions in a variety of areas (from organizations like the World Bank to NGOs and universities and other civic organizations).

The Open Gates lecture series, 2010-11, looks at global problems; it will identify three of them—global terrorism and conflict, poverty, and hunger. It will explore the root causes of these problems. And it will highlight the work and ideas of those engaged in finding solutions to these important problems.

David G. Muller, Jr. on Global Terrorism

October 14th 2010, 7-8 PM

David G. Muller, Jr. (Class of 1966) has been an intelligence officer for 40 years. He has served in Naval Intelligence, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the White House. He worked in the private sector as editor and publisher of Foreign Markets Advisory. Mr. Muller is the author of China as a Maritime Power (Westview Press, 1983), peer-reviewed articles in the International Journal of Intelligence & Counterintelligence, as well as articles on China, politics, and economics in other publications. He holds an MA in Asian Studies from the University of Michigan and a BA in Asian Studies from Dartmouth College. Mr. Muller grew up in Worcester and attended the Academy as a day student. He was especially active in Eta Kappa Alpha.

Jonathan Starr on the Failure of Aid Work and NGOs in Africa, January 8th, 2011, 7-8 PM

The 2010 recipient of the Worcester Academy’s Young Alumnus Recognition Award, Mr. Jonathan Starr (WA’94) prides himself on bringing a business model to improving conditions in Africa as opposed to the more traditional approach of NGOs, the World Bank, and other relief agencies. A graduate from Emory University, he is also the founder of Flagg Street Capital (named as a tribute to the Flagg Street School in Worcester). It is a private investment company that manages more than $170 million of investor assets. Before he founded Flagg Street, Mr. Starr worked as an analyst at SAB Capital and Blavin & Company. He is the co-founder and Managing Director of Abaarso Tech, a non-profit organization and boarding school in Somaliland, where he seeks to offer world-class education to people of the Horn of Africa. Now in its inaugural year, the school is attracting top local and international minds to teach Somaliland’s most promising youth.  Additionally, it provides professional development for teachers and others professionals, and assists rural populations by placing teachers in village schools and working on community improvements.

(Click here for more on Jonathan Starr’s work in Somaliland).

Richard Ford, “Listening to the People: Development as If People Mattered,” April 12, 2011, 7-8 PM

Richard Ford, Ph.D. Research Professor of International Development and Social Change at Clark University,  has 40 years field experience in rural African land use and management. His writings focus on community institutions, integration of traditional practices into contemporary decision-making and policy, poverty alleviation, conflict mediation, and community-based planning. He has worked in 25 African countries (especially Kenya, Somalia, Somaliland, Ghana, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Senegal, Mali, The Gambia, Malawi, Zambia, Madagascar, and Rwanda) on these themes. More recently, he has conducted field research and training in India, The Philippines, Romania, Iraq, Bangladesh, and the South Pacific. In 1988, working jointly with colleagues from Clark and Kenya’s National Environment Secretariat, he adapted the Rapid Rural Appraisal to be responsive to community priorities and needs. This was the beginning of PRA. Since that time, PRA has spread to many thousands of agencies in Africa and elsewhere.

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The Open Gates Lecture Series (2009-10),

Exploring the American Experience

At Worcester Academy’s Warner Theater

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“Art, Music and American identity,” October 21st, 2009, 7-8:30 PM (click here for video of the first lecture)

•    Introduction (J. Murnane)

•    The Story of the National Anthem (D. Morse)

•    Academy Singers

•    Art and the Jeffersonian Ideal: America Through the Works of Ralph Earl, Thomas Cole, William S. Jewett, and John Gast (D. Baillie)

William Carpenter, 1779
Oil on canvas
47 7/8 x 35 5/8 in. (121.6 x 90.5 cm)
Worcester Art Museum purchase, 1916.1

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“Other Voices,” 17th November 2009, 7-8:30 PM

•    Jazz and the African-American Story (J. Murnane, J. Allard, A. Vaudreuil)
•    The Harlem Renaissance (R. Thompson, A. Vaudreuil, J. Haringa)

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“Science, Technology and American Life,” January, 20th 2010, 7-8:30 PM

•    The Automobile and the Transformation of America (E. Plickert, W. Osborn)
•    Computers and the Future (A. Viva, D. Bill)
•    Medical and Scientific Breakthroughs (F. Smith)

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Beyond “US” vs. “Them”
A Lecture Series on the Media
and Popular Perceptions of the Middle East

At Worcester Academy’s Warner Theater

October 22, 2008 (7-8:30 PM)

It begins with an introduction to the series, the concept of the “other,” the theories of Edward Said and other Middle East scholars. The hosts are Rodney Glasgow and John Murnane from Worcester Academy. We will discuss the film “Edward Said On Orientalism.”  We will close with a solo guitar performance of “Capricho Arabe” by Alan Vaudreuil, Band Director at WA.

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Click here for film clips of the opening lecture

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November 19, 2008 (7-8:30 PM)

Is it really US vs. Them? The Arab Contribution to Mathematics with Rick Yanco, Elena Stamatakos, and Matt Echleman. The Arab Connection with Andalusia, literature and music, with John Murnane and Anthony Butler.

Click here for the videos re: this lecture

January 20, 2009 (7-8:30 PM)

Our Guest speaker, free-lance journalist, Tom Verde has written for the New York Times and National Public Radio. He is pursuing a master’s degree in Islamic studies and Christian–Muslim relations at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. He traveled to Morocco on a scholarship from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion Newswriters Foundation. His latest article, “A Man of Two Worlds, appeared in Saudi Aramco World (January/February, 2008). On Leo Africanus, Verde’s work highlights the connections between the Middle East and the West.

April 7, 2009 (7-8:30 PM)

Edward Hines plays the sazi

Middle Eastern music program with Fulbright scholar, composer, performer, ethnomusicologist and music educator Edward J Hines, an introduction to fascinating instruments that have unique sounds and have been played in Middle Eastern music since the Middle Ages. Learn how ancient Middle Eastern musical instruments are connected to the music of Western cultures. Experience old-world sounds that once were common in both Europe and the Near East

May 20, 2009 (7-8:30 PM)

THIS PROGRAM WORKS IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE 10TH GRADE PROJECT FOR 2008-2009

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