The Baker Center-sponsored Photo contest, Picturing Energy, Earth and the Environment will display prize-winning entries in the University Center Concourse Gallery in April - click here for complete rules and deadlines

January 14-March 8, 2005: HOLSTON RIVER DIARIES

The University of Tennessee Downtown Gallery will host Holston River Diaries.

This two-part exhibition creates a connection between the two communities where it will be exhibited--Knoxville, TN and Emory, VA.

Holston River Diaries will address issues about water quality, the river’s rich cultural and natural history, and the quality of life (based on the waterways and a sense of place) within the Holston River watershed. Emory, VA, is located near the headwaters of the Holston River and Knoxville is located at its confluence with the French Broad thus forming the Tennessee River.

Holston River Diaries is a project by Tennessee artist Gregg Schlanger— professor of sculpture at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. Schlanger has an extensive exhibition record, both nationally and internationally, and has received numerous awards and grants.

A component of the exhibit will be an electronic diary in which anyone from the communities along the Holston River and its watershed is invited to participate. This diary project is open to a variety of formats including written, visual and sound.

Written entries could reflect water stories, experiences, observations and/or events as it relates to the Holston River and it’s tributaries. These entries will become a part of the exhibit in the galleries and on the website. Any type of written entry is acceptable: poetry, story, thoughts, hand written, typed, emailed or word document. There is also an on-line entry form on the website.

Visual entries may be submitted in any of the following formats: drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, and collage. Three-dimensional entries should be in the form of a photograph.

Video and Sound entries are also an acceptable form. Please refer to the guidelines on the website for digital entries (http://www.holstonriver.com)

The University of Tennessee Downtown Gallery is located at 106 South Gay Street and is open free to the public Wednesday-Friday, 11-6; and Saturday, 10-3. For more information, please visit www.ewing-gallery.org or call 974.3200.

Thursday, January 20, 2005 -- CENTRIPETAL: THE PROMISE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL SEMESTER

Co-Chairs of the Environmental Semester, Neil Greenberg and Mary English, will speak on the topic of the Environmental Semester, Spring 2005.

Centripetal begins at noon in the University Center Executive Dining Room. Lunch cost is $7.00 to be paid at the door.

Reservations are required--please contact Larissa at 974-8177 or unistudy@utk.edu for your reservation.

Frank H. McClung Museum, The University of Tennessee
As part of the University of Tennessee's Environmental Semester, the McClung Museum features an exhibition that showcases some of the research conducted by University faculty to reconstruct and better understand the dynamics of past environments. The exhibit illustrates some of the methods and results from a variety of scientific disciplines that provide insight into our world in the past.

From the smallest things can come evidence of big changes. For example, what does the discovery of the bones of Yellow Cheek Voles (tiny rodents) or the recovery of microscopic pollen grains tell us about Tennessee 14,000 years ago? How do tree rings reveal changes in rainfall patterns over time? What was the impact of natural and human caused fire on the forests of the past? Soil is more than dirt - what are some of the secrets that science can extract? The tools and clues used by sleuthing scientists to learn about the past are the focus of this fascinating exhibition.

On entering the exhibition, the visitor is drawn to a nine foot high reconstruction of the layers in Cheek Bend Cave on the Duck River in Maury County. This "layer cake" of prehistory preserved the bones of animals that lived in the area as early as 15,000 years ago and many are shown in the accompanying displays. Scientists called zooarchaeologists have identified the animals and found that the different animal species in the layers of the cave are good indicators of the changing environment of the Mid-South.

Another scientific technique in studying past environments is palynology - the study of plant pollen. How does the pollen that coats our cars each spring tell us about the past? Thousands of years of pollen "rain" settled in the bottoms of lakes and ponds providing a continuous record of changes in the local vegetation, changes that are both natural and human caused. Recovered in sediment cores, pollen from both Tennessee and Costa Rica demonstrate substantial human impact on the landscape in the past as people began to raise crops.

Part of the exhibition draws on the Museum's nationally renowned collection of archaeological plant remains and the science of paleoethnobotany, the study of how humans of interacted with and impacted the environment. Stations with multiple magnifiers will afford opportunities to view these tiny botanical artifacts.

A popular section of the exhibition will be dendrochronology - the study of tree rings. Cross sections, cores, and sections of once living trees such as a 4,000 year old bristlecone pine, a 3,000 year old giant sequoia, and a 200 year old poplar from the home of Andrew Jackson, along with archaeological specimens, make for fascinating study. Preserved in the annual rings of these trees is a datable record of fires, droughts, changes in climate, and other environmental stresses.

The exhibition concludes with a summary section that addresses projecting the future and understanding the past. Are droughts in the Southwest cyclical? What should be the role of fire in forest management? Is the "Forest Primeval" a myth? Are there clues to global warming in the paleoecological record? What are we doing today to affect the environment of the future?

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Gary Crites, Curator of Paleoethnobotany at the McClung Museum with the assistance and cooperation of the University's Department of Anthropology, Department of Geography - Laboratory of Tree Ring Science and Laboratory of Paleoenvironmental Research, and the Herbarium. Additional assistance was provided by the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at the University of Arizona and the Illinois State Museum. The exhibition is sponsored by First Tennessee Foundation.

For more information, contact: Dr. Jeff Chapman, Director, Frank H. McClung Museum, The University of Tennessee, 1327 Circle Park Drive, Knoxville, TN 37996-3200, 865-974-2144, 865-974-3827 (fax), http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu

Host: College of Law / Sponsored by: The Office of the Chancellor

Webcast can be seen at http://oit.utk.edu/dst/archives.php.

One Tree, Many Roots: Tips for Interdisciplinary Environmental Research
[register online]

Thursday, February 3, 2005
3:00 p.m. -- 4:30 p.m.
Location: 211 Hodges Library (InfoLab)

Instructors: Donna Braquet, Life Sciences Librarian (braquet@lib.utk.edu); Jeanine Williamson, Engineering Librarian (jwilliamson@utk.edu)

This workshop is an introduction to interdisciplinary research in the Environmental Sciences. Topics to be discussed include: the broad array of resources available at the UT Libraries for environmental research; different information types (such as reports, articles and statistics); and choice of terminology when researching interdisciplinary topics.

Denes will present a public lecture at 5:30 PM, in the McCarty Auditorium of the Art and Architecture Building on “Art for the Third Millennium: Creating A New World View.”

There will be an exhibition reception from 6:30-8:00 PM in the Ewing Gallery. Free parking for the evening’s events will be available in Lot 23 behind the Art and Architecture Building.

The Ewing Gallery is located at 1715 Volunteer Boulevard on the UT campus and is open free to the public Monday, 8:30-8:00; Tuesday-Friday, 8:30-5:00; and Sunday, 1:00-4:00. For more information, please call 865.974.3200 or visit www.ewing-gallery.org/

12:00-1:30pm, University Center Auditorium.

Dr. Michael Klare, director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, is author of the 2004 book, "Blood and Oil -- The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependence," as well as a prior book on resource scarcity and global conflict.
Booksigning to follow. Copies of Klare's book, "Blood and Oil" will be available to purchase and have signed.
Dr. David Hill is an Associate Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in charge of Energy and Engineering Sciences, which includes Nuclear Science and Technology, Fusion Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and other related programs and divisions.

Reservations are required--please contact Larissa at 974-8177 or unistudy@utk.edu for your reservation.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 -- E.O. Wilson Reading/Discussion Group
7:00 pm; UT Hodges Library, Rm 127

Topic: Consilience & Interdisciplinarity
Moderator: John Nolt, Philosophy, UT

The E. O. Wilson Reading Group will meet three times in the spring of 2005 to discuss aspects of Wilson's work in preparation for his visit to UT in March. Readings and additional information at: http://web.utk.edu/~rgilmou1/wilsonReadingGroup.html

James Layzer, Tennessee Cooperative Fishery Research Unit - Conservation of Freshwater Mussels
see via webcast at http://oit.utk.edu/dst/webevents.php

Film: CultureJam: Hijacking Commercial Culture

7:00 PM

Lindsay Young Auditorium, Hodges Library, University of Tennessee

Discussion with Chris Holmlund, Professor of French, Cinema Studies and Women's Studies, University of Tennessee

Chad Oliver, Yale University
- The global perspective: separating sustainable resource management from NIMBY-ism

Film: Proteus: A Nineteenth Century Vision

7:00 PM

Lindsay Young Auditorium, Hodges Library, University of Tennessee

Discussion with Dr. Neil Greenberg, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Paul Trianosky, The Nature Conservancy
- The Evolution of TNC’s Conservation Strategy

"Ecosystems and the biosphere as complex adaptive systems: Implications for management"

Sponsored by the Department of Mathematics, the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and the College of Arts & Sciences."

Sponsored by:  The Science Communication Program in the School of Journalism and Electronic Media

Jonathan Weiner, Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer, will speak at the University of Tennessee on Monday, March 14 at 8 p.m. in the Shiloh Room at the University Center.  The event is free and open to the public.
 
Weiner’s speech, entitled  “His Brother’s Keeper: A Story from the Edge of Medicine,” will relate the true story of an engineer who became an amateur medical researcher in an effort to find a cure for his brother’s fatal disease.
 
The talk is this year’s Alfred and Julia Hill Lecture. The Hill Lecture series brings distinguished science communicators to campus to share their thoughts on science, society, and the mass media. 
 
The lectures are made possible by an endowment created by Tom Hill and Mary Frances Hill Holton in honor of their parents Alfred and Julia Hill, founders of The Oak Ridger.  The Hill family’s endowment of the lecture series was a gift to the University of Tennessee’s School of Journalism and Electronic Media in the College of Communication and Information.
 
Weiner won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in 1995 for The Beak of the Finch, the story of how evolution is proceeding today in the world around us.  It focuses especially on a stoic and resourceful husband-and-wife team who since 1973 have lived for portions of each year on a small island in the Galapagos to study how climate cycles result in evolutionary changes among the finches of the Galapagos Islands that Darwin made famous. 
 
Weiner’s next book, Time, Love, Memory, won the National Book Critics Circle Award.  It traces an eccentric scientist’s discoveries about the origins of human nature. 
 
Weiner is noted for getting close to his subjects, working with them for extended periods of time so that he can depict their research with accuracy and special sensitivity.  In his Hill Lecture Weiner will share his experiences working so closely with the people he writes about.
 
After graduating from Harvard, Weiner began his science-writing career as a senior editor with The Scientist.  His shorter works have appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times, New Republic, and Washington Post.
 
Low-cost parking for Jonathan Weiner’s Hill Lecture is available in the University Center garage.

Hosts: Division of Biology, Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries

Sponsored by: The Office of the Chancellor

LIVE WEB CAST can be viewed at http://oit.utk.edu/dst/webevents.php.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 -- Documentaries in the Library

Film: The Corporation (2004)

7:00 PM

Lindsay Young Auditorium, Hodges Library, University of Tennessee

Discussion with Dr. John Nolt, Professor of Philosophy

Thursday, March 17, 2005 -- CENTRIPETAL: TOM GALLIGAN, "TOXIC TORTS: PERSONAL INJURY LAW IN THE 21ST CENTURY"

Centripetal begins at noon in the University Center Executive Dining Room. Lunch cost is $7.00 to be paid at the door.

Reservations are required--please contact Larissa at 974-8177 or unistudy@utk.edu for your reservation.

Robert Cooper, University of Georgia
- Gypsy moth management alternatives and effects on forest birds

Film: Amazon Journal

7:00 PM

Lindsay Young Auditorium, Hodges Library, University of Tennessee

Discussion with Dr. Dawn Duke, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese

University Distinguished Professor, Colorado State University

"Challenges in Environmental Ethics"

Environmental ethics cares about what humans have at stake in their natural environment. But environmental ethics also cares more comprehensively about values in nature in animals and plants, about biodiversity and endangered species, about ecosystems, and, increasingly, about planet Earth globally. At each of these levels classical ethics encounters novel challenges toward a more inclusive and discriminating ethics. An interactive lecture using on-the-ground situations that provoke ethical reflection.

3:30 pm in University Center Crest Room

Host: Department of Philosophy

Film: Fed Up!

7:00 PM

Lindsay Young Auditorium, Hodges Library, University of Tennessee

Discussion with Dr. Donald Huisingh, Senior Scientist in Sustainable Development at UT’s Energy, Environment and Resources Center

Thursday, April 7, 2005 -- LISA NEWTON

Professor of Philosophy, Fairfield University; Program Director, Applied Ethics; Program Director, Environmental Studies

3:30-5:30 pm in Alumni Memorial Building, Cox Auditorium

"Green Prosperity: a Future of Cooperation and Mutual Benefit for Business and the Natural Environment"

Thursday, April 7, 2005 -- The Future of Natural Resource Management

Thursday, April 14, 2005 -- The Future of Natural Resource Management

Saturday, April 16, 2005 -- PAUL WINTER CONSORT

8:00 p.m.

Alumni Memorial Building, Cox Auditorium

(admission charge: $5 student with ID, $15 for UT faculty and staff, $20 for general admission)

Supporting UT's Environmental Semester, the Cultural Attractions Committee is proud to present the award-winning saxophonist, bandleader, composer, explorer of the world's musical traditions, and founder of Living Music and the Paul Winter Consort, Paul Winter himself. Winter has been motivated for the past 30 years by the vision of a musical-ecological community and has followed a steady course toward his unique "Earth music," a vital celebration of the creatures and cultures of the whole earth.

Winter's musical realm has long embraced the traditions of many of the world's cultures, interweaving widely diverse instruments and elements with the extraordinary voices from what he refers to as "the greater symphony of the earth," including wolves, whales, eagles, and several dozen other species of "wilderness musicians." (from "Artistry & Elegance Wild & Free," p.23; Cultural Attraction Series 2004-2005)

Host: The Cultural Attractions Committee

"Hope and Second Chances"

7:30 pm in the University Center Auditorium

Sponsored by: The Issues Committee and the Women's Coordinating Council

Centripetal begins at noon in the University Center Executive Dining Room. Lunch cost is $7.00 to be paid at the door.

Reservations are required--please contact Larissa at 974-8177 or unistudy@utk.edu for your reservation.

Recycled Video Festival

7:00 PM

Lindsay Young Auditorium, Hodges Library, University of Tennessee

A screening of the winners and selected entries of the UT Libraries’ Recycled Video Contest. Using much of the same footage presented in the documentary series, the UT community will showcase its creativity as it “recycles” public domain video footage into new derivations.