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Catholicism in the White House topic of St. Thomas More talk
Jim Towey, director of the White House Office for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, will speak on campus on Tuesday, Feb. 3.
Towey will address the role of religion in public life in a lecture titled "The Place for Faith in Faith-Based Groups in the Public Square" at 4:30 p.m. in the Saint Thomas More Chapel, 268 Park St. Doors open at 4 p.m. for the lecture, which is free and open to the public. For more information, call (203) 777-5537.
Towey has extensive government experience, cutting across traditional party lines. He served Republican U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield as legislative director and legal counsel and also served in the cabinet of Democratic Florida Governor Lawton Chiles.
In 1993, Chiles appointed Towey to run Florida's health and social services agency, considered to be the largest in the United States.
Moving to the non-profit sector in 1995, Towey founded and ran the national organization Aging with Dignity.
In his Yale talk, Towey will discuss his work at the White House as well as his own faith and its impact on his life.
Towey considers his work with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whom he met in 1985, to be the most significant time in his life. Towey describes visiting her home for the dying as the "defining moment" in his life. He served as legal counsel to Mother Teresa for 12 years and in 1990 lived as a full-time volunteer in her home for people with AIDS in Washington, D.C.
Author C.D. Wright and poet Forrest Gander will read from their works on Tuesday, Feb. 3.
The reading will take place at 4 p.m. at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St. A reception will follow. For more information, contact Nancy Kuhl at (203) 432-2966 or nancy.kuhl@yale.edu.
Wright is the author of more than 10 books, including "Steal Away: New and Selected Poems" and "String Light," which won the 1992 Poetry Center Book Award. Among her most recent publications is "One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana," an acclaimed collaboration with photographer Deborah Luster.
Wright has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others. Her honors include the Witter Bynner Prize, the poet laureateship of Rhode Island, and a Whiting Award.
A professor at Brown University, Wright also co-edits Lost Roads Publishers with Gander.
Gander, who is a professor of English and comparative literature and director of the Graduate Program in Literary Arts and Creative Writing at Brown University, has written six books of poetry. His works include "Torn Awake" and "Science and Steepleflower," and he is the editor of "Mouth to Mouth: 12 Contemporary Mexican Women Poets." His translations include "No Shelter: The Selected Poems of Pura López Colomé" and "Immanent Visitor: The Selected Poems of Jaime Saenz."
Gander has been honored with the Whiting Award, two Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative North American Writing, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Fund for Poetry.
Jordan B. Pollack, professor of computer science at the Center for Complex Systems and director of the Dynamical and Evolutionary Machine Organization (DEMP) Laboratory at Brandeis University, will speak to the Technology and Ethics working research group on Wednesday, Feb. 4.
Pollack's lecture, titled "Intelligenthics: Questions for the Age of Automation," will take place at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, 77 Prospect St. A workshop will take place from 4:15 p.m. to 5:45 p.m., and will be followed by a dinner and a discussion period from 5:45 p.m. to 7 p.m. For reading materials and dinner reservations, contact Carol Pollard at (203) 432-6188 or carol.pollard@yale.edu.
Pollack's laboratory, DEMP, has received funding by the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies, and has received considerable media attention. Itt has been mentioned in Wired, Edge.org, The New York Times and PBS's Scientific American Frontiers. The GOLEM project, which produced the first robot that in turn created other robots, garnered worldwide media coverage in 2000. In 2001, Pollack was named one of MIT Technology Reviews "TR 10" innovators.
Jordan's lab moved into evolutionary and co-evolutionary computation in the early 1990s. Their work focused on formalizing the answer to the question of whether progress in evolution is possible without a central designer.
In 1999, Jordan founded a company called Thinmail, which markets advanced telecommunications middleware to people with email addresses.
DEMP's current projects include making robots that perform more complex tasks and designing educational technology enabling open-ended learning.
Author, television anchor and lecturer Gotham Chopra will deliver a Calhoun College master's tea on Thursday, Feb. 5.
Chopra will speak at 4:30 p.m. at the Calhoun College master's house, 434 College St. The talk is free and the public is invited to attend.
Chopra is an anchor for Channel One News, a daily educational broadcast that reaches over 12 thousand schools and 8 million students. During the past two years, Gotham has reported from locations in the West Bank, Pakistan, Chechnya, Iran, and over 20 states in the United States. He has interviewed a wide range of global leaders -- from President Bush to the Dalai Lama to associates of Osama bin Laden.
Chopra has broadcast from sites as diverse as the Pope's pep rally in St. Louis and the 50-yard line of the Superbowl. His global assignments have sent him on patrol with anti-militant commando units in war-torn Kashmir and had him detained by the secret police in China, Iran and Pakistan.
Chopra is the author of "Familiar Strangers," a non-fiction and spiritual chronicle of his travels and encounters at the frontlines of areas in conflict and transition. He serves as story editor on the "Bulletproof Monk," a comic book about bullets, monks, gangs and seekers. Chopra also served as executive producer on the film version, produced in 2002 by Lion Rock Films and MGM Studios.
The co-founder of 5K Entertainment, Chopra has served as executive producer on feature films as well as co-creator of television concepts and comic books currently in production.
Poet and author Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, will visit the campus as part of the Black History Month Program on Friday, Feb. 6.
The program will begin at 6 p.m. in the dining hall at Calhoun College, 189 Elm St. Seating is limited and reservations are required. Call the master's office at (203) 432-0740 for seating availability and reservations.
A world-renowned poet, writer and educator for over 30 years, Giovanni is considered to be one of the most widely read American poets. She has written more than 20 books, including volumes of poetry, illustrated children's books, and three collections of essays. Her book "Racism 101" includes controversial essays about the situation of Americans on all sides of various race issues. Her two most recent volumes of poetry, "Love Poems" and "Blues: For All the Changes," were winners of the NAACP Image Award in 1998 and 2000, respectively.
Giovanni, who has taught writing and literature at Virginia Tech since 1987, is also a committed civil rights activist.
She has received 19 honorary doctorates and numerous other awards, including "Woman of the Year" awards from three magazines as well as Governors' Awards in the Arts from both Tennessee and Virginia.
T H I S
Beinecke event to feature poetry readings
Automation to be explored in technology and ethics lecture
Educational reporter to be guest at master's tea
Celebrated poet to participate in Black History Month event
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