The Leading Edge

Tuesday, March 7

OSU University Chorale — 7:30 p.m., First Congregational, 4515 SW West Hills Road.

Wednesday, March 8

Diplomat in Residence Dorothy Ngutter will in 207 Bexell Hall from 1-1:50 p.m. Students will learn about careers &internship programs with the U.S. Department of State (DOS).

The Electoral College and American Democracy — Why do we have an Electoral College? A panel of OSU faculty will address this question by discussing the origins, purposes and implications of the Electoral College. Q&A session will follow. Sponsored by the Citizenship & Crisis Initiative and SHPR. 4 p.m., MU 213: Pan-Afrikan Sankofa Room.

Friday, March 10

Theories and Practices of Social Transformation — A roundtable discussion with CLA professors Bradley Boovy, Barbara Muraca and Elizabeth Sheehan. This event is part of the graduate conference Transform-able Identities. 11:30 a.m., Center for the Humanities, 811 SW Jefferson Ave. 

Music a la Carte — OSU Campus Band. Noon, MU Lounge.

OSU Anthropology Lecture Series — Dr. Kelly Biedenweg, Assistant Professor of Human Dimensions of Fisheries and Wildlife at OSU, will give a lecture on “Integrating Human Wellbeing and Ecosystem Services with Puget Sound Communities.” She will speak from 12 to 12:50 p.m. in Waldo Hall Room 201A. This event is part of the Anthropology Program’s “Tan Sack” Lecture Series.

Undoing Border Imperialism — A public talk by Canadian journalist and social activist Harsha Walia. The talk addresses the global refugee crisis and its implications for North America by reformulating immigrant and refugee rights movements within a transnational analysis of capitalism. The event is part of the graduate conference Transform-able Identities. 7 p.m., Milam Auditorium. 

SWLF Visiting Writers Series — Poet and essayist Ross Gay will read at 7:30 p.m. in the Valley Library Rotunda, followed by a question-and-answer session and book signing. Gay is the author of “Against Which” and “Bringing the Shovel Down.” His 2015 poetry collection, “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” won the Kingsley Tufts Award and the National Books Critics Circle Award, was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Balcones Poetry Prize, and the Ohioana Book Award and was nominated for the NAACP Image Award and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.

Recurring Events

Oregon State University Theatre will present Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s apocalyptic comedy, “boom” March 9-12 in the Lab Theatre. The play features an undergraduate journalism student, Jo, who responds to a personal ad promising “sex to change the course of the world.” She has no idea she will end up in a secret underground bunker with Jules, a nervously nerdy biology graduate student. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. March 9-11 and 2 p.m. March 12.

The exhibit, Microbiomes: Imagining the Unseen is on view from Feb 20 to Mar 24 at the Little Gallery, Kidder 210, with a reception being held on March 16.  Additionally, there is a call to artists for Microbiomes: Connecting Communities. Submissions for the April exhibition are required by March 17. Both events are a part of SPARK: Arts+Science@OSU.

New work by Portland area artists Damien Gilley and Jeff Sheridan will be on display Jan. 25 through March 8 in the Fairbanks Gallery on the Oregon State University Corvallis campus. The gallery is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Gilley is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including Tetem Kunstruimte, Enshchede, Netherlands; EastWestProject, Berlin; MARC, Kivik, Sweden; Suyama Space, Seattle; Las Belfry, New York; the Art Museum of South Texas and in various Portland locations.

Upcoming Events

Public Knowledge: The Writings of Michael Asher — Kirsi Peltomäki, Associate Professor of Art History and 2016-17 Center for the Humanities Research Fellow, will discuss her archives-based work on editing a collection of contemporary artist Michael Asher’s writings for publication. The project considers how language functioned in Asher’s material practice of reconfiguring museums, galleries, and other art world spaces. Monday, March 13, 4 p.m., Autzen House, 811 SW Jefferson Avenue. 

On Tuesday, Mar. 14, at 7:00 p.m. in the Valley Library Rotunda, Literary Arts and the OSU Creative Writing Program present an evening with 2017 Oregon Book Awards finalists: Sue Armitage, Tracy Daugherty, Mary Emerick, Martha Grover, Kathleen Dean Moore, Scott Nadelson, and Jennifer Richter.  

Current Research, Publications and Creative Activity  

Director of Performing Arts and Popular Music Bob Santelli travels to Princeton University this week to moderate a discussion on the photographic history of Bruce Springsteen. Additionally, he will speak to more than 400 teachers on using music as an agent for social and cultural change at the SXSW festival in Austin Texas, and attend the opening of the Stevie Ray Vaughan exhibit at the Bullock Museum in Austin, which was curated by the GRAMMY Museum.

Art instructor Evan Baden recently sold a photograph to the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago for their permanent collection.

Charlene Martinez (Associate Director of Integrated Learning for Social Change), Stephanie Shippen (Psychologist with Counseling & Psychological Services), Nana Osei-Kofi (Associate Professor of Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies/Director of the Difference, Power, and Discrimination Program), and Vanessa Johnson (University of Utah), presented a roundtable titled From Identity Development to Change Agent: The Role of the Practitioner in Multiracial Student Development and Empowerment at the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference in Los Angeles, CA, February 24-27, 2017.

Associate professor of music and coordinator of music education Wesley Brewer presented at the Desert Skies Symposium on Research in Music Education last week at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. The lecture, titled “Eminent Composers in Educational Resources for Band,” was based on his recently completed study which examines space allocated to composers in suggested, recommended and required repertoire lists through an analysis of 32,267 compositions using descriptive statistics. In addition to the presentation, Brewer was also an invited panelist at the conference in a keynote presentation titled “What Will We Do Now? Speaking Truth to Power” in which we spoke about the needs of non-traditional students in music education. 

Professor of music and director of choral studies Steven M. Zielke was the invited guest conductor and clinician at the Social Justice Choral Festival on Saturday, March 4 in Tucson, Arizona. The festival brought together singers from throughout Tucson to prepare and perform musical works with social justice themes.