FALL 2009
David Sloan Wilson
Bill Falls
Emily Bernard
Sara Solnick
T. L. Read
Robert Macauley
The Honors College's plenary lecture series allows the campus community to consider ethical questions similar to those being posed in the college's first-year ethics course. Honors students will join the campus at lectures by members of the UVM community who are nationally recognized speakers in their areas of expertise.
Plenary Lectures are scheduled on select Thursdays throughout the semester from 5:30–6:45 pm in 101 Fleming. Members of the University community as well as the broader Burlington community are welcome to attend.
Lecture: September 10, 2009
Topic:Evolution for Everyone
David Sloan Wilson uses evolutionary theory to explain all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life, as he recounts for a general audience in Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives (Bantam 2007). He is a distinguished professor of biology and anthropology at Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York. He publishes in anthropology, psychology, and philosophy journals in addition to his mainstream biological research. His academic books include Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (with Elliott Sober, Harvard 1998), Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (Chicago, 2002), and The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative (co-edited with Jonathan Gottschall, Northwestern 2005). Wilson also directs EvoS, a campus-wide program that uses evolutionary theory as a common language for the unification of knowledge.
Wilson is an evolutionary biologist with a wide range of interests, including natural selection as a hierarchical process, the nature of intraspecific variation, the evolution of ecological communities and human evolutionary biology. One of the joys of studying evolution is that it provides a general conceptual framework for studying a diversity subjects and organisms. Wilson and his students have used evolutionary theory to study subjects as diverse as foraging behavior, altruism, and the nature of individual differences, on organisms as diverse as microbes, zooplankton, insects, birds, fish, and humans. He tries to ask an important question first and then seek the most suitable organism for answering the question. Wilson also employs a combination of theoretical models, laboratory experiments, and field research as needed.
Lecture: September 24, 2009
Topic:Formulating Scientific Questions
Falls is an associate professor of psychology and has been the recipient of grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. Falls' research is focused on examining the neurobiology of learning, memory and emotion. He uses Pavlovian fear conditioning procedures to examine the neural systems involved in the acquisition, expression and inhibition of conditioned fear and has been recently conducting research examining the mechanism through which physical exercise reduces anxiety and improves learning and memory. Anxiety disorders, such as specific phobias and PTSD, may reflect pathological fear responses acquired through Pavlovian conditioning. Individuals with these disorders exhibit exaggerated fear and anxiety in certain situations. Falls examines these neural systems to better understand the etiology of these disorders and to develop new and more effective treatments for reducing fear and anxiety.
Recent publications include: Waddell, J. Dunnett, C. & Falls, W.A. (2004). C57BL/6J and DBA/2J mice differ in extinction and renewal of extinguished fear. Behavioural Brain Research 154(2):567-76 .
Jaworski DM. Boone J. Caterina J. Soloway P. Falls WA. (2005). Prepulse inhibition and fear-potentiated startle are altered in tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-2 (TIMP-2) knockout mice. Brain Research. 1051, 81-9.
Heldt, S.A. & Falls, W.A. (2006). The Effects of Posttraining Lesions of the Auditory Thalamus and Cortex on the Inhibition of Fear Conditioned to an Auditory Stimulus.
European Journal of Neuroscience.
23(3):765-779.Lecture: October 1, 2009
Topic: Memoir, Narrative and Reality
Emily Bernard is an Associate Professor of English and ALANA U. S. Ethnic Studies at the University of Vermont. Her interests include interracial dynamics in American literature and culture.
"The thing about my teaching is, when I am in the classroom with my students, I am really in there with them," says Professor Bernard. She is the recipient of a Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award. Bernard's colleague in the department, associate professor Lisa Schnell, says she's struck by Bernard's accessibility and her mindfulness of each of her students. "If I had to use a watchword for her classroom," she says, "it's 'connections.' "Bernard forges a community between students, connects them to the material and each other, noting that it's otherwise rare to hear students refer to their classmates by name, building on each other's ideas."
It is impossible to portray Bernard as a teacher without including her writing. "Teaching the N-Word" was published in "The Best American Essays 2006." A new essay, "Figurines," will appear in "The Best of Creative Non-Fiction, Vol. 2."
Bernard shoots for one truly good idea a semester that students can take with them and use. "How they will use it is a mystery at this point," Bernard says. "But it's something that will open up a world for them or a question they want to keep pursuing or changes the way they think and undermines something they were sure about, that explodes that and turns it into good questions. I think that a lot about good teaching. It's understanding that the learning doesn't just happen on the surface. It can happen later."
Lecture: October 29, 2009
Topic: Behavioral and Experimental Economics
Professor Solnick came to the university in 2000. Prior to studying economics, she received my BA in psychology from Harvard University (1986) and a MS in health policy from the Harvard School of Public Health (1990). Solnick teachs microeconomics at the introductory and intermediate levels, statistics, labor economics, game theory and health economics.
Solnick conducts research on experimental methods in gender, labor and health economics and bargaining. Both the London Times and BusinessWeek have reported on her research on how men and women behave differently in salary negotiations, bargaining and trust situations. Solnick also has been published in American Economic Review and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Her publications include: "Gender Differences in the Ultimatum Game" (Economic Inquiry, forthcoming); and "The Influence of Physical Attractiveness and Gender on Ultimatum Game Decisions" (Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1999, co-author).
Lecture: November 5, 2009
Topic: Two solo violin pieces
Thomas L. Read, composer and violinist, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Vermont. He has composed music for a variety of media and almost entirely on commission- music for small ensembles, full orchestra, solo voice, chorus and musical theater. He has been a recipient of several Arts Council and University Stipends, and has been awarded fellowships from organizations such as the McDowell Colony, the Charles Ives Institute, and the Johnson Composers Conference. Recent premieres include the Piano Partita (nominated for Pulitzer prize in 2007), Night Pageantries for bassoon and piano, and Going On for clarinet, violin and piano (2008 Burlington), A Treadmill of My Own ( 2008 Richmond, VT), The Dancing Air (2008, Pittsburgh, Pa.), Three Keyboard Interludes (2008 Harvard University) and Third String Quartet (2008, Kiev, Ukraine). C.F.Peters, Tunbridge Music, Tuba Euphonium Press and the American Composers Edition publish his work. A complete repertoire and recording list is at ThomasLRead.com.
Lecture: November 12, 2009
Topic: Knowledge of Illness
Robert Macauley is Medical Director of Clinical Ethics at Fletcher Allen Health Care, and Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He received his B.A. from Wheaton College and M.D. from Yale. Following residency training in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, he was a pediatric hospitalist in Connecticut and Director of Pediatrics at Kuluva Hospital in Uganda, before coming to UVM in 2002. He also holds a Master of Studies in Philosophical Theology from Oxford University, and Masters of Divinity and of Sacred Theology from Yale Divinity School.
Dr. Macauley's work focuses on clinical ethics, pediatric palliative care, and spirituality. He directs the Clinical Ethics Consultation Service at Fletcher Allen Health Care as well as the ethics curriculum at the UVM College of Medicine, for which he received the Golden Apple Teaching Award. He has published articles on topics ranging from civil disobedience in the practice of medicine to the role of surrogate decision-making following a suicide attempt, in journals such as the Hastings Center Report and the Journal of Clinical Ethics.
Dr. Macauley also directs the Pediatric Advanced Care Team at Vermont Children's Hospital, and is one of less than a hundred pediatricians nationally to also be board-certified in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. An ordained Episcopal priest, Dr. Macauley directs the "Spirituality in Patient Care" initiative at the College of Medicine, for which he received the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health Award for Curricular Development.
Last modified September 29 2009 09:21 AM
