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2017-2018 in Review

InFocus - Scarcity: Poverty & Inequality

Previous years:

InFocus: Poverty & Inequality 

InFocus Highlights 2015-2016

September 22

"Voices of Diversity: Moravian College Faculty and Staff Speak"

An "informal" panel discussion featuring members of the MC faculty and staff whose national or ethnic origins are different than that of the majority white communities in which they now live. Prosser Auditorium, 11:45 and 12:45. Organized and sponsored by John Reynolds, Political Science.

Panel participants:

  • Sandra Aguilar-Rodriguez
  • Faramarz Farbod
  • Khristina Haddad
  • Yayoi Kato
  • Akbar Keshodkar
  • Lilliana Madrid
  • Claudia Mesa
  • Kerri Sethi

September 24

Karen Armstrong

Convocation with Karen Armstrong

Moravian College held Fall Convocation for students, faculty, staff on Thursday, September 24 beginning at 10:00 a.m. in Johnston Hall to celebrate the start of a new academic year and begin the “Poverty and Inequality” IN FOCUS thematic programming for the 2015-16 year. Internationally renowned author and scholar of religion Karen Armstrong presented the Cohen Keynote Lecture titled, "The Science of Compassion."

View the convocation article

October 7

Marx in Soho

A dramatic consideration of contemporary issues of class and economic inequality to be sponsored by the Department of Political Science, The English Department and the Theater program. Prosser Auditorium - tentatively 7:00 to 9:00. Co-sponsored by: the Political Science Department, the Economics and Business Department, the English Department, the History Department, the Moravian College Theater Company, and the Sociology Department.

View flyer for more info about Oct. 7 event

October 21

Homeless & Hungry: Community, Nursing, and Health Care's Influence

Annual Janet. A. Sipple Lecture

Dr. Diane Cocozza Martins is an Associate Professor at the University of Rhode Island's College of Nursing. Her teaching, research and service commitments are to public health/community health nursing and vulnerable populations. She teaches courses in community health nursing theory, community health clinical practice, practice theory and philosophy. She is also a faculty member in the HRSA funded interdisciplinary RI Geriatric 鶹 Center and coordinates the RN to BS program at the University. At the University of Rhode Island, Martins has served as a multicultural faculty fellow, an interdisciplinary faculty fellow in geriatrics and gerontology, faculty in the President's Partnership for Food, Hunger and Nutrition, faculty fellow in Public Service and Ethics and LGTB faculty fellow. She received an award for outstanding outreach from the University for her work on behalf of the homeless. In the community, Martins' work includes service trips to the Dominican Republic, the Honors Program Cuban Study Abroad Initiative and collaboration with Indonesian Nursing faculty. She has worked with the Feinstein Hunger Center, Department of Human Service and RI Coalition for the Homeless to create policy changes in the state's SNAP program. Martins earned her baccalaureate degree from Salve Regina University and her master's in medical sociology and Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Connecticut. She also holds a master's degree in community health nursing education from Columbia University. She has written numerous publications and book chapters and has given many oral presentations related to vulnerable populations. Foy Hall, Hurd Campus - 5:30 p.m.

October 22

Oxford Scholar speaks to Economics Classes at Moravian on Poverty and Inequality

October 22

"The High Cost of 鶹al Apartheid"

Pastor Greg Edwards 

Co-sponsored by the 鶹 department
UBC Room, 7:30pm.
View flyer for more info about Oct. 22 event

October 23

Candida Moss

The Resurrection of the Body and Perfection in Weakness

Dr. Candida Moss

These lectures use disability theory to approach the question of the resurrection of the body in the New Testament. They will explore the passages in which being "saved" and being "healed" are clearly distinct. Candida R. Moss is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. She has written and lectured extensively on early Christian martyrdom, religion and disability studies. Prosser Auditorium, HUB - 9:30 to noon.

October 27

Diversity in 2015: From Multiculturalism to Interculturalism

Irshad Manji, Author and Educator, HUB Prosser, Sponsored by Amnesty International, the Office of the President, Intercultural Advancement & Global Inclusion, the English Department, the Religion Department, Women’s Studies Advisory Council, the Muslim Student Association, American Association of University Women, Tri-Iota, Middle Eastern Club, Office of Religious Life, and the Philosophy Club.

November 4

"Reflections from Black Men Living in Contemporary America"

Panel Discussion

Prosser, 7:30 to 9:00. Sponsored by the Black Student Union, Department of Political Science, and Moravian College’s Center for Intercultural Advancement & Global Inclusion.

Topics will include:

  • Identity and community
  • Coming of age in contemporary America
  • Black leadership and the racial divide in America
  • Messages for the next generation

Panelists:

  • Harrison Bailey, Principal, Liberty High School, Bethlehem PA
  • George Bright, Athletic Director, Moravian College
  • Tyrone Kelly, Retired Detective Sergeant, Newark, NJ
  • Dr. Jarrett Patton, President, Medical Staff and Advanced Practice Clinicians, Lehigh Valley Health Network
  • A. Reed Raymond , Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer, Supervision, Regulation & Credit, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
  • Maurice Taylor, Business Owner, Bethlehem and Allentown, PA

Moderator:

  • G. Christopher Hunt, Associate Dean of Students, Director of Intercultural Advancement & Global Inclusion
November 16

Eban Goodstein addresses Moravian campus on Climate Change

November 16

Storied Streets Film Screening

National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week

HUB Lounge. 6:00pm

View a documentary and engage in a dialogue on the effects of homelessness. 

November 17

Sleepout

National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week 

Meet in the HUB Pavilion, 8:45 pm
1742 Spotch, 10:00pm - 6:00am

Join us and spread awareness of homelessness in America as we sleep outside to understand the conditions of being homeless. 

November 18

Service Project

National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week 

HUB Table (near the staircase), 11:00am - 1:00pm

Participate and engage in a service project to help those in need. 

November 19

Hunger Banquet

National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week

Snyder Room, HUB, 5:00pm

Join us for a meal in which the place you sit and the food are determined by the luck of the draw. 

November 24

Climate Policy 

In Focus Centers for Investigation endorse statement urging International Civil Society to Address Inequalities and Social Justice in Climate Policy 

December 2015

College attends UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris

moravian.edu/climate-conference

December 5

Medieval Studies Conference

Poverty and Inequality
This session is sponsored by Moravian College’s InFocus Program. This year, the college is focusing on the theme of poverty and inequality.

PPHAC 116 or 113 (TDB; confirm at Conference)
Moderator: Nicole Tabor (Moravian College)

  • Elizabeth Giedraitis (Hartwick College): “The Pardoner’s Tale: Criticism of the Medieval Church’s Capitalistic Nature”
  • Anastasia Campos (Quinnipiac University): “Feminism and Women’s Autonomy in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale”
  • Maria Cuga (Mount St. Mary’s University): “The Cost of Affection”
Various

Faculty Colloquium in Poverty and Inequality

 Fall 2015, Presentations are on Thursdays 11:45‑1:00 in the Snyder Room.

January 21 -
March 6

Poverty - We’re All Homeless

Payne Gallery Exhibition

Opening Reception Thursday, January 21, 6:30 - 8:00 with artist talk

Artist Statement: WE ARE ALL HOMELESS is an art project that began in 1993 when I started buying and collecting homeless signs from people on the streets. As a result, my relationship to the homeless has been powerfully and permanently altered. I still wrestle with personal questions regarding generosity, goodness, compassion and guilt. And what it means to be homeless: practically, spiritually, emotionally? Is home a physical place, a building, a structure, a house? Or is it a state of being, a sense of safety, of being provided for, of identity? I see these signs as signposts of my own journey, inward and outward, of reconciling my early home life with my judgments about those experiencing homelessness.

Read more about the exhibition

We are all homeless

February

Black History Month

An array of academic and co-curricular programs highlight the experiences of Black people in our nation, from the past to the present, and in places ranging from the southern region of the United States to here in the Lehigh Valley.

View the Black History Month poster

February 9

Human Rights

Mario Joseph

International Human Rights Attorney to receive honorary degree at Moravian College

February 9 | 7:00 pm
Prosser Auditorium, HUB
Open to the public

Mario Joseph, widely regarded as Haiti’s leading human rights lawyer, has led the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in Port-au-Prince since 1996. During more than 20 years of human rights work, Mr. Joseph has spearheaded historic human rights cases, including the Raboteau Massacre trial in 2000, hailed as one of the most important human rights cases ever in the Western Hemisphere, and Yvon Neptune v. Haiti, the first Haitian case ever decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Joseph grew up poor in rural Haiti, learning first-hand how the inability to enforce fundamental political, civil, economic, and social rights condemns poor people to generations of poverty. Despite constant dangers and threats, he has remained steadfast in his dedication to the poor and underserved citizens of his homeland, where he persists in the fight against poverty, inequality, and political violence.

View Mario Joseph event flyer  |  

March 16

The Relationship Between Race and the Perception of Time

Dr. Cynthia Gooch,
Program in Neuroscience, College of Liberal Arts, Temple University

Dr. Gordon Moskowitz,
Department of Psychology, Lehigh University

Prosser Auditorium, 4:30 pm

Arousal is known to shape time perception, and heightened arousal causes one to perceive that time has slowed (i.e., a given length of time feels longer than it actually is). This seminar will share how certain populations who experience arousal when contemplating race (specifically those for whom appearing biased is an ongoing concern), time perception slows when they observe faces of other races. The current findings have implications for intergroup interactions in which timing is essential—for example, length of job interviews, police officers’ perception of the length of an encounter and when force should be initiated, and doctors’ perception of the length of medical encounters. Racially biased time perception is a new form of implicit bias, one exerted at the perceptual level.

March 22

Film Screening 'He Named Me Malala'

'He Named Me Malala' shows an intimate portrait of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was targeted by the Taliban an severely wounded by a gunshot wound when returning home on her high school bus in Pakistan’s Swat valley. Malala was singled out for advocating for girls’ education and the attack on her sparked an outcry from supporters around the world. She is now a leading activist for girls’ education globally as co-founder of the Malala fund.

View film flyer

April 5-6

InFocus Research Symposium

In Focus Research Symposium

In Memoriam to Gordy Weil

Distinguished Plenary Speaker: Professor Stephen O Connell to address Moravian College. Plenary speaker open to the public. To learn more about our program click here: In Focus Symposium Website.

April 12

Claude AnShin Thomas

Moravian College's 9th Peace and Justice Scholar in Residence

"Watering the Seeds of Peace: Facing Inequality, Violence and War"
Prosser Auditorium, 6:30 pm

Claude AnShin Thomas is a Buddhist Monk in the Soto Zen tradition and the founder of the Zaltho Foundation (). A Vietnam Veteran, he was ordained at Auschwitz and walked from there to Vietnam on a peace pilgrimage. He also has walked across the United States on a similar pilgrimage. He is a mendicant monk and author of At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace (Boston: Shambala, 2004). Most recently he has been engaged in assisting the development of infrastructure in refugee camps in France; he also is participating in peace dialogues in Columbia between government officials and guerrilla groups, and in Spain with talks between Basque separatists and government representatives.

This year's Peace and Justice Scholar in Residence is co-sponsored by the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Moravian, the Religion and Sociology Departments, the "Healthy Minds" student club, and InFocus. We invite additional co-sponsors to join in this effort.

April 16

“Music from Foreign Lands”

Moravian College Wind Ensemble will be featuring music inspired by the Australian Aboriginal people and highlighting their continuing poverty and inequality.

  • Larrikins and Legends
    Sean O’Boyle (World Premier of Band Version)
  • Droylsden Wakes
    David Stanhope
  • Come, Drink One More Cup
    Chen Qian
  • Concerto for Didgeridoo
    Sean O’Boyle (USA Premier of Band Version)
    Soloist – AJ Block
    (InFocus)
  • Fanfare for Freedom
    Graham Lloyd
April 22-24

Getting Complete!

Marabella Entertainment & 鶹 Enterprises, in partnership with Moravian College Theatre Company

The story about what happens when the bully grows up.

View "Getting Complete!" flyer

April 23

Socioeconomic Status and Structural Brain Development

Dr. Emily C. Merz,
Psychiatric Epidemiology Program, Columbia University

Prosser Auditorium, 9:00 am

This seminar is part of our upcoming Lehigh Valley Society for Neuroscience Undergraduate Research Conference but will be open to the public.

This seminar will present current research focused on executive function in children adopted from institutions (for example, orphanages). As an extension of this work, research on early experience in relation to the executive function and self-regulatory development of socioeconomically disadvantaged preschoolers will be discussed. A researcher in the Neurocognition, Early Experience and Development Lab at Columbia University, Dr. Merz explores the neurobiological pathways linking early socioeconomic adversity and self-regulatory difficulties.