January 2010

Friday, January 8th

• Convocation: Susan Douglas
  • Susan Douglas is a media critic whose book "Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media" reveals how television and advertising target images of women. A professor of communication studies and chair of the department at the University of Michigan, she has also written for The Nation, The Village Voice, Ms., The Washington Post and TV Guide, and was the media critic for The Progressive from 1992-1998. She has appeared on The Today Show, The CBS Early Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNBC's Equal Time, NPR's Fresh Air, Weekend Edition, Talk of the Nation, Michael Feldman’s Whad’ya Know and various radio talk shows around the country. "Where the Girls Are" was widely praised, and chosen one of the top ten books of 1994 by National Public Radio, Entertainment Weekly and The McLaughlin Group. Her book "Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination" won the Hacker Prize in 2000 for the best popular book about technology and culture. Her new book, "Enlightened Sexism," is a follow up to "Where the Girls Are" and will be released March 1, 2010. The book chronicles the widening gap between the images of women in the mass media and the everyday lives of girls and women in the United States.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

Friday, January 15th

• Convocation: Lowell Bergman
  • Lowell Bergman is an investigative reporter with The New York Times and producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series “Frontline”. As a professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, Bergman has for over 15 years taught a seminar dedicated to investigative reporting. His far-ranging projects have included investigations into the war on drugs, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the credit card and gold industries, Al Qaeda's recent attacks in Europe, and the domestic energy crisis. Additionally, he has worked across the media spectrum – print, broadcast and electronic media – and along the way won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and every major award in broadcasting, including numerous Emmys, Peabodys, and a Writers Guild Award.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

Friday, January 22nd

• Convocation: Stephanie Kinnunen
  • Stephanie Kinnunen is CEO and Co-Founder of NEED magazine, the first independent magazine dedicated solely to global and domestic humanitarian issues. NEED magazine creates exposure for humanitarian aid via an educational, artistic, visual narrative of human stories, both around the world and domestically. This exposure offers an innovative and dynamic approach to building awareness and increasing support for relief organizations and Humanitarian Aid. NEED magazine does not have a political agenda, but rather seeks to inspire volunteer work by telling the stories of people currently doing humanitarian work and accompanying those stories with outstanding photography. Their motto is "We are not out to save the world but to tell the stories of those who are."
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

Friday, January 29th

• Convocation: Alexandra Jamieson
  • Alexandra Jamieson is the author of "The Great American Detox Diet" and is perhaps best known for her appearance in the documentary film "Super Size Me". A holistic health counselor and vegan chef, Jamieson works with clients who have been diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, food allergies, infertility, asthma, and chronic fatigue syndrome. She provides nutritional and lifestyle counseling and support in a fun and empowering way.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

February 2010

Friday, February 5th

• Convocation: E. Patrick Johnson
  • E. Patrick Johnson is Professor, Chair, and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Performance Studies and Professor in African American Studies at Northwestern University. A scholar/artist, Johnson has performed nationally and internationally and has published widely in the area of race, gender, sexuality and performance. His book "Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity" has won several awards, including the Lilla A. Heston Award, the Errol Hill Book Award, and was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. He is also co-author of "Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology."
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

Friday, February 12th

• Convocation: Todd Larson '83
  • Todd Larson (Carleton Class of 1983) is senior counselor at the New York Coordinator Office of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Based at United Nations Headquarters, Larson undertakes extensive outreach throughout North American on behalf of WIPO. He has beenwith the United Nations system for nearly two decades, previously serving in the field with both the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations. He has been influential in the international community, including spearheading the recognition of civil unions for same-sex partners in the U.N. system.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

Friday, February 19th

• Convocation: Rudolph Byrd
  • Rudolph P. Byrd, professor of African American studies at Emory University, began his academic career at Carleton College where he was a member of the Department of English and Chair of the Program of African and African American Studies. He joined the faculty of Emory University in 1991 and is the founding director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, established in 2007. Named for James Weldon Johnson, author, composer, educator, lawyer, diplomat, and pioneering leader in the modern civil rights movement, the Johnson Institute is the first institute at Emory University established to honor the achievements of an American of African descent. One of the premiere sites in the nation for the study of the modern civil rights movement, the work of the Johnson Institute is to offer a framework for understanding the history and legacy of civil rights, and to provide a context to explain the ways in which the civil rights movement continues to have relevance. The Johnson Institute is the home of the Alice Walker Literary Society, of which Byrd is the founding co-chair. An engaged scholar committed to service and scholarship at the local and national levels, Byrd is also a consultant to the United Negro College Fund/Andrew W. Mellon Programs.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

Friday, February 26th

• Convocation: Patrice Gaines
  • Patrice Gaines is an award winning journalist and former Washington Post reporter who has proven that you cannot judge a book by its cover. She grew up a self-hating young woman, entering one abusive relationship after another. She became a heroin user, went to prison for possession of the drug and was raped and beaten before she began her long contemplative journey to change. She later began her journalism career at the Miami News, and worked for sixteen years as a reporter with the Washington Post, where she carved a niche for herself focusing on human-interest stories that reflected current issues. During this time she spent six years researching a notorious Washington, D.C. murder for which eight young men remain incarcerated. Her work on the story raised serious doubts about the guilt of the youths and showed readers the absolute power wielded by police and prosecutors. This story plus her own experience with the judicial and penal systems sparked her to begin speaking on the states of those systems today, including the high rate of incarceration among minorities and the poor, questionable police practices, prosecutors with too much power, and the weeding out of bad lawyers. She also offers an engaging look at the power of the press, told from an insider point of view.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

April 2010

Friday, April 9th

• Convocation: Joshua Aronson
  • Joshua Aronson is Associate Professor of Applied Psychology at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. He has been studying stereotypes, self-esteem, motivation, and attitudes for the past 13 years. His work seeks to understand and remediate race and gender gaps in educational achievement and standardized test performance. Often, the low performance of blacks in particular, but other minorities as well, gets casually chalked up to genetic or cultural differences that supposedly block acquisition of skills or values necessary for academic achievement. In sharp contrast, Aronson has uncovered some exciting and encouraging answers to these old questions by looking at the psychology of stigma - the way human beings respond to negative stereotypes about their racial or gender group. What he has found suggests that being targeted by well-known cultural stereotypes ("blacks are unintelligent", "girls can't do math", and so on) can be very threatening, a predicament that has been termed "Stereotype Threat."
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

Friday, April 16th

• Convocation: Ronald Heifetz
  • Ronald Heifetz is one of the world's leading authorities on leadership. In contemporary America, a traditionally respectful and idealistic view of people in positions of power is changing. High-profile scandals and abuses of power have undermined the public’s perception of his leaders in both the political and business worlds, realigning the very ideal of leadership. What sort of behavior makes for effective leadership in today’s world? The work of Heifetz provides insight into this question. The founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Heifetz is renowned worldwide for his seminal work on both the practice and teaching of leadership. Co-founder and principal of Cambridge Leadership Associates, Heifetz consults extensively in the United States and abroad, with clients who include senior executives at major corporations, leaders of non-profits, and heads of nations. His widely acclaimed book, Leadership Without Easy Answers, is currently beyond its thirteenth printing and has been translated into many languages.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

Friday, April 23rd

• Convocation: Cheryl Klein '00
  • Cheryl Klein (Carleton Class of 2000) is a senior editor at Arthur A. Levine Books, where she served as the continuity editor on the last three Harry Potter books. Assuming the role of the series' chief "Potterologist," as Time magazine dubbed her, Klein was responsible for ensuring that the elaborate world J.K. Rowling had created – with a complex cast of characters, a thorough set of magical rules, and a language of its own – was as consistent as possible. A former Carletonian copy editor, Klein is in her dream job, working with a diverse and talented group of authors and illustrators on an equally diverse array of projects.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

Friday, April 30th

• Convocation: Richard Moss '77
  • Richard Moss (Carleton Class of 1977) is Vice President and Managing Director for Climate Change at the World Wildlife Fund. But his passion for the environment began long before he joined WWF. From turning his mother’s kitchen into an environmental research lab as a teen to being a member of the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) team, Moss brings over 20 years of experience to WWF. He is at the forefront of WWF’s efforts to develop conservation plans that account for our changing climate and contribute to rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. He ensures that the best science and information is used in WWF’s planning, and that solutions to climate change are a global priority. As a science-driven, global thinker, Moss is shaping WWF’s leadership role to focus on adapting to climate changes we can no longer avoid and getting real reductions in emissions as soon as possible.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

May 2010

Friday, May 7th

• Convocation: Oliver Wang
  • Oliver Wang writes on pop music, culture, and politics for a variety of publications and outlets including: NPR, Vibe, Wax Poetics, LA Times, Oakland Tribune, Village Voice, SF Bay Guardian, URB, LA Weekly, Scratch, SJ Metro and Minneapolis City Pages, amongst others. He also maintains a separate site, ChasingChan.com, for his writing on Asian American cinema. In 2003, he edited and co-authored the book, Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide. Wang has a PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley. His dissertation, a social history of the Filipino American mobile DJ community in the Bay Area, has since been turned into a community research project called "Legions of Boom" and currently being adapted into a manuscript to be published by Duke University Press. As Assistant Professor of Sociology at CSU-Long Beach, Wang teaches courses in popular culture, social issues and race/class/gender.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel

Friday, May 14th

• Convocation: Kevin Clements
  • Kevin Clements is the Foundation Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies and Director of the New Zealand Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand, and Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association. Prior to taking up these positions he was the Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland in Australia. He had previously served as Secretary General of International Alert, one of the world’s largest NGO's working on conflict transformation in Africa, the Caucasus, Asia and Latin America. He has also been Professor of Conflict Resolution and Director of the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Virginia and head of the Peace Research Centre at the Australian National University. Clements' career has been a combination of academic analysis and practice in the areas of peace building and conflict transformation. He was formerly Director of the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva and a member of the New Zealand Delegation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. Clements has been an advisor on defense, security and conflict issues to a range of governmental and non-governmental organizations in Australasia, the United States and Europe. Over the past two decades, he has served as chairman, facilitator and keynote speaker at many international peace and conflict resolution conferences.
  • 10:50 am, Skinner Memorial Chapel