Lecture Schedule Spring 2021

Fall 2021 schedule will be posted around September 1, 2021.

Eric Davis

ERIC DAVIS
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Middlebury College

MARCH 26, 2021

Politics 2021: The New Administration After Two Months

Featuring: Eric Davis, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Middlebury College

Eric L. Davis is professor emeritus of political science at Middlebury College and a nationally recognized expert on Vermont and national politics. He has been a close observer of presidential, congressional, and Vermont elections for more than 30 years.

Davis writes a biweekly political column for the Addison Independent, and frequently provides political commentary for several Vermont and national media organizations, including Vermont Public Radio, WCAX-TV, the Rutland Herald, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and National Public Radio.

MELISSA WILLARD-FOSTER
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Vermont

MARCH 19, 2021

Promises, Promises: Do Presidents Keep Their Foreign Policy Campaign Pledges?

Featuring: Melissa Willard-Foster, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Vermont

Professor Willard-Foster’s teaching and research interests center broadly on the causes of international conflict and cooperation. She is especially interested in how domestic political pressures can lead states into wars that they might otherwise avoid. Her current book project, based on her dissertation, seeks to explain why major powers overthrow foreign governments, particularly those in militarily weak states. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and UCLA.

Before coming to UVM, she was a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs. Professor Willard-Foster teaches classes on international relations, international security, and war, strategy and politics.

DR. SHERWOOD SMITH
Senior Executive Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Director, Center for Cultural Pluralism; University of Vermont

MARCH 12, 2021

What the Center for Cultural Pluralism Does at the University of Vermont and Why That Name?: One Person’s Viewpoint

Featuring: Sherwood Smith, Senior Executive Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Director, Center for Cultural Pluralism; University of Vermont

Dr. Sherwood Smith has an appointment as Lecturer in Integrated Professional Studies and administrative responsibilities as Director of the Center for Cultural Pluralism at the University of Vermont (UVM). These joint positions involve conducting faculty and staff workshops, teaching graduate and undergraduate multicultural and human development courses and researching on issues of intercultural communication, cultural identity development and multicultural education.

BRITTA TONN
Architectural Historian

MARCH 5, 2021

The History and Architecture of the University of Vermont’s Green District

Featuring: Britta Tonn, Architectural Historian

Britta Tonn is a preservation planner at VHB in South Burlington. Her historic preservation planning career includes working as a senior architectural historian with CBRE, where she prepared NEPA compliance documents for telecommunication projects nationwide. She has documented Vermont’s rich history as an independent historic preservation consultant, focusing on the historic resources in Chittenden County. Ms. Tonn served on the Winooski Planning Commission and is an approved consultant for the Community Development Block Grant program. She is a regular lecturer with Education and Enrichment for Everyone. Ms. Tonn received her BA in History of Art and Architecture from Middlebury College. She has an MA in Education from Goddard University and an MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Vermont.

ANNE GALLOWAY
Founder and Editor, VTDigger; Executive Director, Vermont Journalism Trust

FEBRUARY 26, 2021

How COVID-19 Has Transformed VTDigger’s Reporting

Featuring: Anne Galloway, Founder and Editor, VTDigger; Executive Director, Vermont Journalism Trust

Anne Galloway is the founder and editor of VTDigger and the executive director of the Vermont Journalism Trust. Galloway founded VTDigger in 2009 after she was laid off from her position as Sunday editor of the Rutland Herald and Times Argus. VTDigger has grown from a $16,000 a year nonprofit with no employees to a $2 million nonprofit daily news operation with a staff of 25. In 2017, Galloway was a finalist for the Ancil Payne Award for Ethics, the Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award and the Investigative Reporters and Editors FOIA Award for her investigation into allegations of foreign investor fraud at Jay Peak Resort.

WILL NASH
Professor of American Studies and English and American Literatures, Middlebury College

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

Freedom Fighters Reconsidered: Contemporary Views of John Brown, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass

Featuring: Will Nash, Professor of American Studies and English and American Literatures, Middlebury College

William Nash is Professor of American Studies and English and American Literatures. He received his B.A. from Centre College of Kentucky and his M. A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has taught at Middlebury since 1995. The recipient of three NEH grants and author of Charles Johnson’s Fiction and co-editor of Charles Johnson: The Novelist as Philosopher, he has also published scholarly articles and reviews in anthologies and journals such as African American Review and Callaloo. His current research focuses on contemporary representations of American chattel slavery, with a special emphasis on the Underground Railroad. He teaches courses on African American literature, abolitionism, contemporary representations of enslavement, and modern urban African American culture.

BENJAMIN OLA. AKANDE
President, Champlain College

FEBRUARY 12, 2021

Leading in a Post-COVID-19 World: Challenges and Opportunities

Featuring: Benjamin Ola. Akande, President, Champlain College

Dr. Benjamin Ola. Akande was named the ninth President of Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont on April 21, 2020. From April 2018 to April 2020, Dr. Akande served as Assistant Vice Chancellor of International Programs-Africa, Director of the Africa Initiative, and Associate Director of the Global Health Center at Washington University in St. Louis. He also chaired Washington University’s International Travel Oversight Committee (ITOC).

Dr. Akande, a Nigerian-American citizen, is a respected economist, scholar educator, and global consultant to Fortune 500 companies and higher education institutions in the areas of strategy, leadership development, corporate responsibility, and market positioning. He served as a director of Ralcorp Holdings, Inc., a $5 billion publicly traded manufacturer of high-quality private food labels, including Post, and has consulted for Anheuser-Busch, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Voith, SeaWorld, and many other corporations.

LISA HOLMES
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Vermont

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

What Can’t Be Undone: The Trump Judiciary and the Biden Presidency

Featuring: Lisa Holmes, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Vermont

Professor Holmes specializes in judicial politics, constitutional law, gender and law, and American politics. Her research focuses on various issues surrounding the politics of appointing federal and state court judges. Her recent work on how presidents use judicial nominees to court favor with their partisan supporters and interested groups has been published in Presidential Studies Quarterly, American Politics Research, and the Drake Law Review. Her current project examines the implications of politicized appointment politics on the careers and attitudes of judicial nominees.

CCTV Center for Media & Democracy, Vermont

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