Special Lecture Previews

Sarah Gelfand | Staff Writer

Adding further depth to this week’s theme of “Government and the Search for the Common Good,” Jim Leach, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, will be holding two additional sessions this week to augment his 10:45 a.m. Monday lecture.

At 3:30 p.m. today in the Athenaeum Hotel Parlor, Leach will lead a Town Hall-style meeting, opening up the discussion of the topic at hand for a more advanced dialogue with Chautauquans.

“I think Chautauqua, first of all, is a center of a dialogue movement that symbolizes the best in American conversation,” Leach said.

Leach said he is looking forward to an avid discussion about government and responsibility. His current position as the head of a federal agency invested in an aspect of the common good — the humanities — and his past government service as a congressman lend some personal experience to his discussion.

Today’s Town Hall is representative of one of Leach’s major focuses, involving citizens in conversation about the government and civic responsibility.

“We’re in a country that has always been one in which citizens are considered to be the center of vitality of governance,” Leach said. “One of the great challenges is for all of us as citizens to insist that the government be accountable to us. That is a challenge at all times to American life and that we are all responsible and accountable for, and I think Chautauqua is a great place to bring that out.”

Leach hopes his Town Hall meeting will ignite the conversations necessary for inspiring action and responsibility but also provide him with new insight.

“What I have found around the country is that thoughtful citizens are loaded with not only questions, but observations that often are far more profound than anything I have suggested, and the Town Hall format is one in which the audience is likely to learn more from their colleagues than they will from me. I look at this as a great learning experience, and I have always enjoyed interactive events more than  the set up of a speaker lecturing,” Leach said.

At 12:15 p.m. Wednesday in Smith Wilkes Hall, Leach will open up this conversation further at an Elected Officials Panel. Leach will moderate questions and discussions among the panelists, who include William Clinger, a former congressman from Pennsylvania, and Amo Houghton, Stan Lundine, Jack Quinn and Thomas Reynolds, all former congressmen from New York. Clinger and Lundine are Chautauqua residents and have served on the Institution’s board of trustees.

“The panel is going to be fabulous,” Leach said. “I think you’re going to get a lot of commentary about how things work as well as what the issues are. We’ve got issues of war and peace, spending and taxation, just simply the ability of the government to make decisions. This particular group of panelists should be very enlightening, and I look forward to hearing their perspectives.”

Adding a call to action as a secondary function of the government panel, Leach said he hopes Chautauquans will come away from the event with an expanded view of American government and its functions and, most importantly, the impact of citizens.

“We’ll be trying to provide a perspective of American history on challenges of the time, which are extremely unique, and of a degree of importance that cannot be underestimated in where America is in the world today,” Leach said. “That is, we are facing challenges of a different nature than we ever envisioned as a country. In looking at these challenges, we’re going to have to adapt in new and profound ways.”

Sarah Gelfand | Staff Writer

If there is nothing more patriotic than dissonance, Chautauquans will certainly celebrate Independence Day in good form with a series of special lectures focusing on U.S. government dysfunction that starts this afternoon. Four speakers from the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at Arizona State University will lead the Lincoln Applied Ethics Lectures at 4 p.m. today through Wednesday at the Hall of Philosophy.

Peter French, the director of Lincoln Center, along with two Lincoln Professors and one Lincoln Fellow, will speak in conjunction with this week’s “Applied Ethics: Government and the Search for the Common Good” theme, while also engaging in discussion with their audiences.

In 1998, Chautauqua residents Joan and David Lincoln established the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at ASU to emphasize the importance of providing students with an ethical education. The Lincolns created a partnership between Chautauqua Institution and the Lincoln Center that has lasted more than a decade, sponsoring theme weeks ranging from “Business and Ethics” to “the Ethical Frontiers of Science.”

In his 10th year leading the ethics series at the Institution, French will open the series today with Jason Robert, a Lincoln professor. Tuesday afternoon, Lincoln professor Braden Allenby and Lincoln fellow Thomas Seager will speak, and on Wednesday, the four will give brief reprisals of their presentations and hold an open discussion and Q-and-A session with the audience.

Peter French

Chair and director of the Lincoln Center since its opening in 2000, French will begin the lectures with a discussion about America’s change in standing over several decades in regard to “common good” issues such as education, life expectancy and health care.

“This year, I’m going to lead off with a discussion about what’s gone wrong in our country in the last few decades as to why, perhaps, the country has fallen significantly down on the standards that are used to evaluate where countries stand in regards to achieving what we call the expectations of the common good,” French said.

French plans to examine governmental structures in-depth and discuss their failings, as well as possible solutions.

“In terms of government structures, there are systemic elements not particularly suited to respond to these kinds of changes in a particularly effective way,” French said. “I’ll talk about how we can confront some of these problems from other angles than just hoping the government is somehow going to fix itself and improve matters for us all.”

French will not just focus on the government, but also the public and its perception of what constitutes the common good and who is responsible for it.

“We’re trying to open up people’s thinking to look at issues in this world that we’ve tried to ignore as a country and as individuals for much too long,” French said.

French has also written several books on ethics. His most recent is War and Moral Dissonance, a memoir of French’s experience teaching ethics to Marine and Navy chaplains during the Iraq War.

Jason Robert

As the Lincoln professor of ethics in biotechnology and medicine, Robert will speak about health and health reform. He will look at the intersections between government and health in terms of the common good.

“I think I’m going to be more hopeful and optimistic than the other speakers,” Robert said. “With health as my focus, I want to argue that the common good is imaginable and achievable, and that government can be a good thing rather than a bad thing.”

Like the other speakers from the Lincoln Center, Robert will address the angle and attitude with which the public views and affects the common good.

“Part of the issue is that we’ve just been thinking about the common good in the wrong way,” Robert said. “I want to demonstrate how to re-imagine the common good in a way that’s genuinely American.”

“Of course, that’s a challenge for me because I’m Canadian,” Robert joked.

Robert’s first visit to Chautauqua was in 2009, and he said that during his second time here, he hopes Chautauquans can impart as much wisdom on him as he does them.

“Really, I hope to gain a sense of how big a challenge this is, that other people are optimistic, and I’m not the only optimist,” Robert said.

Braden Allenby

“The subtitle of my speech is, ‘If You Want the Future, You Can’t Handle the Future,’” Allenby said.

Allenby, the Lincoln professor of engineering and ethics, will use his expertise of environmental engineering as a framework for his speech Tuesday. As does French, Allenby plans to highlight the recent drastic changes in U.S. life.

“This particular set of changes is more important than anything we’ve ever gone through as a society,” Allenby said.

Ending on a positive note, Allenby will reinforce the public’s ability to impact the government.

“If we can realize how badly broken the traditional ways of thinking are, then we can begin to discuss the ways in which we can enact change,” Allenby said.

During his fourth visit to Chautauqua, Allenby said he would like his audience to adopt a critical, but hopeful, eye in regard to the decline of the common good in the U.S.

“I’d like Chautauquans to take away a healthy skepticism for much of what passes as dialogue today, along with a sense of optimism for the future,” Allenby said.

In the past, Allenby served as Environmental, Health and Safety vice president for AT&T and as director for Energy and Environmental Systems at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in addition to his professorial posts.

Thomas Seager

Seager is a Lincoln Fellow of Ethics & Sustainability. At ASU, he is leading a National Science Foundation project that uses game theory in order to develop new strategies to teach ethical reasoning skills to science and engineering graduate students.

Along with his colleagues, Seager will address government dysfunction and approaches that might be utilized to take the place of where the U.S., in particular, has failed.

Given his research, Seager is expected to focus on education as a “common good” issue, as well as the way education can be used and reformed to serve as a solution to many of the issues French and Allenby will bring up.

This will be Seager’s first visit to Chautauqua.

French, Robert, Allenby and Seager said they are particularly enthusiastic to lead these discussions at Chautauqua and continue the Lincoln Ethics Series at the Institution.

“People at Chautauqua seem to be open in looking at the complexities of issues and not just accepting simplistic answers to questions that are anything but simplistic,” French said. “I enjoy the fact that after we finish the session, there’s always a whole line of folks who want to talk some more and continue the discussion.”

Lori Humphreys | Staff Writer

Ancient Greek mythology did not separate medicine and music. Apollo was the god of both. Dr. Allen C. Steere will present both scientific and intuitive evidence that suggests the Greeks may have been onto something at 9:15 a.m. Thursday at the Chautauqua Women’s Club. Visitors will have the opportunity to meet and hear Steere discuss the links between medicine and music at the first “Chautauqua Speaks” program of the season.

Steere is a professor of medicine at Harvard University, an internationally recognized Lyme disease researcher and a concert pianist

His presentation, “Medicine and Music: A Personal Memoir,” seeks to answer this question: Is music linked to medicine more so than to other professions? Steere’s response integrates research and experience, science and intuition.

Steere offered three facts to bolster his claim that there is a link between medicine and the healing art of music, particularly the art of the instrumentalist.

There are a number of American cities with all-doctor orchestras including Boston’s Longwood Symphony and the World Doctors Orchestra in Berlin.

Between 70 to 80 percent of doctors have had training playing musical instruments.

The changes in the brain resulting from playing an instrument suggest a possible relationship between music and the skills that enhance medical doctors’
performance.

Steere recently played piano in a special concert sponsored by the Rheumatology Education Fund of the American College of Rheumatology.

Steere’s program includes a musical answer to his question. He will play Franz Schubert’s “Song Without Words” and will accompany Jarrett Ott, Curtis School of Music and Marlena Malas’ student. Ott will sing “The Impossible Dream” by Mitch Leigh and “Zueignung” by Richard Strauss. There will also be a Q-and-A session.

Steere is also the director of Clinical Research in Rheumatology at Harvard. Among multiple honors, he received the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal Award from the Sabin Vaccine Institute for Lyme disease vaccine development in 1999 and, 20 years later, the Clinical Investigator Award from the American College of Rheumatology. He graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in music in 1965, and in 1969, he graduated with a degree in Medicine from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He has come to Chautauqua for 42 years.

For more information, Steere suggests The Power of Music: Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song by Ellen Mannes.

This article originally appeared on Page 3 of the Tuesday, June 28, issue of The Chautauquan Daily

Sarah Gelfand | Staff Writer

Rye Barcott will discuss his book It Happened on the Way to War at 4 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy.

It Happened on the Way to War is an account of Barcott’s experiences living in the Kenyan slum of Kibera. Barcott initially visited Kibera as a 20-year-old student from the University of North Carolina on his way to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps.

While serving in Iraq and Bosnia, Barcott founded Carolina for Kibera, a non-profit organization, along with Tabitha Atieno Festo, a local Kibera nurse, and Salim Mohamed, a community organizer.

According to the organization, Kibera residents, ”struggle to meet basic needs — daily meals, clean water, adequate housing,” in addition to gender inequality, limited access to education and ethnic violence. Carolina for Kibera addresses these issues using a participatory development model, emphasizing local leadership.

As part of Week One’s theme of Global Health and Development as Foreign Policy, Barcott’s work as both an author and advocate highlights the struggles of the Kibera community on both a local and global scale.

Carolina for Kibera focuses extensively on the health problems of the Kibera community, 10 to 25 percent of which is infected with HIV and AIDS. In response to this particular issue, Carolina for Kibera created a community-based clinic that serves more than 40,000 patients a year.

Barcott and his organization are relevant to this week’s theme because of the focus on health but also in the way they operate. Committed to inspiring change from within the community, Carolina for Kibera’s Kenyan office is staffed only by locals. The organization focuses not only on health but also social and economic issues, using a three-pronged approach to alleviate Kibera’s hardships.

After returning from his military service, Barcott was a Reynolds Social Entrepreneurship Fellow at Harvard University, from which he received master’s degrees in business and public administration. He currently works for Duke Energy and serves on Carolina for Kibera’s board of directors.