Roy Scranton/Assembly Speaker and Roundtable Host
April 15, 2014
Roy Scranton‘s essays, reviews, and fiction have appeared in The New York Times, Boston Review, Bookforum, Contemporary Literature, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. He served in the US Army from 2002 to 2006, and spent fourteen months in Iraq. He earned an MA at the New School for Social Research, and is currently working on a PhD in English at Princeton. He is working on two books at the moment: The Lost War: World War II in American Literature, 1945-1975, a work of literary and historical criticism investigating the dominance of traumatic narratives in the canonical literature of World War II; and Learning to Die in the Anthropocene, a philosophical essay on the meaning of human life in the midst of global climate crisis.
Ron Cino
Head of School, Worcester Academy
Tuesday, 3 December 2013. 7-8 PM in Warner Theater
Worcester Academy has been engaged in an ambitious capital campaign, OnWArd: The Campaign For Worcester Academy, with a goal of raising $50 million to strengthen facilities and programs directly benefiting students. With the support of our parents, alumni, and other friends of the school, we have raised an impressive $34 million, which has been used to fund the highly successful renovation of Kingsley Labs, the acquisition of the South Campus and subsequent construction of Morse Field, and the growth of our endowment. We are entering the Capstone Phase of OnWArd with a roughly $20 million multi-building facilities improvement plan. With construction focused over two summers, the renovation of Walker Hall, one of our historic and most prominent buildings, is the centerpiece of this plan; Walker will emerge as a first-rate center for the humanities that will serve Worcester Academy well for generations to come. Head of School Ronald M. Cino will discuss the challenge of balancing the preservation of our historical buildings with the Academy’s efforts to support sustainability and the ongoing effort to create a greener world. Mr. Cino will also discuss the process the Academy went through to obtain LEED certification Silver for this new project.
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How to Save the Oceans and Feed the World
Andrew Sharpless, CEO, Oceana and author, The Perfect Protein
Thursday, November 7
New England Aquarium Lecture Series, Boston
With Earth’s human population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050—adding the equivalent of two Chinas to current numbers—we need wild fish more than ever to feed us (especially the nearly 1 billion of the world’s poorest people who rely on seafood as their main source of animal protein). The bad news is that wild fish populations are in decline because of overfishing, destruction of habitat and bycatch. We are grinding up small fish such as anchovies, mackerel and sardines into feed for salmon and other farmed animals, even though these overlooked fish are delicious and healthy and could feed millions inexpensively. The good news, as Andrew Sharpless explains, is that if just 25 coastal nations of the world—including the United States—take three steps to better manage their wild seafood supply, our oceans will not only become more biodiverse, they will be far more abundant and capable of feeding hundreds of millions more people every day at a sustainable rate. Sharpless’s message is clear. We can save the oceans and feed the world.
Click here for more on the Aquarium series.
We will charter a bus leaving Worcester Academy at 4 PM
Dinner at Legal Sea Foods in Boston/Lecture is at 7 PM.
Email john.murnane@worcesteracademy.org to reserve your spot.
Click here for an article about the threats to our oceans.
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Dr. Jeff Pappas
Director of The New Mexico Historical Preservation Division
Monday, 21 October 2013. 7-8 PM in Warner Theater
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Dr. Pappas is a Worcester native and a former member of the Worcester Academy faculty. He received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University, taught at Colorado State University and served in the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office after leaving Worcester Academy. Dr. Pappas has worked for over 20 years in the National Park Service, primarily at Yosemite National Park. As the Director of The New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, Pappas helps identify and protect New Mexico’s cultural resources, including its archaeological sites, architectural and engineering achievements, cultural landscapes and diverse heritage. Pappas oversees efforts to help communities identify, evaluate, preserve, and revitalize their historic, archaeological, and cultural resources.
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–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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Kerry Spitzer and Anne Bowman
October 18, 2012 (7-8 pm, Warner Theatre)
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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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The City Dark
Thursday, January 17th 2013. From 6:30 to 8 PM in Warner Theater
Big cities run 24/7, supported by artificial lighting. Does this pose health risks? Does it matter that people in cities seldom see the night sky? Filmmaker Ian Cheney thinks that it does.
THE CITY DARK is a new feature documentary from filmmaker Ian Cheney (KING CORN, THE GREENING OF SOUTHIE) chronicling the disappearance of darkness and the extinction of the starry night sky. The film won awards in the Documentary Competition at SXSW Film Festival in March 2011.
We will screen and then discuss this film. Michael Carroll, Worcester Academy’s Director of Sustainabilty, and Dr. John Murnane, Director of the Open Gates program, will co-host this event.
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Worcester in 2020 by David Forsberg
TBA
David Forsberg will sketch out major changes and initiatives to revitalize and modernize the city of Worcester–past, present and future. As former President of the Worcester Business Development Corporation (WBDC) and a leader in the development and revitalization of Worcester, he brings a unique hands-on perspective. He will put the future of the city into a historical context and outline some of the major projects designed to improve life in the city of Worcester over the next 10 years.
[…] The Lecture Series continues on Nov 17th–on Jazz and African-American History and the Harlem Renaissance. If your curious about the video clip below, we will be explaining the underlying structure and its connection to Africa-American History. (Click here for full lecture schedule please.) […]
Hoping to have Prof. O’Malley on Thursday, Oct 21, 2010.
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