Office of Events and Summer Programs

Pickard Theater
Karofsky Faculty Encore Lecture
Nancy Jennings, Assistant Professor of Education at Bowdoin College.

Professor Jennings has been at Bowdoin since 1995. Her work has appeared in numerous education journals including Journal of Education Policy, Teachers College Record and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Her most recent work has focused on issues in rural education. Professor Jennings is the author of the book Interpreting Policy in Real Classrooms. Her talk is entitled "Ice Fishing and Engagement: Some Lessons from Classrooms."

The Karofsky Family Fund was established by Paul I. '66, his son David M. '93, and his brother Peter '62 in memory of their father and David's grandfather, Sydney B. Karofsky. The Fund, which has underwritten the Sydney B. Karofsky Prize for Junior Faculty, recently added the Common Hour Karofsky Lectures. Each semester, the Karofsky Encore Lecture will feature a Bowdoin faculty member chosen by members of the senior class honoring him or her as a teacher and role model.

Pickard Theater
Angela Y. Davis, Professor of History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz, author and activist.
Audio available in .mp3 format.

Professor Davis is known internationally for her efforts to combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad. She is the co-founder of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and is committed to prisoners' rights and criminal justice system reform.

Davis has lectured all over the United States, as well as in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the former Soviet Union. She is the author of five books, including Women, Race, & Class and Blues Legacies and Black Feminisms: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, and has contributed to numerous journals and anthologies. Her next book will focus on race, criminalization, and the differential treatment of women in prison.

Davis is the first African American to hold a full tenured professorship in the History of Consciousness program at UC Santa Cruz, where she was recently appointed to the University of California Presidential Chair in African American and Feminist Studies.

This Common Hour event is being co-sponsored by the Bowdoin College African American Society.

Morrell Lounge
Dora Anne Mills '82, MD, MPH, Director, Maine Bureau of Health

Dr. Mills is a native of Maine and a graduate of Bowdoin College, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Children's Hospital of Los Angeles Internship and Residency Program, and the Harvard School of Public Health. She practiced medicine in Tanzania, East Africa, Los Angeles, and Farmington, Maine before taking her current job in 1996 as the Director of the Maine Bureau of Health and as Maine's Chief Health Officer. Her talk is entitled "Health Issues at the Dawn of the 21st Century."

Morrell Lounge
George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.

George Will has been a columnist for the nationally syndicated Washington Post since 1974 and a contributing editor to Newsweek magazine since 1976. In 1977, Will won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in his newspaper columns, which have been published in six collections, including the most recent entitled The Woven Figure: Conservatism and America's Fabric. He is also the author of several books including Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does, The New Season: A Spectator's Guide to the 1988 Election, and Restoration: Congress, Term Limits and The Recover of Deliberative Democracy. Will has also taught political philosophy at Michigan State University, the University of Toronto, and Harvard University, and served as a staff member in the United States Senate from 1970 to 1972. His talk is entitled "Public Affairs, Public Policy and American Society."

Kresge Auditorium
Frederick Wiseman, Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker.

In 1967, while working as a professor of law, Wiseman made his first documentary film, Titicut Follies, a controversial portrayal of conditions at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Since then, Wiseman has made more than 30 films primarily exploring American institutions - everything from high schools to zoos to the world of modeling. His most recent film, Belfast, Maine (1999), about a beautiful old New England port city, documents ordinary experience in a small American city. Wiseman and his films have won many awards, including the Irene Diamond Life-Time Achievement Award (2000) from the Human Rights Watch. Wiseman's talk will focus on the art of documentary filmmaking.

Two of Wiseman's films, Belfast, Maine and Welfare will be screened on campus prior to his Common Hour talk.

The Chapel
Discussion: Inroads, Crossroads, or Both?

A discussion about the role of the admissions office in shaping the academic environment at Bowdoin. Facilitated by Wil Smith '00, Coordinator of Multicultural Student Programs. Sponsored by the Student Government.

Pickard Theater
Performance

Masque & Gown presents "Job Interviewing Made Easy" by Patrick Robbins (Bowdoin Bookstore). Directed by Aaron Hess '04 and starring Kristina Balbo '01, Jennifer Dodd '01, Jon Lapak '01, Allison Lindell '02, Nicholas Powell '04, Xavier Santiago '01, Van Tran '02, and Erik Woodbury '01. Masque and Gown gives undergraduates at Bowdoin an opportunity to express their interests in the theater. Founded in 1903, the student-run group eventually led to the formation of the Theater and Dance Department at Bowdoin.

The Chapel
Marsha Johnson Evans, National Executive Director, Girls Scouts of the USA.
Audio available in .mp3 format.

After a 29-year career in the United States Navy, Evans retired having attained the rank of Rear Admiral. She has been at the forefront of increasing opportunities for women in the Navy, including opening the full range of operational assignments. Most recently, she served as Superintendent of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. She also headed the Navy's worldwide recruiting organization from 1993 to 1995. In January of 1998, Evans assumed her position as the National Executive Director of Girl Scouts of the USA, the largest organization for girls in the world. Evans is also a director of the May Department Stores Company and serves on numerous non-profit boards of directors.

Pickard Theater
Performance
Anna Deavere Smith, Professor in the Arts at Stanford University, award-winning playwright and actor.

Anna Deavere Smith has been called "the most exciting individual in American theater," and in 1996 received a prestigious "genius" fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation. Over the past 18 years, Smith has created a body of theatrical work, which she calls On the Road: Search for American Character. The media, critics and audiences across the country have praised Smith's work, which explores the American character and our multifaceted national identity. She has written and performed several critically acclaimed plays including Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. Her latest play, a work-in-progress called House Arrest, explores the singular and mythic role that the presidency has played in the American psyche throughout history. In addition to her roles as actor and playwright, Smith teaches at New York University and Stanford where she is the Ann O'Day Maples Professor of the Arts. Her performance is entitled "Snapshots: Glimpses of America in Change."

A reception will take place in the Drake Lobby of Memorial Hall following the Common Hour.

Morrell Lounge
Thomas Glave '93, Assistant Professor of English at SUNY Binghamton, award-winning author.

Recently voted a "Writer on the Verge" by The Village Voice Literary Supplement (June 2000), Glave has received many awards for his work, among them the prestigious O. Henry Prize. He is only the second gay black writer, after James Baldwin, to claim that honor. He has been published and praised in many literary journals including Callaloo, Black Renaissance / Renaissance Noire, The Massachusetts Review, and The Kenyon Review. Glave's work has also appeared in various anthologies including Children Of The Night: The Best Short Stories By Black Writers 1967-Present, His 2: Brilliant New Fiction by Gay Writers, Soulfires: Young Black Men On Love And Violence, and Prize Stories 1997: The O. Henry Awards. His book, Whose Song? And Other Stories, was published in October 2000 by City Lights Publishers.

Location to be announced.
Nathaniel Wheelwright, Professor of Biology at Bowdoin College.

Nat Wheelwright, Professor of Biology, studies animal behavior and the evolutionary ecology of plants. He recently co-edited Monteverde: Ecology and Conservation of a Neotropical Cloud Forest (Oxford University Press, 2000). In addition to teaching ecology, ornithology, environmental studies, and conservation biology, he directs the Bowdoin Scientific Station on Kent Island. His talk is entitled "Bird Song, Lion's Breath, and Email Office Hours."

The Chapel
Lunchbreak Music Concert, sponsored by the Department of Music

This week, Common Hour features an additional Lunchbreak Music Concert, sponsored by the Music Department. First Friday Lunchbreak Music Concerts are generally held at 12:30 in Gibson Hall, Room 101, on the first Friday of every month during the fall and spring. They provide both faculty and students with an opportunity to perform in an informal setting.

Walker Art Museum Steps
Museum Pieces, sponsored by the Department of Theater and Dance.

Common Hour festivities will feature a blend of dance, music, and pageantry, performed by Bowdoin students.